Mounting Fuji
To celebrate my 23rd birthday I felt something big was in order. I decided on climbing a mountain. Actually it’s not quite a mountain but more a volcano. A really big volcano. Saturday morning Katie, Maureen and I got on a plane to Tokyo. We figured that once we got there everything would just fall into place. This is my way of travelling, I figure the more I research and look into things the more stressful trips can be with trying to get to everything in the lonely planet. But in this case it backfired. The official climbing season is July to august. This is when they say the weather is the best for the climb; this is also when the different station’s huts are actually open. We got to the airport around 2pm. We didn’t know it at the time but a Korean television star, from boys before flowers, was on our flight. Getting out of immigration we arrived to a giant paparazzi mess, along with hundreds of fans. After realizing what was actually going on we went with it and acted like celebrities as well. We originally thought we would have enough time to check into our hostel, drop off our stuff and then head off to the mountain to begin our climb around 10pm. We soon found out that would be impossible. We needed to take a bus to a central location within the city. Then take a bus close to the mountain, then another bus to the 5th station where the majority of people begin the climb. We started our journey there in good spirits. The buses were on time and we even had a bit of time in the Shinjuku area to grab some KFC – where in Tokyo you can get a beer with your set –visit the local electronic markets and arcade and then we were ready to get going. Upon arrival at the next bus station we discovered the bus up to the 5th station didn’t exist yet. We were too early, one week early to be exact. We tried to get as much information out of the lady at the help desk as possible but the only English she seemed to know was “no”. No to train, no to car, no to bus. They had those toys that you can write on with a magnetic pen then erase saying if you had language difficulties this would help you out. She did not find our “we need a bus, like no” message amusing. Luckily there were two other travelers that had not done their research either. We managed to grab a taxi and paid $128 dollars (split) to take us up to the 5th station. We had a few friends that had climbed Fuji the year before so we went to them for advice. They told us that it was cold and at some points in time very hard in the dark. We thought we were good to go with our new headlamps. At the 5th station it was already about 10 degrees. We were in shorts and t-shirts. Walking into the main building we definitely got some funny looks from those decked out in full out winter gear.
After we changed and unloaded some of our excess weight we were ready to go. We decided to purchase some walking sticks more for entertainment value at first but later on discovered they were an important part of this journey. After putting on a few more layers we were ready to go. We started off on what we thought was a good start, until we discovered we had not turned where we were supposed to and started our descent down. After back tracking and getting on the right trail we were golden.
We were not the most unprepared people on the mountain that night. We ran in to an American boy, a junior at a school in Japan, who was way worse off than us. We called him DuPont. We first saw him at the 6th station wearing only jeans and a sweatshirt. This was also all he had packed for the entire trek. He told us he thought it was an hour, two-hour max leisurely walk up winding paths and stairs. He had no idea what was in store for the next 8 hours.
Getting up the volcano is divided into stations. As I mentioned before you typically start at the 5th station. This is out of the bush and already about half way up the mountain. The stations range from one hour to almost 2 hours apart, and there are 9 main stations. There are also random shops selling anything from water to snickers to beer up the mountain. There are also many huts that people who want to shell out 50 dollars to sleep sardine style to break up their hike. We opted out of staying in the huts mostly for economic reasons. Also to make us feel more hard-core about the whole thing.
