"Elevations are of supreme importance in this project," Goto Dengo tells the surveyor on the way up. They are burdened with surveying equipment and fresh water, but Ninomiya clambers up the rocky gulch of the half-parched river just as ably as Goto Dengo himself. "We will begin by establishing the level of Lake Yamamoto—which does not exist yet—and then work downwards from there."