Climbing Mt. FUJIIIIII

July 26th and 27th, 2014. What a fantastic two days. And oh my, the pain. It was wonderful!

Mitch, Marlene, and I formed Fuji-san Dantai (Mt. Fuji Club, sorta), and climbed the damned mountain in 23 hours. It took so so long! I’m so grateful I got to do it, and with two perfect humans, too.

There are plenty of ways to climb Fuji. Stay on the mountain in a cabin with other travelers, climb in the day, sleep at the top and wake for sunrise, or do what we did, like the nutters we are, and climb through the night so you get to the top for the sunrise. Or at least, that’s the goal!

First things first; a bus to the fifth station. About half way up. You get some extra things from the shop that you might need on the journey, like oxygen for the other two, and souvenirs.

First glimpse of Fuji on the bus!

That’s where we are going… doesn’t look too far…

Sunset… ready to start climbing overnight

Gorgeous sunset

We are so ready!

And so; the climb begins! It starts as a big long walk on relatively flat ground from the 5th station to the 6th. I think by the time we got there we had an inkling of what was to come, but we still had plenty of energy. You get to all these little waystations along the route, and by the second I decided I wanted a souvenir. Marlene had bought this big walking stick on which you get all the stamps of the waystations burned… So I got a mini version. The route had three main sections that I remember; zigzag uphill pumice pebble paths which for some reason were super hard for me. Rock climbing, which was hard for Marlene, and the top with the altitude, which was hard for Mitch. But the enveloping dark was just amazing; I knew we were in for a beautiful sunrise but I never even thought that we’d be able to see the freakin’ Milky Way. Obviously no photos of that, but one hell of a memory.

This is how our path started! Pitch black.

6th station!

Can you see all the humans?

7th station

I decided to get a little souvenir stick. The sign in the background shows all the waystations

Still climbing

8th!

It was cold. But amazing

Because we were so slow at climbing (even a guy in shorts and flip flops passed us… what?!?!), we didn’t quite make the top for the sunset. But in a way, it was great, because we were on this little shelf with only 4 other humans around. We essentially had a private sunset experience. I hear they play funny music and stuff at the top, and if it’s all crowded then I think I prefer what we had 🙂

Just starting to rise

Look at that scenery. Isn’t it incredible?

Just to prove we were there!

One of my favourite pictures ever.

The other 4 humans we shared our shelf of the mountain with

Making the Mt. Fuji club symbol in the sunrise light.

Naptime.

Once we’d rested and taken in the full glory of the sunrise, we started towards the top again. We were pretty darn tired by this point. We’d left in the afternoon the day before and had been climbing since about 7pm, so by the 4am sunrise we had been going for 8 hours of climbing and the travelling few hours before that too. But the summit awaited and we were excited!

Once the sun had risen

Pretty dead by this point!

We had about an hour’s nap here.

The pressure was fun!

A sight to remember.

Once we had had our nap, we finally made it to the top! Mitch and Marlene didn’t get on with the altitude so much so they had a bit of a rest in one of the open buildings full of benches. I really wanted to see the crater though so I went for a bit of an adventure. The loos were fun; you shoot a water gun at your pee to make it go away! The vending machines were wonderfully hilarious. The crater itself was beautiful and boy did I want to climb down into it but I didn’t quite have the energy.

Once I got back to the others, someone told me it was worse for altitude sickness to sleep and I had better wake Mitch up. He was NOT a happy bunny. He made it up, but he needed to go back down pretty darn fast once we woke him up. Marlene and I bought some souvenirs and then took a photo or two and we all started back down.

Not exactly pathed.

Sticking coins in the wood. For whatever reason!

We made it!!!!

Fuji-san Dantai!

Top of the mountain snap

The rest building

Ready to go for the crater!

Dying a bit…

Crater map

Vending machines at the top of the 3776 metre mountain.

Don’t worry, there’s not pee.

The crater!

Such an amazing view.

Crater selfie!

Poor Mitch was not doing so good on the way down. I took his rucksack and we went as fast as we could, but darn it was hard going. The pumice pebbles mean you’re always sliding, the downhill means your feet slide forward in your boots and your toes hurt, and I remembered to put suncream on the others but didn’t do my own face…. a mistake I will never forget! Tomato anyone? But it was still beautiful going down. The view was amazing obviously, and the sense of accomplishment was pretty awesome.

The zigzag pebble path that goes aaaaaalllllllll the way down.

Snow!

We took a good long rest here.

Weird creepy tunnel thing.

So nearly home!

