Their packs were small. I wondered how they would fit tents and sleeping bags in them and started to panic, thinking Honda-san had stuffed up again. He was the experienced one among the Japanese, hiking up to five times each year, but he’d failed miserably when he went to Australia. Before he left, he asked me for advice on where the best hiking was, what he’d see, what weather conditions were like, and I gave him all the detail I could. When he came back, he was upset. The rangers hadn’t let him do the full six-day walk because he didn’t have a tent or sleeping bag. I was astounded. It didn’t occur to me to tell him that he’d need to take these items – he was an experienced hiker. I’d told him to take food, because I knew that Japanese people were used to having it available at the tops of mountains, but the other items were common sense. Now, I was about to head up to 3000m with ten people who didn’t have adequate warmth or shelter.