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Shing Mun Reservoir hike, Hong Kong

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

On advice of the The Inside Guide to Hikes and Walks in Hong Kong booklet distributed free by Hong Kong Tourism, I set off for what they call “Shing Mun Reservoir” (11km) in the New Territories.

It’s easy to get to the trailhead by public transit — except on Sunday afternoons in November when the bus is PACKED. Huge groups were organizing barbecue parties in Shek O Country Park.

I checked in first at the small Tai Mo Shan Country Park Visitor Centre and was greeted by these local critters …

That’s a Barking Deer. Weird.

It’s an easy up from the Visitor Centre on well marked and maintained trails.

But at one point, the trail became a paved road. Not awesome. I opted to detour instead under the peak passing the Youth Hostel. This turned out to be the right decision.

Since I never got to the top of the mountain, I left a Summit Stone in this outcropping, my lunch stop.

Here are my favourite cookies. Buy them.

Once past the hostel, I saw only these two other hikers the rest of the day.

I was off-trail of course, yet some kind of path was flagged all the way down.

It led me to a Chinese graveyard.

Many memorials had tables and stools to welcome visits from surviving family and friends.

Eventually I found my way to a bus stop. And back to the subway. It’s not all that easy to get “lost” in Hong Kong, one of the advantages of an urban hike.

Great adventure. … On my advice another couple from the hostel tried the same thing — and also had FUN times inventing their own route down the mountain.

See more photos from my day hike.

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Te Araroa – the long pathway

Is finally opening officially.

Te Araroa is a foot trail stretching from Cape Reinga in the North of New Zealand to Bluff in the South.

mapOpening at the end of 2011, Te Araroa is one of the world’s longest walking trails. Hundreds of volunteers have helped create the continuous 3000 kilometre-long route.

Down the coastline, through the forest, across farmland, over volcanoes and mountain passes, along river valleys, and on green pathways through seven cities. …

official website – teararoa.org.nz

Buzz Burrell:

Leave it to the Kiwi’s to come up with a clever slogan:

“Because it wasn’t there.”

(via Adventure Blog)

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best hikes in Japan

UPDATED with information from Wes Lang, editor of Hiking in Japan.

by site editor Rick McCharles

If you were to plan a hiking vacation in Japan, here’s my advice.

First, get a copy of Lonely Planet Hiking in Japan, the best guidebook in English.

Plan your itinerary scheduling more time than you expect getting to and from trailhead. (It’s easy to miss a bus connection and get stuck overnight somewhere.)

You’ll almost always lose a day due to bad weather.

An ideal trip, in my opinion, would include these 4 routes:

1) Tate-Yama to Kamikochi (6 to 10 days)
“Hike the length of the North Alps — top hike in Japan!

2) Daisetzu-zan Grand Traverse (4-7 days)
The ultimate long hike across the roof of Hokkaido.

3) Kita-dake to Huiri-dake (2-10 days depending on route)
Rough and remote traverse the length of the South Alps

* Mt Fuji is a must too, of course.
A wise man climbs Mt Fuji …

climbing Fuji - photo by Matthieu LIENART

To do all of those you should be there July – September. … you can get away with going in June if you’ve got a pair of light crampons. May if you’ve got skis.

Questions? Suggestions?

If you’ve hiked Japan, what do you think?

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top travel destination is … ICELAND

According to Lonely Planet Best in Travel Readers’ Choice Awards.

… ‘Incredibly friendly, amazingly beautiful and one hell of a good time. Bars followed by geothermal hot springs.’

‘Iceland is the place to be in 2012 to see incredible displays of nature! The country of Iceland is currently experiencing two “maximum cycles”: One to do with increased volcano activity and another to do with the increased aurora activity for 2012.’ …

… ‘The wonders and creativity of nature at its best – untouched by humans…to this point. Geothermally heated pools to refresh the soul, literally seeing the rift valley between the American and European geological plates, visiting glaciers, seeing a real volcano, walking on terrain that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world…AND who wouldn’t want to see a puffin!!’ …

details on Lonely Planet

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Marines climb Mt Etna

… On the morning of Oct. 25, about 20 Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12 scaled its slopes.

… SCTT-2 is one of four specialized Marine teams in Italy as part of a newly formed unit tasked with mentoring African militaries dealing with regional terror threats. Their time spent in between missions, leaders have stressed, doesn’t have to go to waste.

