http://i-cjw.com/blog Sun, 08 Jun 2008 03:35:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en At 4a.m. the rain was still pounding like a canon on the roof of Kijitei, the restaurant owned by Yuka's parents, which nestles in the verdant foothills outside Chichibu. The grey dawn filtered through the paper screens, while the frogs sang in their damp delight outside. I'd planned a fast, ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/05/25/bitter-dragons/ 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 veterans. Bloodless fingers nervously flicked the ice from the sharp points of their crampons, axes caressed lovingly against their arms. A cigarette crackled and spat ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/05/19/closer-to-heaven/ 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 floated like a phantom in the clouds billowing up the north face. It was clearly mine; I waved at it and it waved back. Its ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/05/06/fishing-for-mountains/ Mountains are big. I could feel them strain against their cramped borders in the 500x300 images I'd forced them into. They demanded space to breath, and accused me of covering up my deficiencies. A small image hides a multitude of sins. It was time to come clean. One rainy night in ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/04/19/new-maybe-also-improved/ There it was, perched precariously on the side of the mountain right in front of me; a perfectly formed snowman. Or rather, the body of one. No head to be seen, just its round body, a meter and a half across and forlorn in the snow. I looked around and ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/04/14/42/ “I think the roof is collapsing.” Kevin’s headlamp shone out from the small opening in his sleeping bag, illuminating the snow cave we’d dug a few hours before, lighting up the ceiling. A ceiling which by this time had dropped to less than six inches away from my face. Pulling on ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/02/19/snow-country/ "I spent twelve weeks on crutches after knee surgery. During recovery I surrounded myself with wanna-bes, pretend-to-bes, has-beens and never-will-bes. I met people who wasted their talent or were afraid of it. They taught me why I hadn’t become a good climber. Like them, I was afraid to succeed, scared ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/02/09/more-twight/ The key element to extreme sports is that once you’ve really pushed yourself to the limit, maybe even risked everything, it provides a new way of seeing the world. Like a snowboarder who’s sailing 30’ off a mountain, I’ve seen these guys, you can’t breathe while they’re moving it’s so hairy. Or ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/01/28/ice-world/ Water. Nutrition. Shelter. The three basics of staying alive in the roaring outdoors. You either take them with you, or find them on the way. I’ve been looking for alternatives to my usual food pack of Snickers bars and curry rice. Snickers are fine but they don’t hold up well in ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/01/20/pemmican/ “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 peak and know that by nightfall I will be at its top, but I do not know where the will comes from or ... http://i-cjw.com/blog/2008/01/15/my-koan/