I-CJW

I don’t want to get up. It’s 3am, and I can see the glitter of stars in the sky and a light frost on the bivvy bag. I was climbing these...

If Mount Fuji didn’t exist, the Japanese would build it anyway. I’ll leave it at that. This stratovolcano juts out of the western edge...

I run through the dark, through Mt Mizugaki’s primordial forest. A Freudian nightmare of a pitch black mountain. I’m all alone, and...

Like newborn horses the stream of climbers reach the summit of Mt Ibuki, slick with sweat and on legs skittery from the short, steep...

The bells of Daisen temple rang from the valley below, and were answered by the bear-bells that adorned the pack of every climber making...

The short climb up Mt Ryokami did not exorcise the demons. Under the summer canopy the air was humid and still, a warm and comforting...

Looking around the hut you could tell the ones who had just been to the summit of Yari. They had the burnt-out, shell-shocked look of...

I saw my soul at nine minutes past six in the morning, as I climbed the ridge between the summits of Nokogiri and Kaikomagatake. It...

The key element to extreme sports is that once you've really pushed yourself to the limit, maybe even risked everything, it provides a...

Who is it that carries for you this lifeless corpse of yours? Hsueh-Yen's koan comes to me often in the mountains. I look up at a distant...