On November 23, I will be participating in the Rokko All Peaks Trek.  The Rokko Mountains are the range of mountains that spans the four cities of Kobe, Ashiya, Nishinomiya and Takarazuka along the northwestern corner of Osaka Bay.  The Rokko All Peaks Trek is an annually-run, day-long hike that starts from the southwestern side of this range and finishes at the northeastern.  It is a 56km (35m) hike following the ridge lines over 5 small peaks (300~500m) and a final massive one (931m).  It starts before sunrise at 5.00am and ends anywhere from 7.00pm~11.00pm.  I’m expecting to stagger in closer to the 11pm mark…

November is beautiful in Japan, primary colours everywhere.  Blood red, lime green, pumpkin orange and lemon yellow, colours so saturated you feel like you’re in a 70s movie.  If I’m lucky, this will be the scenery I get to walk through.  If I’m unlucky, it will do what it did last year and rain all the way through…  2012 completion ratio was 72% (2810 out of 3902).

I am doing the walk to raise money for a group I support, Medecins Sans Frontieres.  MSF is an independent humanitarian aid organisation that provides medical aid in places affected by war, epidemics and natural disasters.  I admire them on a number of dimensions:

- their commitment    I find it amazing these medical professionals put their own lives on the line to help strangers.  In Syria, for example, the crisis has prompted an exodus of medical professionals from the country at a time when the population needs medical aid most.  The choice to stay in the face of numerous threats to personal safety--abductions, murders, nerve gas on the streets--in order to help people with whom you have no personal connection is incredibly brave.

- their neutrality resolve    The commitment to give aid to those in need, whatever the side, is seemingly so straighforward but the reality must be very different.  I cannot begin to imagine the emotional discipline required to adhere to impartiality in spite of witnessing situations that fill you with the deepest horror.

- their temoignage policy    Being neutral doesn’t preclude speaking out about the state of affairs.  But it must require a very sophisticated level of strategic finesse to raise awareness in a way that is absent of political agenda.  Not to mention navigating that within charged political settings.

- their operational integrity    You know a charitable organisation has its priorities straight when it puts deliberate focus on minimizing overhead in order to ensure maximum funding goes to where it’s needed.  The focus on transparency of operations is laudable as well.

Please feel free to donate if any of the links above resonate with you.  Charitable giving is, I think, a very personal decision so please feel equally free not to donate but instead just wish me well and think of me scrambling along a ridge on November 23rd.

As many of you know, this is the first time I am attempting an endurance challenge of this sort.  I am doing the walk in memory of my father who did this trek regularly through the Novembers of my childhood.  It always seemed such a superhuman thing to do, to walk the span of the mountains along the side of the bay.  To my child’s mind, that massive curtain of green was one of those philosophical constants, like the sun rising and setting, or the pull of the tides--something just eternally there, with no apparent beginning and no end.  The idea that it could be traversed would make my eyes round with wonder.

To get into peak :) condition by November 23, I’ve started a training programme.  I’m running 6~10km a day and going on long distance hikes (20+km) on one of the weekend days in the area outside London.  I’m planning to build up to 30~40km hikes and, later on in November, to do some treks up in the Lake District to get used to high altitude ascents/descents.  To be honest, the mild 20km hikes have me staggering back onto the train exhausted and shaky-footed (with nothing higher than 300m!) so I have a long way to go.  I have two months to get there.  Wish me luck.