Memory: Mt. Fuji Climb

I decided couple days ago that I am going to start looking for a house to buy. The market here is favorable to buyers, and I'm sick of wasting money on rent. Being a nomad, I am somewhat nervous about locking myself into a mortgage. However, unless I come up with a realistic career alternative, I should plan on sticking around here at least couple of years. I am also sick of wasting money on rent. The main downside to buying tho is that it could mean I may not go on vacation for a while. To keep the blog going with some travel stuff, I'm going to have to dig up some pre-blog travel experiences to write about. This one will be on my Mt. Fuji climb.

I hiked the Mt. Fuji back in 1999 - I think (this is why I blog - so when I get alzheimers some day I can look back at the blog, if I remember I have a blog). I was living in Tokyo back then and was fortunate to have friends who were always organizing trips in and out of Japan. Of course, climbing Mt. Fuji is a must-do for everyone so we went.

The idea of the climb is usually to get to the summit in time for the sunrise. We left Tokyo in the evening and hopped on a bus that took us to Mt. Fuji. It dropped us off at the 5th station where you can buy supplies (e.g. walking stick, snacks, etc.) The 5th station is already part of the way up the mountains. Yes, (most) everyone cheats. Still, it's at least a 4-5 hr climb from there. Not exactly a pleasant climb either. We started around 10 at night. The trail is mostly gravel like, and zig-zags up the mountain in the dark (bring a torch.) In the beginning you have somewhat of a clear path, but as you get higher up the mountain, you start to realize just how many people climb this mountain. There are times when there are so many people, you have to wait to move up the path. At times, we climbed past other hikers by running up the side of the mountain around them.

There are several shops along the way where you can stop for a break and get some refreshments. I think some even have sleeping/resting areas for those who need it. If you bought a walking stick at the 5th station, you can also get it branded with the current height you're at for proof of your accomplishment. To this day, I keep the stick because, supposedly, a wise man will climb it once, but only a fool would climb it twice.

I got to the top probably an hour or two before sunrise. It was soooooo cold and windy up there!! It was my first hike, and I knew nothing about climbing, so I only had a sweatshirt and a windbreaker. My bf at the time and I huddled into a shop trying to stay warm. After the sun started coming up, I ran out to get a photo. It was so cold that we started running down the mountain as soon as we got our view. It was a beautiful view tho. We were lucky that the weather was fine this night. The sun came up over the clouds and in the foreground was a shrine. I imagined heaven would look like this if I ever made it there. But no time for appreciation - we were on our way down very quickly. We didn't even do the walk around the crater.

Going downhill sucked royally. I didn't do a very good job of tieing my shoelaces tight (again from lack of hiking experience) so my toes were hurting really bad. Within 2 hrs though we were back at the 5th station and waited for others who were behind us. (Most probably get down much faster.) I think if you are slow in the beginning, you could get stuck at the flight of stairs near the top (huge bottleneck). I remember as I went downhill there was a huge long queue of people waiting to get to the top. They had already missed their sunrise from the summit.

If you're thinking about climbing it yourself, here's another article on it with more info: http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020701446.html