クレイグの日本

We had planned long and hard for this trip to and up Mt. Fuji, so we weren’t going to give up halfway up the mountain by any chance. Another reason not to stop halfway is when you make it to the top you have the royalty to be able to drop “I climbed Mt. Fuji” into any mountain-related conversation.

The months prior to the actual climb were spent emailing, faxing, mailing, calling and discussing every aspect of a 48 hour trip with host families, exchange organisations, insurance companies, etc. We wanted Kaspar to come along also but his host family change was right in the middle of our plans. Anyway, in the end everything worked out because we purchased a personal guide to take us up the mountain the trip was approved. Team members were Sam, Shota (previous host brother), Mr Guide and myself. Since I had no mountain-acceptable clothing I had my ski suit sent over (Thanks mum!) which I remembered on arrival was still and probably will always be slightly too big for me.

Set out just after five, Noborito bound, to meet with Sam and then meet Shota in his car in Shinjuku. The map we had with us was surprisingly unhelpful but thanks to my intuition we met with Shota unproblematically. After a few hours in the car and we’d driven to 2300 metres altitude, we arrived at Mt. Fuji Fifth Station. This is the highest point of vehicular access and is where most climbers start from. We were a few hours early for the guide so we had a brunch of noodles and checked out the souvenir shops. Sam and I bought small wooden stick things to be sear-stamped at the peak. Went back to the car for a last organise of what we actually needed and then waited for the Guide.

Mr Guide turned out to be about 30, looking all professional with his fancy shoes, radio, flashing lights etc. We got under way after he gave our gear a visual inspection and we’d chatted, everyone happy and energetic.

Somehow, Mt. Fuji looks innocent and tame from the fifth station. As you’re going to be climbing more than a kilometre vertically you’d think you’d look upwards to the top, but no, it’s a sidewards glance. Very misleading. This photo makes it look like we’re going for a walk in the park (photo).

At the very start, you go downwards. Not at all settling seeing as the more you go down the more there is to climb back up again at some point. At this stage it was very cloudy but good weather otherwise. The initial climb is exhausting and steep and you start to hope it isn’t like this for the next eight hours. On the way to Sixth Station, we passed people on horses. Apparently you can pay for a lift to Sixth Station! If anyone is thinking of climbing this mountain I’d say get a horse and have a) less to climb and b) more energy. Got a pre-sick happy photo (photo).

Sixth Station didn’t really have anything except a man handing out brochures, and some port-a-loos. With nothing to see here, we carried on.

The route from Seventh Station to the top is dotted with huts for resting/sleeping or buying food. I had a cup of noodles and later on a cup of cocoa. The terrain became rocky/volcanic (photo). When we realised we were above the clouds we started taking photos (some members wearing crazy beanies) (photo). At three thousand metres we had a nice group shot taken (photo).

We arrived at our hut (Eight Station) at maybe 5 or 6, and it was a GREAT view. Not only where we now in the layers of cloud but looking down at Japan was like we were in a plane! The cities looks miniature, the ocean looks pretty, you know, that kind of view.

We had a set meal in the really small sit-on-the-floor-type dining room, which wasn’t too bad. Got hurried out and had nothing much to do but rest so we got ready for bed. The space allocated for each person was just enough to sleep in. Meaning no space to turn or stretch a leg. I’ve never had to sleep like that so I was surprised how hard it was. The pillow was beans in a bag covered in plastic and the doona was a sleeping bag. They didn’t have to give us this little space because no one actually came to sleep in the twenty allocated spaces next to us during the night. I was fed up of being cramped so I crawled over and stretched like a star in bliss. I would have maybe had an OK nights sleep if we had had the whole twenty persons area.

We all woke up with bad hair, bad moods and feeling overall crappy six hours later at midnight. It was time to continue our climb to the top to be in time for the 4:45 sunrise. The great view of yesterday was even better now it was at night with the glistening city lights. I tried to take photos but none were worth uploading.

We found our guide and set out again. The path was now clearly visible because of the thousands of people climbing with their head lights. Right bar lights were also flashing to indicate the mountain guides. Because our group was so small, Shota was given the other red bar light. At this point I was starting to get a headache and I remember Sam and I swearing about how bright they were. Whenever we stopped, it would be flash, ow, flash, ow, flash, ow. Due to large groups, it was a slow climb to the top. Can’t remember much about this part of the journey because everyone was really tired, I coming down with a headache and we were mostly silent, stuck in uphill motion. At 1am we had a quick rest and had a group+guide photo (photo)!

Right at the top, just before you come to where everything is, you walk through a Japanese style gate (I’m sure Sam has a photo of us here, I’ll receive photos from her soon, won’t I?!). The sky brightened like someone was using a dimmer switch and the sun threatened to rise early but then it dimmed back down due to clouds.

At the top is a large wooden marker and we had photos with it. I was feeling completely awful with my headache and starting to become nauseous so I had to fake-smile through photos that we took with Sam’s camera (Hi Sam!). We had our wooden sticks seared with a stamp and then went in search of toilets and somewhere to sit down. In the end I didn’t eat anything, but was sick a few times in the $2 pay-toilet. Ah, the fun had at the summit. Anyway, felt a bit better after everything was out of my stomach and returned. The sky changed dramatically again and everyone “ooooohed” and rushed to the cliff face. I was in so much discomfort I thought who cares about the sunrise but then talked myself into going for it because what else was I up here for?! I got some nice photos but the one I like most has someone’s camera and hand in an outline (photo).

After everyone had realised the sun had risen we had a bit of a walk. The crater of Mt. Fuji (don’t forget it’s a volcano) was really interesting, I wish I had of taken a photo. There were trees growing down in there! With snow! And it was a really big drop down!

We departed surprisingly early, but I wasn’t complaining as I wanted to be magically transported to a nice bed on ground level. I found the downhill easier and there’s no doubt it was faster, but Sam really hated it and had a bit of a yell after one of her more dramatic stacks. That gave me a laugh and cheered me up a bit (I know, I’m evil). Descending Mt. Fuji means zigzagging all the way down the mountain on small volcanic rock that gave way all the time. Once you get the hang of it it’s like skiing with shoes… on rocks. It was more mentally painful than physically because we could see the bottom and zigzagging took so long and felt so wasteful. If there were snow and we had skis I’m sure we could have descended in less than half an hour. And what a fantastically long trail it would be too! There was actually some snow on Mt. Fuji that we did touch (photo) but you couldn’t ski for more than two lengths of a ski on it so that would have been unpurposeful.

We had the last few kilometres of going upwards because you know, we went downwards at the start. I just wanted to go as fast as we could and hug the car, but the group trailed behind. I felt ever-so-slightly better down at Fifth Station. The heatlhy members of the group had icecream (photo). We said our thanks and byes to our guide and he said he’d better go get some sleep because HE WAS CLIMBING IT AGAIN TOMORROW. He was also climbing it every day for the next few days! Here’s the three of us thinking “Never again will we climb this mountain” and he was climbing it tomorrow for probably the bazillionth time!

I’m so glad I climbed it but I don’t think I ever will again, mostly due to how sick I felt. It was undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime experience watching the sun rise with nothing around it and to have been above the clouds, just completely different to living on the ground.

WE’VE CLIMBED MT FUJI!

Link to Sam’s blog on our Mt. Fuji climb here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.