Taiwan is not the first place most trekkers think of when they picture East Asia’s mountains, yet the island has more than 250 peaks over 3,000 m, packed into a landmass smaller than Switzerland. The highest of them is Yushan, “Jade Mountain”, at 3,952 m. It is the highest summit in Taiwan, higher than Mount … Read more
Most Himalayan treks are planned around the monsoon, which means avoiding it. The Valley of Flowers is the exception. This high glacial valley in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, in northern India, is at its best in late July and August, when the rain that empties every other trail brings up a carpet of alpine … Read more
Langtang is the valley that runs east to west along the Tibetan border directly north of Kathmandu, and it is the only major trek in Nepal that begins within a day’s drive of the capital and needs no flight. In a week you can walk from subtropical forest at 1,460 m to a yak pasture … Read more
Everest Base Camp is the most walked long trek in Nepal, and the standard itinerary from Lukla has settled into a well-tested twelve-day shape. We think it is worth understanding that shape before booking anything, because the days are not arranged for distance. They are arranged for altitude. The walk from Lukla at 2,860 m … Read more
The Markha Valley is where most people meet Ladakh on foot for the first time, and it is hard to imagine a better introduction. Over five or six days the trail follows a green ribbon of barley fields, willows and mud-brick villages through a landscape that is otherwise rock, sky and wind. It ends over … Read more
The Kumano Kodo is not one trail but a web of pilgrimage routes that has threaded the forested Kii Peninsula, south of Osaka and Nara, for more than a thousand years. Of these routes, the Nakahechi is the one most walkers choose. It is the “imperial route”, followed by retired emperors and their courts from … Read more
Every trekking season in Nepal, Ladakh and the Karakoram, people who are fit, experienced and sensible are carried down valleys or flown out by helicopter because they climbed too fast. Acute mountain sickness is not a sign of weakness, and it is not something you can train away at home. It is the body’s ordinary … Read more
For decades the Annapurna Circuit was the trek in Nepal, a three-week horseshoe around the massif that passed from rice terraces to a 5,416 m pass and back down through the deepest gorge on earth. Roads have since been pushed up both sides of the loop, and the circuit has become a trek with a … Read more
Bhutan is not a country you stumble into. Every visitor pays a daily fee, every trek is walked with a licensed guide and support crew, and the trails are quiet in a way that has become rare in the Himalaya. That quiet is the reward. On the two treks most people consider first, the Druk … Read more
Kamikochi is a valley at 1,500 m in the Hida range, the northern of the three ranges that together are called the Japan Alps. The Azusa River runs through it, so clear that trout are visible from the bank, and the peaks above it rise steeply to more than 3,000 m. Private cars have been … Read more
