My friend Rick had been planning on climbing Mt. Fuji and so had I, so 2 weeks ago, we decided to do it together with a outdoor recreation tour. The tour left the base at around 5pm on Friday and we starting hiking climbing Mt. Fuji at around 7:50 PM. I really did think it was going to be a hike similar to my hike up Pikes Peak in 2002. Alas, there was much more climbing type activity than I’d figured. The hike starts at station 5 and ends at station 10 at the peak. We took breaks at each station along the way and also at other spots as needed. Did I mention this hike was at night and in the dark? Oh yeah, we did the night hike. The idea is that you hike up at night and are at the peak in time for the sun rise. It’s a big thing here in Japan and at this time of year, about every single member of the population decided to climb it with us. It was crazy.
We both bought hiking sticks at station 5 with the idea being that you can get stamps burned into your sticks along the way. Each stamp costs about 300 yen and in total you can get around 37 stamps if you want. Rick and I decided to mostly get the stamps from the stations and to only get others if they were interesting. I think I ended up with around 9 or 10 stamps.
The first part of the ascent, station 5 -6, was pretty easy. It was a nice hike. Station 6 - 7 was a bit harder and we started getting in to more rock climbing. It’s not vertical, but it’s not hiking either. You’re climbing up rocks sometimes on all 4’s. By the time we reached station 7 I was dripping with sweat and definitely needed a break. This whole time I’d been wearing shorts and an underarmor t-shirt. During our rest at station 7 I put on a wind breaker, but didn’t need to zip it. I wore this the rest of the way up the mountain. From station 7 - 8 it got a little easier and turned back into more of a hike again. However, the hiking conditions for the rest of the climb were not on dirt, but on lava rocks. Sometimes, this could be VERY slippery. Station 8 to 8 wasn’t bad either, but we started running in to a LOT of people and it turned into a serious traffic jam. There is no station 9, only two station 8’s. Weird huh? A tiny bit up from station 8 there is the Fuji Hotel. We stopped there and got some Ramen noodles to help us finish that final leg. That last leg was again a combination of rock climbing and hiking. With the traffic jam I mentioned, it took us a LOT longer to finish than it should have, hence the fact that we just barely made it to the top before sunrise. I decided that no matter what, that I was going to make it. We did.
We reached the summit at around 4:15 AM, again, just in time to see the sun rise. Man oh man were we tired. After the sun came up we hiked around the summit and looked into the crater. It was amazing.
This climb was probably one of the hardest single events that I’ve done in my life. It was totally worth it and I am still very happy with my decision to do it. My feet aren’t messed up too bad even. On the way down the slippery hills caused the backs of my heel to blister. Otherwise, I came through 100% ok. :-)
I was dead asleep on the bus ride home, and almost missed a call from Sharron. She’d landed at Narita airport and would be arriving home at about the same time as me. She’s back now and it’s wonderful! :-)
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