mountain climbing

My thumb does the talking to the few cars that pass my way. I walk for almost an hour when a middle-aged man with a sleepy stubby...

After a great 10-hour sleep in the empty hut on Taka-dake, my internal clock woke me at 4:30 a.m. as usual. The caretaker of the ...

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

Born in Slovenia, a rugged country boasting with sportsman's culture, Cveto Nakashima Podlogar is well versed in trekking and...

“That has blood on it. It must be mine,” says Mr. Watanabe as we pack up our gear on a two-meter square makeshift tent site parch...

It was still mid-October, but the chill in the air made me wonder if sleeping in a tent was a good idea. When I arrived at the gy...

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...

It was my third day out in the South Alps, and I was convinced I was an “ame-onna”  (rain woman) as I had been in my rain ge...

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...

On the scale of great enthusiasms and devotions it’s hard to think of anything physically, emotionally or symbolically grander th...

“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...