We ran into DuPont every hour or so. Some of his best lines were “are we back to this back and forth shit”, “this better be the 8th station” (said just after the 6th, the 8th was about 4 hours away) and the best…just “fuck”. Some of the trails were make shift stairs, or just the rocks that had been walked on enough that they formed stair like structures. The other parts were either loose volcanic ash and rocks or steep, jagged rock. I don’t know which one was worse. The lose rocks had zero traction. With each step you would slide back an inch or two, which starts to add up over the hours. And the other rock defiantly made this an adventure. When out friend told us at time you have to use your hands I thought she was just being funny. She was not. The walking sticks came in handy in these parts. As we were going up we all were thinking how awful it would be to come down this way as well. More of those thoughts to come later…
We were making good time, stopping at each station briefly to catch our breath and acclimatize. We couldn’t stay still for too long though, it obviously was getting colder as we were getting higher. We would huddle together sharing body heat until we were ready to keep on going. Around 2am we reached the 9th station. This was about the time when I was seeing imaginary squirrels running around the rocks, and Katie had taken a power nap in the bathroom. We got to a hut that was serving food and drinks. This was another one of our blessings. We all shared a 7-dollar ramen noodle bowl – they can clearly charge what ever they want 3000 feet up – and stayed warm for about an hour. We did not want to start our climb up to the summit because the whole point to get up there is to see the sunrise and that wasn’t going to happen until 4:30. We chatted with some other people, met up with DuPont again and then around 3 took off to finish our climb, well the climb up. Around this time was the flood of people trying to get to the summit to see the sunrise. Many people had started their climb the Saturday afternoon and were just waking up from a warm sleep and going up. There was a gridlock for the last hour of the climb. I could not imagine how busy it would be during the peak times. What could have taken one hour was almost 2.
We made it up to the summit finally 10 minutes before the sunrise was supposed to happen. Although, we only saw it for about a second. The clouds were too thick and it was snowing up there so the sun was not visible, actually nothing was visible. But it was still a release to be up on the top of the volcano. After celebrating for about 10 minutes we all agreed it was time to get the hell off the top and down to the warmth. I’m guessing it was about 10 below at the top. Not at all comfortable for someone in just a few layers of clothes. On the descent down from the summit there was another gridlock. The path is wide enough for about 1.5 people. This is difficult for those wanting to come up, as well as those rushing to get down. So we had to wait in the blizzard inching down one at a time.
So another part that we did not research was the fact that the train down would not be open for another two weeks. That meant that we had to go down the exact same way we came up. Scaling rocks is not so bad. Trying to climb down them after scaling them for 8 hours is not so fun. The descent was by far the worst part of it. We were bailing all over the place. Because of the volcanic ash it was extremely slippery and I'm not the most coordinated to begin with so I was falling a lot. After watching some of the Japanese passing me for the first 4 stations I learned that if you sort of trot and keep the momentum going you will fall less. So I began to trot down the rest of the way.
We finally made it back to the 5th station around 10 am. We were guessing our old friend DuPont may still be up on that mountain somewhere. I can only hope that he did not need to be airlifted off of Fuji. That made it about a 14 hour round trip for us. Looking back it was an awesome experience and something I’ll always remember, but you could not pay me enough money to do it again.
We were fortunate enough to grab a bus back into the city directly without having to transfer 3 times. Japans subway system is rather confusing and it took us a while to understand just how to get to where our hostel was. Being new to the hostel experience I did not know what to expect. We showed up at the building with a piece of paper taped to the wall with the name written in yellow highlighter. That was our first cluing it was not going to be pretty. The owner was by far the sketchiest person I've come across in my travels. After a quick shower and rest we wanted to see a little bit of the city. We all really wanted to go to the harajuku district to see some crazy stuff. We walked around and found some interesting outfits and had some photo ops with some of the girls, and boys there. We then found another park, which was the complete opposite of Korea. People were out enjoying themselves and living without conformity. It was a nice change. At the entrance of the park there were these Elvis impersonators who were drinking and dancing. Nothing too impressive but entertaining at least. At this point we were all exhausted all we wanted to do was find some sushi and get some sleep. It was surprisingly hard to find sushi place, but when we did it was amazing.
All in all Japan was awesome. Imp sure ill be happier about it when I can walk properly again. But here are some tips for those attempting the climb
1. Do you research? Looking up what to pack and expect 20 minutes before leaving for the airport wont cut it
2. Make sure there is an actual bus going up there, taxis are ridiculous expensive
3. Make sure the descending trail is actually open. It may be fun going up the rocks, but going down is torture
4. Pack accordingly. Its cold, not its July at night cold. It’s as cold as the dead of a winter’s night cold. A sweatshirt and jeans are not going to cut it
5. Headlamps are the greatest invention ever
