Field Journal

Story by Masa Sakano // Written by Alex Roddie
Photography: Hamish Frost // Film: Rachel Sarah

‘Japan is the place that formed me, Scotland is the place that opened my eyes.’

In Sidetracked Volume 35, we feature Masa Sakano, a Japanese climber who moved to the Scottish Highlands to seek adventure. His story is based on a film directed and edited by Rachel Sarah. In Masa: 居場所 (The Place Where I Am), we root ourselves in exploring the concepts of home and belonging – and what those mean to Masa. Blending together Scottish and Japanese landscape, culture and language, the film takes us from the icy crags of the Scottish mountains to Masa‘s home in the shadow of the Cairngorms, back to his roots and family connections in rural Japan.

Rachel Sarah is an adventure and environmental filmmaker based in the Scottish Highlands, with a love for telling stories that tie the human experience together with landscape and wildlife. ‘As somebody who was always seeking the feeling of home, and was also drawn to move to Scotland, I feel a real affinity with Masa’s story,’ Rachel said. ‘Masa is known by so many in the Scottish climbing community. I had heard a lot about him and, as Fiona says in the film, I was intrigued to meet him.’

To create a Single Moment for Sidetracked Volume 35, our editor Alex Roddie worked with Masa and Rachel to refine a short, striking story based on Masa’s many adventures in the Cairngorms.

A Single Moment: The Gift of Uncertainty

Doing something that we know will yield a guaranteed result is boring. It is the unknown that makes an experience – and ultimately a life – much richer.

Deep in the most remote corrie of the Cairngorms, snow begins to fall just as I drift off to sleep. Soft, cold light reaches me through my half-closed eyelids, the scrunched-up hood of my sleeping bag, the gappy shapes of sky in the broken roof of this tumbledown shelter. Scottish winter has found us. I see the flakes drift past against the grey outside, and then suddenly blow through the hole with a whistle of wind, blasting into my face. So I roll onto my side to shield my face against the snow. This is the old stone refuge of Garbh Choire, and although it still has walls the roof has seen better days. Beside me, I hear Phil turn in his own sleeping bag.

Garbh Choire Refuge is not easy to get to and not easy to find. It guards ice-plated cliffs tucked away in one of the most remote places in Scotland. The little shelter is camouflaged – like just one more pile of boulders among thousands more, or a brindled game bird lurking in the bracken. In snow-free conditions a deep stream must be forded to get to it. But this awkwardness, this inaccessibility, is the point. Few climbers make the effort to come out here looking for ice or mixed routes. Less can be controlled or known; less can be predicted. A keener sense of adventure thrums in this place as a result – or perhaps it’s in stepping beyond the threshold of uncertainty this place creates, seeking the unknown on the icy crags high above.

Continue Reading in Sidetracked Volume 35