Author of the Hiro Hattori (Shinobi) mysteries
The Izu Peninsula juts into the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo. The northeast portion of the peninsula is called the Jogasaki Coast (城ヶ崎海岸 – Jogasaki Kaigan), and it’s home to a pair of excellent hiking courses that run through portions of the Izu Peninsula Geopark. It’s a great hike at any time of year, but particularly in the summer, when the coastal breeze helps mitigate the heat and humidity.
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Earlier this month, I took advantage of a sunny Sunday and headed out to hike another “new-to-me” trail in Hakone: Marudake (1,154 m) via Otome-Toge. As always, the hike information is at the bottom of the post. I caught the highway bus from Shinjuku to Otome-toge; the route goes through Gotemba–where I caught a great view of Mt. Fuji–always an excellent way to start the day. I’ve hiked the first part of this trail several times, and the view from the Otome-toge bus stop is one of the best anywhere when Fuji is in a cooperative mood. She was a
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In late April, I headed south by shinkansen for a hike I hadn’t done before: the Ashinoko West Bank Walking Course, which (unsurprisingly) follows the western bank of Lake Ashi from Hakonemachi to Togendai.
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September 11, 2018 This photo supplement tracks the events in CLIMB: Leaving Safe and Finding Strength on 100 Summits in Japan. The captions offer “extra features” that didn’t make it into the book. On the morning of September 11, my Hokkaido Nature Tours guide (who I’d christened the Yamabushi) and I drove approximately 200 kilometers from Sapporo to Daisetsuzan National Park in Central Hokkaido–home to some of the tallest mountains in Hokkaido, including our target for the day: 2,077-meter Tokachidake (Mt. Tokachi). What look like “normal” cumulus clouds in the photo above are actually clouds of smoke and steam rising from the
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After years of waiting (and more than two dozen attempted viewings spoiled by clouds) this was my first full view of Mt. Fuji, from the window of my hotel in Fujinomiya, the morning we began the climb.
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On the day I climbed Mt. Takao as part of the 100 Summits Project, I had friends in town from the United States. We had plenty of time, so we stopped at the Takaosan Monkey Park near the top of the cable car to see (and feed) the resident Japanese macaques.
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Mt. Daisen: July 1, 2018 This photo supplement tracks the events in CLIMB: Leaving Safe and Finding Strength on 100 Summits in Japan. The captions offer “extra features” that didn’t make it into the book. At the time of its completion in 2011, the Tokyo Skytree was the largest tower, and the second-largest man-made structure in the world. As of 2020, it remains in the top five, and is easily visible from many of Tokyo’s 23 wards, as well as the neighboring mountains. At night, and on holidays, the tower lights up in a variety of colors. I loved being able to
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As the end of June, and my first apartment move in Japan, approached, I made a two-day trip to Nagano Prefecture to climb Kirigamine (aka Kurumayama). The trip did not go as planned, in many ways–and yet this ended up among the most memorable climbs of my mountain year.
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Last weekend, I hiked the first leg of a multi-year, segmented hike of the Kantō Fureai no Michi (sometimes translated “Kantō Friendship Trail”). The trail is 1,799km (1,118 miles) long, and passes through seven prefectures (Tokyo, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Chiba, and Kanagawa) as it circumnavigates the Kantō (Japan’s largest flatland plain).
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Mt. Bandai: June 15, 2018 The images in this photo supplement follow the events in Chapter 11 of CLIMB: Leaving Safe and Finding Strength on 100 Summits in Japan. The captions offer “extra features”: information that didn’t make it into the book. This decorative horse, in the lobby of my hotel near Mt. Bandai, is made in the style of traditional wooden horse carvings that originated in the Tōhōku region. The motif carried through the entire property; the onsen (volcanic hot spring bath) even had small cypress horses floating in it. My first glimpse of Mt. Bandai, out the window of
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