Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai, a heavily eroded 2,285 meter (7,497 ft) mountain in Egypt’s southern Sinai Peninsula, looms large in the chronicles of Christian, Jewish and Islamic hagiography. All three religions mention Mount Sinai as being where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Many small churches, shrines and mosques have been built near or on Mount Sinai over the centuries including Saint Catherine’s Monastery. Built between 548 and 565, the Eastern Orthodox monastery is one of the world’s oldest continuously operational Christian monasteries.
Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji stands 3,776.24 meters (12,389 ft) tall and is Japan’s highest mountain. Listed as “active” by volcanologists, Mount Fuji last erupted in 1707 and ash fell in Tokyo (then known as Edo) almost 100 km or 60 miles to the northeast. Considered to be a sacred peak since ancient times, the first recorded ascent of Mount Fuji took place in the year 663 by an unnamed monk.
Women have historically been forbidden to climb Mount Fuji and this prohibition was not repealed until the Meiji Era (post-1868). It wasn’t long before the new rules were exploited. In 1869, Lady Fanny Parkes (the wife of Great Britain’s then-ambassador to Japan) became the first foreign woman to reach the peak’s summit. Today, climbing Mount Fuji is pretty much the national pastime: Japan’s Ministry of the Environment estimates that in 2009, approximately 300,000 people made the climb to the summit.

