Mount Fuji

Last weekend, the chance had finally come to pursue an endeavor that I had long wished to: Climbing Japan's highest mountain, Mt. Fuji (which in Japanese is called Fuji-san, NOT Fuji-yama!).
The near-perfectly shaped mountain, at 3776 meters, is quite majestic, being the only noteworthy elevation in its surrounding flatland. No wonder it is subject of countless tales and legends and has become an almost mythical symbol of Japan. While probably more astonishing from afar than close-up, we, that is 4 Germans, 1 Japanese, 1 Chinese-American, and 1 Indonesian, set out to conquer the mountain. The plan was to reach the summit at sunrise. This is our story.

Five of us took the night bus from Osaka to arrive near Mt Fuji Friday morning where we were supposed to meet the others. After some wait and confusion, we found out that there were actually two stations with almost the same name, Fuji-san-eki, and Fuji-eki. And that we had been waiting at both stations, which are more than 4 hours apart, on opposite sides of the volcano! This meant we were already late before even having started to climb, but we made the best of our situation and went on a little road-trip while waiting for the others to arrive. There are several scenic spots for viewing Mt. Fuji, here are some pictures:

In the late afternoon, we were finally eager and ready to go. We took the bus up to an elevation of about 2300 meters, bought some last supplies (snacks, drinks, and postcards), and off we went. The beginning of the hike went rather smoothly, without any major difficulties. We reached our mountain hut surprisingly fast, it took probably less than 2 hours. The staff was very friendly, one lady even spoke a little English. After eating our curry-dinner, the plan was to sleep for about 5 hours and then continue our hike again. However, this plan didn't work out very well since it was still early evening and none of use was able to sleep for more than an hour. So, we just rested a bit, and then took off around midnight.

By now the weather had gotten considerably worse: It got fairly cold, but even worse, it had started to rain and storm. Along with the fact that we couldn't see much with our tiny flash lights, and the terrain got more difficult, this made for quite an adventure. It was very slippery, so we couldn't proceed very fast. As we were ascending, the weather continued to get worse, until after several hours we finally decided to seek shelter in another mountain hut. Here, we were told that it was to dangerous to proceed to the summit just yet, because of heavy winds and snow! They said we shouldn't try to go up there and see the sunrise. Fortunately this hut belonged to the same owner as the hut before, so we were considered their guests and welcome to sleep there without further charge.

We woke up around 8 the next morning, to find out that while our clothes had not dried at all, the rain had stopped. Occasionally the clouds would even clear up, allowing us to enjoy a breath-taking view, as well as to take some pictures:

Although the wind was still very cold, especially given our wet clothes, we decided to begin our final ascend. According to the signs, it was just over 1 km to the top. This didn't sound too bad, but was actually very misleading, as it still took about 2.5 hours to finally get there! As we got closer to the summit, it got colder, the path got narrower, and also for some reason the crowds got bigger. At the end we even had to wait in line for a little while, but then we finally reached the top! The view was truly magnificent up there, it didn't matter that it was partially cloudy. Also, we had a chance to look at the crater:

I should also mention how it came to the last picture: Before our ascend, we were at a restaurant, where a drunk guy apparently thought we could need some shavers. So, he went to a store, bought an electric shaver for each of us, and just gave them to us! Of course we all had our own shavers with us, so the best use we could think of was to take this picture at the top!

In any way, there is less to say about the way back down. It went considerably faster, although I would say that in the end it was much harder on my legs than going up. We arrived back at the fifth station in afternoon. It was a Saturday, and we were surprised about the big crowds coming towards us. So I concluded it was a very good decision to choose a Friday for climbing up, not a Saturday!

After all, it was a very memorable trip. As they say, every person should climb Mt Fuji once in their lives, but only a fool would do it twice!