Trekking in the Himalayas

Written and published in Japanese, and later translated, this is primarily a guidebook for Himalayan trekking in Nepal and India, but is also a photography book and a sketchbook. Iozawa made numerous trips to the Himalaya in the period 1972 to 1976 researching this book, as well as being a member of other expeditions.

The photography is very good - and in many cases a study in the chosen topic - for example a page of 10 photos of flora, another with 15 portraits of Nepali people, another 9 photos of village houses.
The sketches are excellent. From diagrammatic to illustrative, half are in ink (ie black and white) but some in colour such as the diagrammatic mountain group diagram showing location and height of the mountain groups in Nepal. Hand drawn maps of almost every town, and trekking route also regularly fill half pages. Also quirky sketches such as the floor plan of a Sherpa house with all its contents sketched and labelled (in Japanese).

The guidebook itself is atypical. It has a physical condition section - structure (geology), climate, glaciers (a great diagrammatic sketch of different glacier forms) & flora & fauna. It has a people and culture section - language and religion, history, agriculture and animal husbandry & mountaineering. Then a planning and preparation section which gives a whole bunch of detail around trekking types, budgets, clothing, customs and manners.

From there the book is split into three further primary sections - the Himalayas of Nepal (further split into chapters for the mountain groups, Kathmandu, the visa and trekking permits, the Everest region, the Pokhara region, the Langtang region, and other area); the Western Himalaya (split into Delhi, Kashmir, Himal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh); and the Eastern Himalaya (split into Calcutta, Darjeeling and the Sikkim Himalayas, Assam).

I enjoyed reading through this, and the informality of it, with the many sketches that were certainly accurate representations of the Sherpa and Nepali houses I spent time in when trekking. I expect I will enjoy picking up this book from time to time and spending a few short minutes looking at one aspect of its in depth study.

5 stars. Worth seeking out if the artistic or practical information appeals.