SAWANOBORI: The Art of Scaling Mountain Streams

 Sawanobori is the ancient Japanese art of stream climbing. The centuries old tradition combines the more mainstream sport of rock climbing with a whole bunch of water... 

 Now if you climb, this sounds relatively insane. People generally do their best not to climb in the rain, let alone directly in the path of a mountain stream. But this sport was spawned from necessity in a time when travel from village to village was not aided by roads. Instead of bushwhacking through dense jungle, villagers would follow streams; swimming and wadding where travel was easier, traversing ravine walls, and of course, scaling waterfalls when the terrain became steep. Today the necessity is gone but the passion remains and sawanobori is still practiced in Japan. Check out the video below and follow a team of The North Face climbers as they work their way up to climbing the tallest waterfall in Japan.