It all started when I told my Japanese coworkers that I liked hiking.

The next day, the math teacher showed me a a dusty old photo album with pictures of her as a 20-year-old, grinning from the top of a mountain.

As other teachers eavesdropped on our conversation, advice started to drift in.

The assistant principal – who still doesnt quite comprehend that I can’t understand him when he speaks Japanese – brought me a map and a book (all in Japanese) about local trails. I asked him which one was the best, and he rustled through the pages and showed me Hakusan.

Hakusan is one of Japan’s “Three Holy Mountains”, along with Fuji and Tateyama. (I visited Tateyama a few weeks ago and climbed a neighboring peak called Dainichidaira.) It seems the stars had aligned in my favor, as we had a 5-day holiday coming up called Silver Week. Adventure time!

The weekend before Hakusan, I played in an ultimate frisbee tournament on Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan.

My team, the Fukui Raptors, is a conglomeration of English teachers and our Japanese friends. We have players from Jamaica, Ireland, England, the USA, and Japan!

We camped next to the lake, played ultimate on the sand, and befriended Japanese frisbee players all weekend. I was high on life.

There was also a slackline set up there. I learned how to do it in college, and I was so excited to play on one again.

The day after the tournament, I slept in my apartment for one night, and then headed out again for part two of my vacation: climbing Hakusan!

I picked up another English teacher named Sandy in Maruoka, a little town with Japan’s oldest castle. We set Google Maps to Hakusan National Park, and drove on a Switzerland-esque valley road next to a crystal-clear river.

That night, we found a campground at the base of the mountain and fell asleep under the stars. Halfway through the night Sandy climbed in the slightly-warmer car, but my sleeping bag kept me fairly cozy. Next time I’m bringing extra socks, though. The next morning, my frozen toes triggered my internal alarm clock, and I got up just after 5, before sunrise. We caught the 5:40 bus to the trailhead.

Hakusan is a 2701 meter peak, but the bus takes you partway up. This enables even the slowest of hikers to get up and down in one day. The trail was fairly gentle but with some steep sections. I climbed alongside 10 year old kids and 80 year old senior citizens.

The vast majority of the other hikers were Japanese – I only saw two other foreigners. Amazingly, I was able to make friends with both of them! (Thank you universe!)

Erin is from Georgia, and has been living in Japan for 7 years. She was hiking with her Japanese boyfriend, and told me she lives near Naga, where you can go to see many majestic wild deer. I want to visit her!

Juan is from San Diego, California, and he works for a private tutoring company in Kanazawa, a city just 2 hours away from me.  He was hiking with 3 Japanese friends, and they adopted me into their group. I reached the top with them, and photobombed their group picture:

Notice the snow and alpine lake!

The hike took me about 9 hours – I started at 6:00 AM, and got back to my car about 3:00PM. That includes time to take the shuttle both ways, though, which takes 20 minutes.

Back at work, I showed pictures of the mountain to my students. Even though it is only a few hours from here, only 2 students had ever been there – and I gave my presentation to at least 100 kids.

Many people don’t have the opportunity to do what I’m doing. Every day I feel blessed to be where I am. I love my job, and I am learning so much every day. Thank you universe. I’m so grateful for my car, my freedom, my health and my energy. I hope to continue to adventure even as it gets colder. Who wants to go skiing?

I woke up before dawn to load my pack. The night before I had prepared 12-hours worth of food and water: a few apricots and apples, trail mix, 2 avocados, rice cakes, chocolate and 3 liters of water in a camelback.

When I braved the outside, I was greeted by a treacherously windy darkness. What if I ran out of water? Was I really going to do this by myself?

I cinched up the hood of my rain jacket to protect my face from the wind. I caught the very first shuttle of the day, and was alone on it with a tired bus driver who looked like he just rolled out of bed.

“Where you going, miss?” he asked.

“Down to South Kaibab, please.” I responded.

“Which hike are you doing?”

“Down and back,” I replied, trying to be nonchalant and hide my nervousness.

He immediately turned around and looked me over head to foot. He sighed. “Every day I worry about people like you. Tonight I’m going to bed wondering, did that girl make it up again? Tell me, how much water do you have?”

I was neither a novice hiker nor an idiot; I had an excessive amount of water and food in my pack.

Only one other person joined me on the shuttle that morning, a solo Dutch hiker who was hiking to the bottom to spend the night there.

Oh great. I’m the only person crazy enough to do this.

