Mount Fuji

Well, as I write this latest blog, I am now firmly entrench back at home in the land of Oz. The last few weeks I spent in Japan were awesome and I was really torn about returning home, especially when my friends there didn't want me to leave. Its been almost a month since I've arrived back home and have even started back at work. I caught up on all my favourite things since being back including Vietnamese food, baskeball, family, friends and nando's.

Japan sometimes seems like a distant memory, especially in the last week when I've been back at work and doing the same thing as before I left. Ofcourse, keeping in touch with my friends from Japan and checking facebook certainly helps keep the memories of Japan fresh.

I still have a few blogs to write from my time in Japan. I know some people back home won't reading anymore, but for those who are still reading and for myself, I'll continue to post blogs.

********************************

I had always wanted to climb a big mountain and coming to Japan, Fuji was its highest mountain. Climbing had never seriously entered my mind but I certainly wanted to see it. After all our hikes in Ashikaga, I felt that I wanted to take the Fuji challenge and climb it. Cuz after all, how many people can say that they've climbed Fuji??? The safe climbing season for Fuji is really short, lasting between July and August, every year. As the start of the season was closely approaching, and school holidays making climbing the mountain a tourist nightmare, we decided that July 12th was the day to tackle the highest peak in Japan, all 3776m.

So we began to get ready, there's was talk about quitting smoking, doing some training before the climb, but non of those plans ever seemed to eventuate as we were pretty much too lazy. We prepared ourselves as best as we could, carrying plenty of fluids and some warm gear and a packed meal.

So the day came, and luckily we didn't have to get up too rediculously early as we were planning to trek the mountain in the evening coolness. It was another stinkin hot day in Japan being in the middle of summer. So we had to train to tokyo, then bus to Kawaguchiko Station, where we had to take another bus to the middle of Fuji to begin the climb. Now I know its cheating to be climbing from the middle, but it would have taken about 14hrs to climb from the bottom and most people started from the 5th station anyway. The goal in the end was just to reach the top of Fuji after all.

Artwork on the trains for Fuji

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.

After about an hour of trying to sleep, we decided to hike up to the top and see if there was more shelter from the cold up there. Climbing from the 9th station to the top seem to take an eternity to get to. I think it took longer as we had no idication of when we would reach the top as there were no lights. Previously, while working our way from the 5th to the 9th station, there were always the lights of the huts of the next station, so there was always a target to reach. The climb to the top just seemed like it took forever.

Finally after about 7hrs of climbing, we reached the top at about 2am, and still had about 2hrs to kill before sunrise. Unfortunately, there was no respite from the wind and cold and had to huddle around with the rest of the people up there. Walking around, and seeing all the people huddled into holes, behind rocks, in sleeping bags just made me think that this would be how a homeless colony would look like. It was quite a site.

Finally, the moment that we had been waiting for finally arrived ... tired, cold and hungry, I still mustered enough energy to see the sunrise, from all angles possible. After all, I didn't hike for 7 hours just to go back down again.

Here comes the sun, dooh um doo doo ....

The mouth of the crater in the middle of fuji and yes that is snow in the middle of the Japanese summer.

That's the sun if you didn't already know!

There was lots of people on top of Mount Fuji!

Nice piece of photography.

Looking over Tokyo and even further over Japan.

That line of brightly coloured ants you see, are more people trying to get to the top. Wow, lucky we climbed during the night, otherwise we would have been caught in a great log jam.

Walking down the mountain didn't prove to be as easy as we though, it was quite an ordeal actually. Firstly, because it was steep, we had to zig zag down the mountain which just makes the walk longer. That, coupled with the crumbly molton rock we had to walk on and try not to kill ourselves, took us about 4hours to get down.

A few of us bought a walking stick to help us up the mountain but at certain points on the climb, traversing huge boulders, the stick proved more of a hindrance than help. However, at many of the stations and huts we could get stamps for our sticks ... at 300yen a pop.

Wow, I climbed Fuji ... not many people can claim to have done that (well none of my friends in Australia anyway).