This report traces the history of mountain huts throughout Japan during and after World War II, using the “Yama Nikki” which contains information on mountain huts throughout Japan. In this way, we ...were able to create a database that allows us to reference the names, locations, construction and renovation dates, and elevations of mountain huts throughout Japan, while maintaining continuity with the prewar editions. The database also revealed that the construction of mountain huts was concentrated in the 1950s and early 1960s, and that the increase or decrease in the number of huts differed in each mountain range.
This report is a database of the history of mountain huts throughout Japan in the prewar period. The source is “Yama Nikki” published by the Japan Alpine Club. This report aims to compile a list of ...mountain hut names, construction/renovation years, elevation, and other information to serve as a basic resource for research on the history of mountain architecture. As a result, we were able to create a database that can be referenced by region and by year, and to clarify the historical value of the “Yama Nikki” and draw out its potential.
In his 2006 novel La Gruta del Toscano, Mexican author Ignacio Padilla demonstrates the tendency among the Crack writers to “embrace and contest” their uneven access to world literature as writers ...from a peripheral culture. This under studied novel refuses to engage in privileging Latin American literature to establish truths about the non-West in Asia. The uneven power dynamic of East and West is embodied by Sherpa Pasang Nuru’s oral tales about lost Western explorers searching for the bottom of a cave they believe to be Dante’s Inferno. Nuru controls the narrative about the terrain and its literary connections. Padilla’s gesture of reaching out and appropriating source texts from the European literary canon and from Alpinist narrative embraces the power of their human drama, but also contests their Eurocentrism and imperialistic worldview. Rather than speaking for someone else in the Himalayan contact zone, Padilla’s inscrutable protagonist Nuru demonstrates sympathy for the situation of the local Sherpa population. As a “strategic Occidentalist,” to use the theory of Ignacio Sánchez Prado about the Crack authors, Padilla approaches Mexican narrative from a variety of foreign inspirations, and like in Borges’ view, his work demonstrates that there are no geographic limits to the scope of Latin American literary invention.
Climate change is having a major impact on high mountain areas, with glacier retreat and permafrost warming. Alpinism is deeply affected by this changing environment, which increases the technicality ...of the routes, their dangers, and the uncertainty of the periods of suitable climbing conditions during the summer. This raises the question of how recreational alpinists perceive and adapt to changing conditions. To answer this question, this paper reports the results of a quantitative social media survey of European alpinists based on the substitutability theory. The results from the 1071 completed questionnaires show that climate change and its impacts are clearly observed and identified by recreational alpinists; the higher the awareness of the changes, the more likely they are to engage in adaptation behaviours such as temporal, activity and spatial substitution, and informational coping. Furthermore, the more respondents perceive that climate change is affecting their practice in terms of degraded routes, increased risk, or increased frequency and magnitude of rockfalls, the more they engage in adaptation behaviours. Although adaptation seems to be sufficient to ensure satisfactory practice conditions, the development of communication for less informed alpinists, as well as the development of climate services, could be valuable to ensure sustainable and safe practices.
Recreational alpinists' awareness of the impacts of climate change on alpinism increases their adoption of substitution and coping behaviours. The results highlight the importance for alpine organisations to communicate research on high mountain changes, especially to novice or occasional alpinists who may be less informed. The results also suggest the importance of high mountain climate services to support decision making. This could include proposing maps and topographical guides that specifically show how climate change will affect the most frequently used routes, or developing indicators such as the Rockfall Susceptibility Index.
•The study assesses alpinists' perspectives on climate change impacts in high mountains and their adaptation behaviours.•The more concerned alpinists are about the consequences of climate change, the more they adapt their behaviour.•Despite a clear awareness of the consequences of climate change, few alpinists considered stopping their practice.•Information and climate services could be appropriate tools to support adaptation.
UNESCO heritage policies encourage the idea that heritage should be 'shared' at the international scale, and invite states and the involved actors to adopt this vision. Yet, 'sharedness' can be ...understood in many different ways. This paper explores several territorial and political issues related to this notion of sharedness. A focus on the uses of a particular UNESCO tool - 'multinational nominations' - sheds a light on transnational cultural practices and examines forms of cooperation within communities and between states in the framework of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Specifically, it analyses the work of a French commission for the ICH as well as the nomination processes of three different cultural practices to the ICH lists: flamenco, falconry and alpinism. It is argued that 'shared heritage' is interpreted in a variety of ways, leading to contrastive appropriations and competing territorial scenarios among the various protagonists.
Alpinism is climbing to high mountains every season by hardly accessible and steep walls due to the discovery of the beauty of the natural environment, as well as the strengthening of physical ...strength, endurance and will. To ensure that alpinists are able to successfully and safely perform their ascents and achieve top sporting results, well-developed motor skills, as well as balanced morphological characteristics are necessary. Motor skills are the result of complex man's ability to manifest motor structures in certain activities, which integrate psychic characteristics, biochemical processes and functional changes. The aim of the research is to examine the differences in the morphological characteristics and motor skills of alpinists and other athletes, ages 16-26, both sexes. The sample of the respondents is 30 athletes, 15 alpinists (6 women and 9 men) and 15 other athletes (8 women and 7 men). It has been found that male alpinists are different from other athletes to the extent of BMI body composition. Women alpinists differ from other athletes in the capacity of the explosive muscle strength of the leg armpit. Alpinists, both sexes have better results than other athletes, both sexes in the relative strength and stamina of the upper body. Between alpinists and other athletes, both sexes have no difference in motor skills, agility and speed of movement, and ability to maintain balance on the front of the foot. The paper presents a good starting point for trainers to learn morphological characteristics and motor skills, as well as to plan the training process in the future.
PDF
