My Fuji Story

I've posted a few pictures of our Fuji-san climb, but I want to write it out before I forget for my own sake. So here it begins, a month later. How has it been a month already? I think my English student is correct, "the time is flying" this year.

Since I had only been back in Japan for about 48 hours when we started our trip, I was glad that our day didn't start until 4:30 pm. I had time to pack, get myself organized and take a short nap. When we started our planning, I had gotten several emails from people in our group who had climbed last year. Recommendations on clothes, boots, gear, etc. I knew I had boots and needed a head lamp, but I didn't look at the list too much until, honestly, it was too late to order anything. So in my getting ready process, a trip to the Navy Exchange department store was also necessary.

In my backpack to the top of Fuji I carried the following:

• 3.5 L of water
• Headlamp
• Camera
• Work gloves
• Winter hat
• Fleece jacket
• Ski jacket shell aka rain jacket
• Long sleeve t-shirt
• Rain pants
• Bandaids, ductape, sunscreen, babypowder, chapstick
• Powerbars, trailmix, beef jerkey
• 4 pieces of supreme pizza (yes, seriously.)
• I wore an underarmor shirt and pants and hiking boots 
• Sunglasses

The only things I didn't have that I would have been nice were a rain hat or hood and a camel bag (instead of water bottles), but all in all, I had everything I needed and wore everything I brought. That was thanks to excellent preparation from my fellow climbers. Thanks!

We met at the commissary parking lot at 4:30 pm and hit the road around 5. We drove two rental vans from base so that the tolls would be covered (government vehicles don't pay tolls in Japan). The drive was mostly uneventful since I was in the follow car and didn't have to stress about where we were going. When you start going up the mountain though there is a musical road. You know when you get too close to the side of the road and there are those ridges that buzz at you? Well on this road, they do it on purpose in the middle of the road, but by changing the length of the ridge, it plays a musical tune! Fun! We knew we were getting close.

We got to the 5th station (the starting point) a little after 7 pm. By the time we used the bathroom, got suited up, bought our climbing sticks and hit the trail, it was just a few minutes before 8 pm.

The sun sets, in the summer, around 6:30 or 7 pm so by the time we started climbing, it was totally dark except for the moon. The head lamps were definitely necessary.

Can you see the lights above my head? Those are the stations up the mountain! I'm just at station 5.

 

The first part of the trail was relatively horizontal, but rocky. After only about 20 minutes, we reached the first station. We thought, "wow, station 6 already?" but it wasn't. They got tricky with the stations throwing in a few 8 1/2s, a couple between 6 and 7. I never really knew where we were. That was the beauty of climbing at night though, we didn't have a giant mountain looming over us. I had no idea how far it was to the top and I like it that way. Just keep going til the sun comes up.

We'd climbed for awhile a long while, some parts just rocky gravel, other parts requiring your hands to climb over large boulders. There were parts where there was a chain "railing" along the side. Without that though, you could have walked right off the side of the mountain. When it got cloudy and foggy around station 7, it was even harder to tell where the trail edge was.

Every 30-40 minutes we stopped at a station hut where you could buy overpriced food and water. You could also get a station "stamp" which, to many Americans, is the ultimate Fuji souvenir. The stamps are wood burnings on your climbing stick with the altitude or station number or something that I don't know what it says. At 300 yen apiece, my stick became a somewhat pricey souvenir. But it's awesome!

We'd stop for snacks, to take some pictures, check for messages on the cell phones (for people with kids) and then press on before we got too cold. Inevitably someone would get cold and then 10 minutes later after we started walking, they'd remove the clothes they just put on. I did a lot of layering/unlayering throughout the climb.

Somewhere around 7 or 8, it started to drizzle a little. I was glad I had my rain jacket and pants. This is also where Mike lent me his hat. Thanks, Mike!

Just after station 8.5, we had made a reservation at a "rest house." For about $50, you get a place to sleep and eat dinner. We didn't get here til around 12:30 am so we missed dinner. No worries, I had my pizza! I'm pretty happy about it if you can't tell.

We had to get up around 2:00 am to hit the trail again to make it up to the top for sunrise. Since we were all jammed in to a small room like sardines, most people didn't get much sleep. There was a lot of giggling though. I managed to sleep for about 20 minutes til the alarm went off.

We slept 7 across and then Mike got the cot on the side. It was tight!

After we got up and got our boots back on, I used the bathroom for the first time on the mountain. I'll spare you the details, but lets just say it was the foulest thing I'd experience to date. I literally gagged and attempted to not throw up while using the bathroom. Awful.

We continued on in the dark. Slow and steady. Our group tended to spread out the further we got to the top. Some fast hikers and some slow hikers, but we managed to keep track of everyone (sans Bobbi who returned to the van after station 6 because her knee was hurting her).

Right around station 9, the sky started to lighten up so we decided to grab some seats for the show where it was less crowded. We were about 100 meters (vertically) from the top, but since it got more crowded it would take us about an hour. We didn't want to miss out on our good spot, so we parked it for awhile.

Time for some 4:30 am breakfast too.... more pizza!

Just as the sun started to peak over the clouds, the was a round of applause from all the Japanese people sitting around us. So funny.

The sunrise was breathtaking and worth every minute of pain on the wait up (I had blisters by station 6). It gave me the much needed motivation to keep going. Of course, by now when I'm writing this, I've forgotten most of the pain and think "I'd do that again" but the second I got off that mountain I said, "never again!"

After enjoying sunrise, we had another hour climb to the top. We enjoyed our prize, a bowl of ramen, used the foulest bathroom I've ever ever experienced, took some more photos and then headed back down after about an hour of rest.

 This is the crater at the top of Fuji-san which gives the mountain is characteristic flat top.

The trip down was more painful that the trip up, in my opinion. The gravel was looser and my knees were killing me by the end of the 3-hour decent.

We had switch back after switch back and they never seemed to end!

If you click on the picture, you can see the middle yellow line. We are at the point where the blue box is. Do you SEE all those zig zags. They went on forever.

Finally, we got to the end of the zig zags. Oh wait, not there yet. Oh station 6, almost! Finally, station 5 after what seemed like the longest 3 hours of my life. I was so happy to take off my boots and socks and dirty clothes.

20 hours after we started, I was back home. What a journey!