Ridgeline subscribers — Hello, hello, hello. Many of you have joined in recent weeks after reading my New York Times piece on Kii. Welcome and thanks. I’m Craig Mod, and this is Ridgeline, a newsletter “about walking,” powered by memberships that’s been published since January 2019. For years it was rigidly weekly, and now it’s more monthly-ish as other newsletter projects have shimmied in to occupy mindspace. In fact, I’m writing to announce a new pop-up “photo newsletter”1 called Man, It’s Been a While.

Ridgeliners — It’s with great excitement that I get to share with you a new piece of mine in The New York Times: “A Long Walk in a Fading Corner of Japan” I’m especially excited to talk about the Kii Peninsula without only talking about the Kumano Kodō, and then, without only talking about the Nakahechi route. Kii is vast, colossal, primal, wet, leechy, historic, veiled, and extremely freggin’ green.

Roden readers — This is one of those issues where I mainly just shut up and point you elsewhere. So — it’s with great excitement that I get to share with you a new text + photo essay of mine in The New York Times: “A Long Walk in a Fading Corner of Japan” 1,000 words or so, 20 photographs. I believe it’s the first time “I was pantsless.” has been on the site.