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I-CJW
Climbing, mountaineering & hiking (mainly) in Japan
In Search of the Lost
Yasuji Tamura was a man of vision. A vision bequeathed, stolen even, but no less audacious for that fact. He would build a shining Shinto...
Child's play
The sun stole over the horizon, touching the golden spires of Bangkok's temples, and lighting the blue touchpaper of a hangover 36 hours...
No Ifs, Just Buttresses
We sit on a rocky ledge above the cloud, the icy autumn wind numbing our toes through their thin rock shoes. A line of hikers creep up...
Life On The North Ridge
The old man and I sat on the peak of the Gendarme, watching the early evening clouds boil around the summits of the North Alps. From our...
In a Universe Far, Far Away
Wake up, it’s six thirty already. For two months I’d seen nothing but the dance of tiny numbers on a screen, the gasps and shouts of a...
Last Days of Rome
Call it what you want. Boredom. Frustration. Fin de siècle ennui. Tokyo is a white hot skillet, a spitting stir fry of twenty million...
Cold War (or, Just Because You’re Paranoid, Doesn’t Mean The Russians Aren’t Out To Get You)
But can we trust the Soviet? Is he really on our side? He’s a genius, they say, but your neck is on the line and the valley floor...
The Spear
“You’re kidding, right?” “Nope, there’s no early train, I just called them. Best we can hope for is the 6:24, which puts us in Kamikochi...
Thief In The Fortress
The sound of my footsteps echoes across the empty Hayakawa valley. No other footprints in the snow, no signs of life ahead or behind. I...
Fuji, Tramontane
When I was a small boy, I had a sandscape. In a thick wooden frame, two panes of glass sandwiched a mixture of black and white sand in a...
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