The bus trip up, with the image of what we were going to attempt. Wow, that's a long way.
One last pic as we prepared to tackle the great mountain. We set off at about 5.30pm. Look how happy we still all are ... that would all change soon enough!
As we head off the sun was slowly setting and the clouds were slowly engulfing the mountain.
Soon enough we were in the thickness of the clouds. Trying not to lose each other only 10mins into our climb, we decided not to play hide and seek ... "John, Clarence, Mike ... where are you F@%kers!"
If the prospect of climbing Fuji hadn't daunted us yet, surely the bad Japanese translation of our impending death would have scared us.
At the 6th Station we were well and truely in the clouds, it was really cool to be so high but still not close to the top!
A moment of reflection and whether or not I really wanted to climb the mountain. Some of you will know that I'm not a big climber, in fact I wine and whinge at doing the thousand steps. But being outdoors in Japan, climbing several of Ashikaga's finest mountains and riding a bike up the siden of a mountain everyday certainly prepared me better for this challenge.
Sunset over the clouds.
A look further up the mountain shows the 7th station, dotted with little huts for meals and sleeping. Through our research, we had read that food on the mountain huts were really expensive, so it was best to bring your own. However, as we approached and sourced prices, we found that it wasn't terribly expensive. I mean it was about 800yen ($8) for a bowl of ramen or karee raisu (curry rice) and sure it may have been packet noodles or not the best tasting food. But as the cold set in, hot food was looking really good. And it saves you from having to carry a bunch of food up there. This was significant as I was carrying atleast an extra 6kgs in my backpack, mostly taken up two 2lt bottles of drink. I was to find out later that as it was freezingly cold the higher we got and climbing at night ... I didn't actually need that much!
The seventh station and 2700m above sea level. At this point here we started to rug up and setting sun took its heat with it and left some fairly gusty wind and cold.
The big chunks of rock that we had to traverse while heading up the mountain. The nice Japanese also painted big arrows to show hikers the way.
Torii gate, quick prayer and move on ...
Yes, its getting very cold and windy at this point. And yes, they are socks on Clarence's hands!
Some of us are trying to muster a smile at this point. Its getting miserably cold now, we're tired, been climbing for about 4hrs, its about 10pm and the altitude sickness is setting in. We had all thought that the altitude wouldn't have been a problem and laughed at people buying cans of oxygen at the bottom. Breathing actually did start to get more difficult, especially if you were hunched over. I started losing my balance and felt really light headed at certain points on the climb. I felt that my centre of gravity was really thrown off and attributed this to the alititude.
9th Station, getting higher ... 3,400m above sea level.
At the 9th station as it was about 11pm, so we decided to eat some food and have a bit of a sleep. Having a gale force wind blowing at you, made sleeping a little difficult, but the boys tried and ducked into any little hole to shelter. I, on the other hand couldn't sit still for more than 5mins, as I would start shaking uncontrollably. So I stood near a little shop selling hot drinks for warmth. Now, we could have slept in one of the many huts that littered the mountain, but at 7000 yen ($70) for about 4-5hrs and huddled on the floor next to about 15-20 people, didn't seem like the most comfortable idea. However, after sitting in the cold ... we were willing to give up 7000yen, but you have to book these places.