Mt. Fuji: Child's Play

While most, non-foolish, people decide to hike up Mt. Fuji over the course of two days, we chose to do a "bullet climb". The reasoning behind the two day climb would be to acclimate to the drastic elevation change as well as not having to hike through the thick of night. Being the fools we are, we wanted to save a few bucks by not paying for lodging on the mountain. 

After our fantastic hostel scheduled the round-trip bus trip for us, we just had to get to the bus station 20 minutes before the ship sailed to pay for the tickets. Due to the planning fallacy, we optimistically assumed that we could leave our hostel at 5 pm to make it to the station and purchase the tickets before 5:55 pm. From the wording above, maybe you picked up that we did not get the timing quite right. After a few frantic run-ins with information booths we made it to the ticket counter with only minutes to departure. Lucky for us, the reservation came through (unlike the train through China, yeah I'm still bitter, Hillary). 

Two and a half hours later we arrived at the 5th station on Mt. Fuji, the standard starting point for climbers. There are four different route options starting from the 5th Station. This can be confusing as there are equally as many 5th stations. Our bus happened to arrive at the Fuji Subaru 5th Station which means we only had one option up, the most popular route, the Yoshida Trail (seen in yellow below). 

Rolling with the punches, we changed our plan of taking the Subashiri trail (seen in red above) and began up the Yoshida Trail; After purchasing a couple handy, dandy walking sticks of course. With these wooden staffs sold at the 5th Station, we could purchase stamps to be burned into them at the stations on the way up to the peak. What a cool piece of memorabilia at the end of the hike!

As told by many blogs and informative websites, the Yoshida Trail should take between 5-7 hours. Beginning at 8:40 pm, armed with our dollar store flashlights and new walking sticks we marched up the tallest mountain in Japan. Standing at 3776 meters (12,389 ft), Mt. Fuji is also one of the best representations of a cone volcano on Earth; it also happens to be an active volcano with its most recent eruption in 1707 (Nick thinks it's due).

 (Disclaimer: Not Mt. Fuji)

Enough history and more climbing! Prepared by internet standards, we hiked up with food/water, pants, long sleeve t-shirt, rain jacket, short sleeve t-shirt, long socks, spare socks, running shoes and dollar store gloves and flashlight. As we soon came to find out, we were a bit under prepared. This lack of preparation grew tenfold when I found that Nick, a sufferer of asthma, left his inhaler at the hostel! 

Due to our athletic backgrounds, Nick and I were rather confident in our climbing capabilities (besides the whole asthma thing). Higher and higher we climbed, stopping at as many stations we could to gather stamps on our walking sticks. A couple hours in we hit Station 8, the last option to pay to stay warm, sleep, eat and wait to go to the top. Since we were planning on bullet climbing and only had money for stamps, we pressed on. 

This is where things got difficult. Now 3100 meters high, the air was now much thinner than where we had first started. Reaching the peak also happens to be the steepest portion of the climb due to the conical shape. Zig after zag we slowly made our way up, stopping at every other zag to catch our breaths: Nick now wheezing. After all this, we came to find out we just hiked to the original 8th station at 3400 m high. All that climbing and still technically at Station 8?!

Trekking on, only stopping for whatever stamp stations were still open, we began to see a couple lights at the Summit. Yet after every turn, it seemed as though we weren't getting any closer. Pressing on, we reached the next station at 1:15 am, 4 hours after beginning our ascent. Believing this was station 9 we asked a nearby station worker how much longer to the summit, to which he replied this is the summit! How anticlimactic is that? 

Impressed by our time, a whole hour less than the lowest estimate, we found a few benches to lie-down get some rest. Unfortunately, our fast turnaround meant that we now had to wait 3 hours until sunrise. This is when we realized our supplies were subpar. We shivered for the longest 3 hours of our lives. After being drenched in sweat to now waiting in freezing temperatures, hypothermia was a serious risk. Falling in and out of restless sleep on the wet benches, we could only hope for the sun's warmth to hit us soon. 

About an hour in, Nick's toes began to go numb so he walked around the station looking for any warmth he could find. Sneaking into the station, standing by a man using a fire to brand his products, etc. only to be shooed away everywhere he went. Apparently, he spent most of his time in the restroom to keep warm while I froze my butt off outside, selfish. I was able to keep most of my extremities warm by constantly moving my fingers and toes. Headphones and uplifting music are what got me through the freeze on Mt. Fuji. 

I finally decided to uncurl from the fetal position around 3:37am to see many people have joined me on the surrounding benches. Looking to the East, I saw the faintest glimpse of light. Frantically,  I looked around for Nick as I wanted to hike up a little further for a better view and less people around. Of course Nick was not to be found as he was regaining warmth in the restroom.

Finally he joined me outside where we walked uphill, away from the rest of the tourists. I sure am glad we did so because it made for some amazing views: on one side we overlooked the colorful sun rising over a sea of billowing clouds and on the other was the crater of an active volcano! Below are some pictures of the sunrise,us as well at a 360 degree time-lapse video. 

After witnessing easily one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen, we took the trail around the rim of the crater to see all of the surrounding views. We even dipped down into the crater a bit on this trail i.e. inside an active volcano! 

Anyway, we got our fix of Mt. Fuji and began our descent. What a painful time on our knees. It almost seemed to be easier to hike up for 4 hours than going down in 2. Truly rough on our bodies, Nick even took a little spill on the loose lava rock. He was in good company though, we witnessed many people eat it on the way down. 

So concluded our trek through the night, a total of 6 hours of hiking. Much less than we were expecting, our only complaint being under prepared for the cold waiting for us at the summit. No altitude sickness in our short ascent/descent, weather was better than anticipated, once again we lucked out on our foolish adventures. Only a few more days left, not only in Tokyo but on our trip. We plan to make the best of it and hope to send out another interesting blog experience soon. Until then, I hope you enjoyed Mt. Fuji!