When I started down the trail it began to lighten up. The early morning sun danced on the cliffs as I descended down, down, down into the deepest canyon in North America.

As I continued downward, I sped up, feeling good. That feeling came over me, the one where you know you are in the right place in the right time; that everything will work out. I passed signs with hikers collapsing, warning people not to do what I was doing, but those just made me laugh and I trekked on.

A few hours down, I saw two people hunched over, pointing and looking at something next to the trail.

“Hey guys, what are you looking at?” I asked.

Giggling, they pointed to a weird chimpmunk scuttling across the landscape. We started chatting, and I learned that Courtney and Paul were planning to do the same hike as me that day. Yay! I wasn’t the only insane person.

Both from Los Angeles, Courtney and Paul were travel and adventure addicts, like me. We had a lot to talk about, and I hiked with them for the rest of the day.  (Courtney later came to visit me in both Santa Barbara and Japan.)

When we reached the bottom, we stopped on a sandy beach to share our snacks and watch the river rafts drift by. We joked with a group of sun-drenched pirates who were on the water for a month, and this was just two weeks into their trip.

After our break, our jaws dropped at the vertical cliff jutting up in front of us.

“We have seven hours to climb this before dark, guys,” I reminded them.

Talking and laughing with my new friends made the rest of the hike go by without any problems. The most beautiful part was the Indian Gardens, where the Native Americans used to live. The shady oak trees and meandering stream felt like a safe haven from the harsh canyon heat.

The last mile was the toughest. With 17 miles down and one to go, and the sun descending, we didn’t talk much as we trudged up the final mile.

When we finally reached the top, I didn’t feel any huge accomplishment. In fact, I knew that I could do it all along, despite what the bus driver said.

While adventures like this may seem intimidating at first, when I complete them I feel stronger, like I am capable of anything. I felt these bursts of confidence often while I was traveling for 2 and a half years in New Zealand, Australia, and Southeast Asia.  I would set goals – I want to volunteer on an organic farm! I want to live and work in a foreign city! I want to attend a traditional Thai massage school! – and when I completed them, I felt like I was ticking off points on my bucket list.

It’s not just about checking points off a list, though. It’s about the feelings and emotions that I associate with those things. It’s about what I learn and how I grow that makes these fulfilling experiences.

Next year I will go and teach English in Japan through the JET program, which is a dream I’ve had for several years. After being rejected the first year, I applied again and was accepted.

I know it won’t always be easy, but these are the times when I learn the most: when I am out of my comfort zone, and challenging myself.

Flashback to travel writing!

May 19, 2012

As the sun sets on a frosty evening on New Zealand’s west coast, I find myself in the mist, watching a miner pan for gold in the river flowing through our campsite. All around me, the bush is starting to sleep. The chirping birds are becoming quiet, their melodies softly winding around the trees, greeting the evening.

This tranquil moment is shattered by the cries of another creature stirring from her slumber, my 1-year-old travel companion, Willow. “MUUUUM! MUUUUM! MUUUUUUUUM!”

Day three on the hippiebus, and it’s chaos as usual: pre-dinner screaming and coddling by mom Kristy, frantic searching for adequate pajamas, and dinner preparation in the tiny kitchen of the motorhome. 5-year-old Sage is dancing around with his underwear on his head.

I offer to take Willow and her brother Sage for a bike ride to give Kristi and the other campers some reprieve.

Willow wails only magnify as we try to coax her into the bike seat.

“Come on Willow, lets go! Be quiet,” I plead. “You’ll have fun once you forget about your mom!”

Sure enough, the screeching only lasts for about 2 minutes. Her brother Sage is behind me on his bike, his uneven training wheels clanking on the gravel road.

I turn around to check on the silent bomb behind me: Willow looks surly but at least isn’t screaming. Sage pushes his bike more than he rides it, pretending he’s about to die of exhaustion. Finally we turn around, and its an easy downhill coast. No one comes down this country road in the middle of New Zealand nowhere.

When I turn the corner to the campground, Willow spots the moon. It’s full tonight.

“MOOOOOON!” Willow says excitedly, pointing at the huge yellow orb rising though the beech trees and ferns. It’s her favorite word. She says it all the time, almost to the point of being obnoxious.

Back at the caravan, after an ecstatic reunion between mother and daughter, Kristy asks her baby: “Did you have a good time?”

And, with an indifferent glance in my direction, she gives a tiny nod! I smile to myself.

Read more about my experience on the hippiebus here.