trekking

Recent movies such as “Wild” and “A Walk in the Woods” have popularized long-distance hiking, causing many of us who enjoy backpacking to wonder what it would be like to complete one of the legendary long distance hiking trails.

My journey was not an easy one. Temperatures were unusually high (exceeding 36°C at times), I was constantly on the lookout for bears and was delayed by severe weather.

There’s arguably nowhere more breathtaking than Kamikochi in Japan’s Northern Alps.

As the local population ages in Japan’s countryside, a way of life begins to disappear. Travelers return to Japan’s historical hi...

For months I have relished the prospect of spending four uninterrupted days hiking from village to village, exploring one of ...

Snow trekking on the spine of the Chuo Alps Eighteen thousand years ago the Japan Alps were not only rocky mountain peaks ...

“Bee-beep! Bee-beep!” It didn’t seem right the alarm was blaring in my ear at 2:30 in the morning, but that’s the standard wake-u...

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 ...

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...

“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...