Hello all, long time no blog! Not because I haven't been doing anything; on the contrary I've been doing quite a lot! These will all be covered in subsequent blogs, with the main delay in these being written being the fact that I have recently moved and am still without internet, which has slowed things down no end! This I am writing in between lessons at work, but you can expect a reasonable flurry of writing to take place over the next while - keep checking back!
Mt Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan, being 3776 metres high. It is a classic summertime adventure, with the mountain being open June-September; the times outside of this period being too cold and snowy for safe climbing. Several of my friends had already made the climb, and so it was natural that I wanted to see what the fuss was about!
Claire Viktor Olivia and I determined we would make the 'bullet climb' one Friday night (Bullet climb referring to an all night climb so as to catch the sunrise from the top). This involved a fair amount of logistics in terms of booking buses from Shinjuku, and also assessing whether we could go straight to the mountain, or instead if we had to go via a lakeside town to catch a second bus. Weekend climbs are very popular so bookings are eaten up very quickly, so we were careful to do this well in advance.
However as the day approached, the forecast was looking grim - rain, wind and potential thunder. Not wanting to climb in any of these conditions, we looked to climbing Saturday, though unfortunately it meant that it was just Viktor and I that would be climbing.
As we made the call quite close to the date of the climb, we weren't exactly spoilt for choice as to departure times from Shinjuku. This meant we were leaving at around 9am, and getting to the mountain around noon. Given we intended to start climbing from 10pm, this meant we were to have a LOT of time waiting - however as I say we were just happy to be able to book tickets at this point.
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| Only Japan would have a rollercoaster park at the base of the mountain |
Mt Fuji has several trails going up, with us taking the Yasuda trail. This is then divided into 8 stations, places where you can rest on the mountain, take shelter and so on. The fifth station is the last one accessible by road, and it a popular starting point, as well as place for people to visit (in wholly inappropriate clothing I might add) to say they've been to Mt Fuji, without actually climbing it. There's plenty of restaurants and shops, as well as a shrine and some hotels. As Viktor and I had plenty of time, we took a look around all of them, as well as stopping for a Mt Fuji curry, complete with a rice mountain erupting with pickles - very artsy!
Despite being still on the road, we were very high up already, with our views above the clouds, and some tremendous vistas below. It was also high enough for Viktor to be feeling the effects of altitude sickness, which I was fortunately unaffected by for the entire climb (one of the lucky 25%)
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| You can hire a horse to take you to the sixth station, or back from the sixth station to fifth on your descent |
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| Mimicking the statues pointing at the mountain |
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| Being Japan there is everything and anything available for sale, all Fuji branded - in this case a towel for toddlers... |
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| ...and this a t-shirt that when you lift it up, becomes Mt Fuji |
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| Despite being on the road, we were still very high up |
As the sun began to set, we sat down for an early dinner (not wanting to climb on a full stomach, in case altitude sickness struck), and we put on our warmer clothes in preparation.
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| Next time we would see this it would be peeking around the other side of the horizon |
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| Ready to go! |
The track was very well graded, all things considered, with rope railings along most of it, and at a very reasonable gradient for a good 60% of the time. That being said, there were times when we were climbing on all fours, scrambling up volcanic rock in the biting cold and insane winds. I was wearing a compression top, a merino base layer, merino jumper, down puffer jacket and a rain jacket (as a wind breaker) up top, and thermal long johns and gym pants, in addition to two layers of merino and possum socks, a merino scarf, gloves and hat, which kept me fairly comfortable, even if I looked something like a brown marshmallow. We made good use of the stations up the mountain to take a breather (we left earlier than initially thought -8 rather than 10, to account for altitude sickness in Viktor), and so we could also take longer breaks at the stations. This was good as we munched on seeds, nuts, dried fruit, chocolate and the like, as well as drinking copious amounts of water. Not that I felt hot, but I drank close to 4 litres of water up there and peed only once, so despite the chill we were sweating significant amounts. Shortness of breath wasn't as much of an issue as I thought, though you could definitely feel the air getting thinner; we were very chatty at the start but quickly became silent to focus on getting enough oxygen.
While we walked in torchlight, down below we could see the lights of the surrounding cities, including a fireworks show, and also the trail above and below us was covered in hundreds of dots of lights; the torches of people we were climbing with.
As sunrise came ever close (5.01am), we started upping our pace, overtaking people and scrambling up the path (sometimes off the path too in the case of Viktor...) The sky started getting lighter, and in doing so we were made aware just how high up we were.
And then, we were there! Greeted by a Torii gate, howling winds, and lots of celebrating Japanese, we had conquered Mt Fuji!
We were exhausted as could be, and I surprised my parents with a video call (they knew to expect a call from me at 5.20 in the morning, they just didn't know where I was/what I was doing) - though the wind was howling such a gale that half my words were lost. Viktor and I found a quiet place sheltered from the wind, where we had some celebratory cranberries and chocolate, before we began exploring the crater.
The crater looks desolate and very Mordor-esque, or like some moonscape,but if you walk around to the other side, you can climb a rock to the tallest point of the summit. Naturally we had to do this, and for the occassion had brought with us both a beer - Asahi. Asahi means morning sun in Japanese, and happens to be a beer brand as well, so very appropriate all round. This got some laughter from a bunch of surprisingly older climbers as we cheers'd them from the top of the top!
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| Cheers to that! |
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| For a few moments I was the highest person in Japan, at 3777.8 metres |
We spent a bit longer admiring the view, now the sun was fully up and illuminating everything, and then began our descent - less than 2 hours down as opposed to around 8 hours up (with breaks). Then it was a matter of getting changed into some cleaner clothes, and waiting for our bus back - in which we promptly fell asleep.
It was an awesome experience to climb, and one I want to do again next season, so check back in 12 months for some more mountain photography! But come back sooner for some other blogs, there's going to be a few coming up real soon....
Til then, tata!
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