Mount Wakakusa

This guide to Mount Wakakusa in Nara opens with a question: why do three hundred firefighters climb the hill every January just to set it on fire. The answer starts in 1760, with a land dispute between the temples Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji that turned into a scorched-earth compromise, and traces how that argument became a yearly ceremony carried out today with a sacred flame from Kasuga Taisha shrine and monks from both old rivals. You'll hear how firefighters now manage the blaze on purpose rather than put it out by accident. By day the slope looks like nothing more than bare winter grass.