As I thumb through the tattered pages of my decade-old hiking guidebook, a sense of satisfaction coupled with disbelief takes over.
The bent cover and dog-eared pages, now brittle and stained from exposure to rain and sun, and from being shoved in a backpack over and over again, have held up surprisingly well — but as I've come to know, its picturesque photos of Japan's 100 great mountains, the so-called Hyakumeizan, do not do them justice.
And considering the time, expense and physical commitment it has taken to tick off all 100 as "been there, climbed that," it doesn't seem right that the great peaks of these islands could all be wrapped up so neatly in a two-part guidebook complete with maps and trail times.