Ridgeline subscribers —

It’s time for another walk. A walk down a valley — a valley I’ve walked many times before (not a metaphor!), but one I love and so one very much worth: A rewalk. A double rewalk, even.

I’m heading out to walk 100 kilometers south-north along the Kiso-ji in Nagano, and then turning around and walking 100 kilometers back, north-south along the same route. Of course, I’m running a pop-up newsletter connected with the walk. It’s called (The Entire Walk is) Between Two Mountains and you can sign up here.

I’m really looking forward to this walk. To be honest, I feel a bit insane right now. Maybe 30-43% crazy. Do you feel insane right now? I bet you do, just a little. There’s something relentless about the current state of the world, and my head has — in the last few weeks — felt very much like a watermelon being squeezed by a thousand rubber bands. My hope is 200 kilometers of walking will shake loose some of those bands, and maybe relieve a bit of the ‘ole squeeze. Or maybe it’ll just make it worse. We’ll see.

A valley is nothing if not a thing: Between two mountains. I’ll have mountains on my left, mountains on my right. Mountains before me, and behind, fore and aft. Up and sometimes down: Mountains. All day every day, I’ll always be between them, much like how the world feels, too, like it’s between one hard immovable, immutable block of pure stupidity, and another immutable block made of distilled, sterling boobery. But my mountains will be nice mountains, natural mountains. Mountains who’ve seen a great many things, good and bad, and who’ll be here long after our foolish fire is extinguished.

The Kiso-ji is actually a chunk of the Nakasendō, which was the first big solo walk I set out on in 2019. That’s also the walk that became Kissa by Kissa. Last time I walked a piece of the Kiso-ji was a couple of years ago with a couple friends — we had a lovely time, but only walked a small section. The Kiso-ji is also the first longer-than-a-day walk I took with Kevin Kelly, over ten years ago, which then led us to start Walking and Talking the world over (Spain earlier this year, England and Indonesia last year, Thailand the year before).

So the Kiso Valley holds a sweet spot in my heart. But it’s also just a lovely valley — all snakey and mountainy between Shiojiri (“salt butt”) in the north-east, and Ena in the south-west. Like most things in Japan, the history of the valley runs deep. From being part of the sankin kōtai of the Edo Period, to being a critical trade route — between present day Nagano and Gifu Prefectures — much longer before that.

The Japanese novel Before the Dawn (1929) by Shimazaki Toson, translated by William E. Naff, takes place in the valley, opening with: “The entire Kiso-ji is in the mountains.” (『木曽路はすべて山の中である。』)

The book’s timeframe straddles the Meiji restoration. From the intro, Naff notes:

First was a massive attack on the then widely held view of the Meiji restoration as an almost complete historical discontinuity—a leap in one step from medievalism to modernity or even from darkness and savagery to enlightenment and civilization. He launched this attack by dramatizing the richness and intellectual vigor of traditional Japanese culture and then by reminding his readers that for all its political bankruptcy the shogunate enjoyed the services of a number of men of exceptional vision, wisdom, and courage. He made clear as never before that although Meiji constituted perhaps the most brilliant and sustained national response to the challenges of the modern world that had yet been seen anywhere, there was nevertheless something to be said for those who protested that it had also betrayed many of its own brightest promises.

Much of the valley has been rebuilt since the Meiji Era, but a few of the valley villages have the texture of something from another time. And I’m not talking about Magome or Tsumago, the two tourist-focused villages which have been restored to look largely like they were two-hundred years ago. I’m talking about other, more minor, peripheral villages, off on side routes just beyond the main road (ippon-ura villages, if you will), nestled in the crinkle of a mountain.

The goal of this walk (of every walk) is to look and look well. To talk to as many people as possible. To photograph. To think about what this valley is doing today and why it exists as it does. To consider depopulation. To visit a friend who has made a new life within the valley, between the mountains. To revisit some of the places we popped into on the 2019 walk, and to see how many are left and how many have disappeared.

As usual, the usual rules will be in place to not “teleport,” to be present:

• No news
• No media
• No podcasts
• No SNS (aside from, perhaps, the members-only The Good Place)

And, of course, every night:

• Collate what we saw that day
• Turn the notes into narrative
• Publish before bed

(The Entire Walk is) Between Two Mountains starts next Thursday. Sign up here.

See you soon,
C

p.s., thanks to everyone sending in photos from UNIQLOs around the world; it’s a hoot to see the magazines open to my pizza toast spread in so many shops (in the sweater section); keep ’em coming if you happen to see them out in the wild.