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This was a tough climb. I wasn’t expecting it to go on for so long. I knew it was a mountain, but it was colder and steeper than expected. We had a group of 44, only myself and one other guy were foreigners. There was a very enthusiastic guide who kept us all together very well and seemed very authoritative and experienced despite my not understanding anything he said. There was also a helper who stayed at the back of the group, the whip. He said he did about 4 tours a week to the top. He also said that there was a competition for the fastest climb and last to win was a New Zealander in 2:50hrs. Ridiculous considering we did it in 7 hours over two days! The first day was the toughest, we did 5 hours of climbing after a bus ride to the 5th station (of 8). This is most of the way up Mt Fuji, with 500 vertical metres to go I think. It was a fairly easy boring start with us snaking along the side of the mountain pretty much horizontally before beginning to switchback our way up. The rock was pumice, dark red and not very dense. It was an ugly mountain to be honest. There were no trees, just all of this strange pumice in small pieces everywhere. I remember not being very impressed at one point although that was a combination of the toughness of the climb no doubt and the fact I could not really communicate with anyone in the group as I’d forgotten all the Japanese I stopped learning a decade ago.
Anyway, there were a series of huts we came across on our slog to the top. The guide websites said that food/drink prices increase with each hut, and they’re right! It got to the point where a bottle of water was Y600! Considering they’re Y100 in a convenience store in town, that’s a lot. There is a ring of cloud around the mountain about 200m from the top. When we started the climb we were below it, then spent a few hours climbing in it. Finally when it cleared it began to feel like our hard work was paying off. We were rewarded with a vista of what seemed like half of Japan, at least to the east and south (panoramas are here). We could essentially see from Tokyo to the Izu peninsula. It was a nice feeling being able to survey the parts of the country I was planning on riding through in the coming days. Soon after resuming climbing I noticed the altitude… the air was thinner and I was having to breathe harder. About 10 minutes later I began to feel a headache. This persisted until we reached the top of the mountain. Thankfully it didn’t turn into full blown altitude sickness like I had in Tibet! There’s not much to explain about the climb that can’t be seen in the pictures except it was a long trudge and I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I was impressed with the discipline of the tour leader, his pace was glacial but calculated well to keep the group together and feeling like they could make it.
It was interesting comparing myself and the other western guy with the Japanese tour members. They’d all come equipped for a full blown hiking trip with requisite lightweight pants, hiking boots, gators, many had aluminium walking poles and most had impressive backpacks. The other western guy wore just a t shirt all the way up to the hut where we slept. This was impressive given that it was about 5 degrees. Neither of us had impressive hiking boots or backpacks, in fact I only bought a cheap $20 Uniqlo faux down jacket (sleeveless) the day before as I suspected it may be a little chilly. When we reached 5th station to start the hike I realised it’d be a little colder and windier than I’d expected so I went and bought a beanie, gloves and a wind jacket… still nothing like how well equipped everyone else was. But I think most had hired their gear, one way to tell being that they all had gators on, when you only need those really when heading through thickets to keep the crap out of your boots. We, however, started climbing from above the tree line and there was a well-worn path all the way up. I think the people they hired from just gave them a standard hiking fitout. Although in all fairness I guess gators would be useful for keeping small rocks out of one’s big hiking boots. Which, btw, looked rather new for most hikers so I hope no one got too bad blisters. My Asics sneakers served me well, having been broken in on the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker Brisbane ;-)
So, around dark we came upon Hut 8 and slept the night. Everything was very well prepared with food and a sleeping bag for everyone. I slept from about 7:30pm although this wasn’t that early given how exhausting the climb was and the fact we’d be rising at 2:30am for the final climb to catch the sunrise. The sunrise was stunning. It was so well worth it. I’ve never put in this much effort to catch a sunrise before. I was very impressed with all the planning of the tour operators, we got there with 20 minutes to go before the sun came up, giving us plenty of time to walk around the crater a bit to get the best viewing point and snap a few pics of the sky before the sun came up (panoramas are here). Finally I met a few other English speakers, a few Americans who’d been climbing since about 8:30pm the previous night. I’d read that this was another way to do it to catch the sunrise… they said they’d have to sprint back down the mountain in 3hrs though to get their bus!
The funniest thing that happened during the sunrise was a fellow tour member had climbed the mountain in a suit and proceeded to pose in front of the rising sun checking his watch! The coolest thing that happened was I posed with one of the SOTM 2012 banners that I won at auction a couple of days before when the conference finished. Heaps of conference attendees liked it on the FB group so that was nice to share with everyone. It was great being at the top of the mountain (panorama)… we got to walk all around the crater, which wasn’t all that impressive. There were a few snow remnants from last winter but no molten lava or anything ;-) The coolest thing was when we reached the northern side there was a shadow of Mt Fuji cast for many kilometres into the distance (panorama). I got a few photos of the same on the southern side the day before on the way up. It was amazing seeing how far it stretched and made me wonder how aware of it the people were living in its path.
So… that’s pretty much it, we then zoomed back down the mountain and bused it back to Tokyo. I should mention that there were many little caterpillar utes crawling up and down the mountain. Most had rubber tracks although there were a few older ones with full on metal treads rumbling by. It made me think of all the different types of jobs there are in the world. Imagine climbing Mt Fuji as a tour guide 4 times a week, or driving a caterpillar up and down doing maintenance work on the huts. The last thing I should mention is we went to a onsen on the way back. This is a communal bath where we all got naked. I’ve never done anything like this before and wasn’t planning on it just because I was in Japan. However, given everyone else on the tour happily jumped in I thought why not. The weirdest thing was the shower. You sat down on a stool in front of this …contraption which, after sufficient k*** twiddling and pawing produced a stream of water… for 2 seconds. Turns out I was not pushing down far enough on the lever, which thankfully I was able to work out after more frenzied button mashing and so avoid the embarrassment of having a …naked person come over and have to show me, naked. It was all good, I really enjoyed the hot bath and had another couple on my moto trip at various guesthouses.
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