The hike was designed to teach the Marines a lesson in the rigors of operating in a mountainous environment. …

read more on dvids

Some packs were as heavy as 40kg (88lbs)

_____

This is all good. But I can’t think of the American military in Italy without fuming (again) over the Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998.

… The disaster, which led to the death of 20 people, occurred when a U.S. military plane cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway. …

The victims’ families got money but not much else. Another sorry episode in American military history.

It’s also known as the Strage del Cermis (“Massacre of Cermis”).

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first hike Hong Kong

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

Arriving at my hostel after midnight, I was pleased to meet local hiker Michael Edesess at 8:30am next morning.

He explained that hiking Hong Kong usually meant a short subway trip, a shorter walk through a modern shopping mall … and directly on to the trail!

Well signed. Well maintained. Super popular tracks.

… This must be the best major city in the world for getting on a trail quickly and easily.

Michael clearly had a destination in mind …

And here it is.

We finished at Groucho’s on Stanley beach for Michael’s favourite Belgian brew and a burger.

This is urban hiking!

more photos from our day hike

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not hiking Mt Aso, Japan

Mount Aso (阿蘇山 Aso-san) is the largest active volcano in Japan, and is among the largest in the world.

It stands in Aso Kujū National Park in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyūshū.

Its peak is 1592 m above sea level. Aso has one of the largest caldera in the world (25 km north-south and 18 km east-west). The caldera has a circumference of around 120 km (75 mi), although sources vary on the exact distance. …

Aso is one of the best hikes in Japan. So — as expected — I wasn’t able to hike it.

It seemed we were well organized for this one, up early and arriving by rent-a-car before the tour buses.

Yet the Buddha said we could not continue up the mountain. Trails were closed due to Sulphur Dioxide emissions.

I briefly considered going off trail. But the stink really was choking.

… And, in fact, I understand the trails and ropeway are often closed for this reason.

More bad luck for me on this trip.

Here’s the scoop on how to actually walk that destination – Hiking in Japan blog – Mt. Aso (阿蘇山）

The most iconic image is this unusual feature, the ‘rice mound’.

That’s from a CNN article – Mount Aso and me: How I risked death on a Japanese volcano

See photos of Aso on Flickr.

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Walter Weston – father of mountaineering in Japan

I’d never heard of Walter Weston. Have you?

The Reverend Walter Weston (25 December 1860 – 27 March 1940), was an English clergyman, missionary, and mountaineer. …

Weston and Edward Bramwell Clarke are the westerners identified with the emergence of mountain climbing as a new sport in Japan. By the end of Weston’s life, some British climbers referred to him as ‘the father of mountaineering in Japan’.

In 1937, Emperor Hirohito conferred on him the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasures (fourth class) and the Japanese Alpine Club erected a bronze tablet in his honour at Kamikochi in the Japanese Alps. …

… He published Mountaineering and Exploring in the Japanese Alps (1896). As a writer and lecturer he continued to introduce Japan to an overseas audience. He gave universal currency to the term Japanese Alps, though it was first used before he came to Japan. …

Walter Weston statue - Mount Ena Park

He’s honoured at an annual festival in Kamikochi the first Sunday in June.

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hiker of the year – Jennifer Pharr Davis

National Geographic Adventurers of the Year 2012:

The Hiker: Jennifer Pharr Davis

… For the last 40 years, men have held the Appalachian Trail record. In the last 20, it’s been confined to an elite club of ultra runners who typically covered the requisite 30 to 50 miles per day in an 11- to 13-hour period.

Conventional wisdom suggested that breaking the record would mean running faster with the same strategy. And a new record holder would most certainly be male.

Pharr Davis, 28, took the standard strategy and turned it upside down. Moving from north to south, she covered the trail’s 2,181 miles by hiking for 16 hours a day beginning at 4:45 in the morning and walking well into darkness. To stick to an average pace of 47 miles a day, she slept on the trail or at road crossings to eliminate needless commute times to and from the trail. Her husband, Brew Davis, served as the support crew.

Pharr Davis trained by hiking rather than running—and the novel approach worked.
…

details

Follow her Tumblr blog – Becoming Odyssa. It supports her book – Becoming Odyssa: Epic Adventures on the Appalachian Trail (2010).