hiking

For most people, March and April is spring. Spring in Japan means welcoming cherry blossoms and warm weather, and it is time to s...

Although I spent the first few weeks of 2008 helping my new friends and temporary neighbors, Ian Fraser and Chris Lynch, compile ...

I hear the door to the Visitor’s Center slide open as I scramble to get my things in order. Still in my sleeping bag with all...

About this time last year I did a trip to one of Hokkaido’s great peaks – Mt. Ashibetsu. This hike has one of my favorite huts—be...

In Japan, July and August are the peak months for haikingu (ハイキング； hiking) and jusou (縦走； backpacking/trekking across the mountain...

On the ferry from Tokyo to Tokushima, a local woman told me it was a good choice to climb Ishizuchi-san, as it is the guardian an...

“A foreign girl climbing Poroshiri alone? I have lived here 50 years, and the mountain is no joke.” So said the old man at the vi...

There I was in furious winds, hard-driving horizontal rain, looking up at the next section of the hike and wondering what the hel...

Summer vacation in Japan is not an extended affair. “Salarymen” swelter in cities across Japan, working through the heat of summe...

It was the fourth day I had been traveling with Hiroshi Sakurai, who I had met while hitchhiking to Mt. Iide a few days before. I...

Right as I began to empty the contents of the tent bag on the ground, snowflakes started to come down with a flurry. “No, no, no”...

From late September to late November Japan’s diverse landscape is highlighted in vibrant crimson and gold, while autumn’s dry, mi...