Daisuke Hokari: Transitioning to a Mountain Hut Owner

"I'm quitting the company to become a mountain hut owner."

I will never forget the look on my boss's face when I told him this. He was absolutely stunned.

After graduating from university, I joined SoftBank. After working in the corporate division for five years, my request was granted and I was transferred to the Corporate Planning Department. There, I was in charge of drafting business strategies and formulating business plans for new projects. It was the work I had wanted to do for a long time. Three years later, just as a management position was coming into view, I submitted my resignation. For my boss, it must have been a bolt from the blue. Moreover, he probably wondered, what even is a mountain hut?

For me, it wasn't particularly new. My family business is a mountain hut founded a hundred years ago, and someone had to take over. I had been vaguely thinking about returning to my hometown since my student days. Furthermore, the biggest reason I decided to resign at that time was that I could no longer feel a sense of reality in my work. When you belong to an administrative department, you might meet people from partner or group companies, but you rarely meet people from the outside for work. Also, the business plans I created on my computer projected hundreds of billions in sales, but just tweaking the parameters slightly would cause fluctuations of tens of billions. It felt like playing with numbers, and I had no sense of its reality.

In comparison, work at a mountain hut is a series of realities. When people hear "mountain hut," many seem to associate it with a pension or a resort hotel, but it is not that easy. We currently operate five mountain huts, but the main hut is located at an altitude of 3,000 meters, a facility built on a rocky cliff like a fortress. Naturally, there is no infrastructure; we collect and use rainwater, generate our own electricity, and transport all supplies by helicopter.

The main job is to welcome, entertain, and accommodate climbers. During the peak summer season, more than 500 climbers may visit in a single day, but in winter, the huts are covered in snow and cannot operate. Therefore, the season begins in the spring by digging the hut out of the snow, preparing the facilities, and welcoming guests. The season ends in the autumn with the work of closing the hut. The mountains show a different face each season, and we live our daily lives alongside nature.

When living in the city, it is difficult to feel the changing of the seasons firsthand. Nature is beautiful, but it can also be a threat, and there are times when you feel your life is in danger. That is exactly why the mountains are interesting. There is probably no other job where you can feel such a sense of reality.