What a brilliant way to spend two days. We managed to figure out the bus home, and the trains… and the walk. I think this is going to be one of those very few experiences where I can say I was utterly, utterly, exhausted. And sunburnt to a crisp! I once heard that there’s a saying about climbing Mt. Fuji: you’re a fool if you never climb it, but you’re an even bigger fool if you do it twice! I think I’m that bigger fool, because I definitely want to do it again.

Already showing the burn. Please try and imagine how tired we were after 23 hours of climbing!

Mitch was much ahppier on the ground!

My fun fuji shirt

“Summit Human” or “Superhuman” depending on if you read this using the sound or the characters.

Once I’d gotten all my badges burnt in!

Blisters on my chin and nose….

My bucket list has a new tick!

 

A Bit of Fuji Q and Harajuku

One of the things I desperately wanted to do for my birthday in 2014 was go to an amazing theme park called Fuji Q. But of all the days that year… They closed the park on that one day! How mean eh?

We went a bit later anyway, and although it was far smaller a group than I planned, it was incredible. Bekah, Karen and I made our way to the park around 4.30am on May 14th (the journey was long and we didn’t want to miss a single ride). The best parts were the terrifying haunted house (they only chase you if you run…. We bloody ran), and the insane coaster called Eejanaika. I haven’t ever been so completely unsure if I’m upright or upside down! It is a must do for any thrill seekers. The best part, is that Mt. Fuji is right there; you are literally spinning upside down with a mountain about to fall on your head.

4am, lets go!

Just to prove I woke up this early…

Mountain!!

Fuji train

Bekah perhaps regretting her life choices

How cool is that? Fuji just right there

Just in case you get all the way to the seat and can’t put the bar down 😛

Haha… oops. Yeah we were definitely breaking that rule!

The horror house

Nothing creepier than old hospitals.

All smiles now, yeah….

I may have bruised Bekah by holding her….

Missed XD

Love you Bekah

Had this crepe like 3 times; so tasty!

mad

sad

sad

mad!

This was the mega dis-orientater

Horror house pic!

 

Obviously the next thing I did was karaoke with Marlene! And a few days later we went to Harajuku, bought some amazing wigs, and generally had an amazing time. I even tried beef tongue… so weir but tasty!

Deciding on colours

Truer words.

So purdy

Naturally we purikura’d

Licking a tongue….

dessert!

My loot of the day ❤

After such exciting days out, a good evening in with Michelle and pizza and FMA was well needed. We even took polaroids.

Our FMA club uniform ❤

 

Touring Tokyo; The Mark and Rob Edition – Aokigahara

My goodness, what a day this was. Let me prepare you now for some very random tales from the so-called… “Suicide Forest” (cue creepy music with a pitchy crescendo!) One of the things that Mark and Rob wanted to do was Aokigahara. I’d actually been there before and not realised back in 2012, when I went to check out the ice caves and so on that form round Mt. Fuji’s base in the forest.

Basically, this place is so huge and dense that many people go there to give it all up. Sometimes they’re not found for ages (or ever), as the crews who go looking for the dead can only do so much. It has therefore earned itself a scary rep, but actually the forest is really beautiful. We on the other hand, managed to get a good amount of creep out of it too!

 

As it was sakura (cherry blossom) season but I’d missed the famous Starbucks sakura drinks by about 2 days (grr), I thought I’d have a sakura injection at the start of the day. Some quick photos from my dorm, and a sneaky Royal Milk Tea Sakura vend. Sadly the drink wasn’t all I’d hoped for, but it was still nice on the train.

Bekah, Mark, Rob, and I met up and began to make our way to this most ominous of places. I can’t remember the exact journey, but once we got to the adorable yet slightly creepy Fuji train, we were pretty excited. The train seemed to be purposely tooooo adorable, perhaps in a bizarre attempt to get people out of the dying mood? We had a very comfy journey on this, and arrived at… some station or another!

 

 

Sakura!

Not the best, but OK.

These on the other hand, are delicious!

Waiting for the friendly Fuji train to doom 🙂

Dawwwwww

Even the head flaps are cute

Misty windows to add to the atmosphere

Tickets

Do they know what’s to come?

We clearly don’t!

We added to the adorable with our own finger painting Fuji

We came out of the station after managing to survive overly friendly Fuji train, and found that the best way to get to where we wanted to go was via the “Retro Bus”. And boy was it retro. Velvet benches and not many of them. Personal taxi to hell anyone? Mark found a hilariously appropriate filter on his phone camera, and proceeded to take plenty of deathly photos for posterity. (Probably because the reporter never dies, else how would the stories come home? Mark clearly knows what character to be to survive in horror films!)

Setting the scene there, fog. Nice. This is the area just outside the station, where we got to the Retro Bus.

A map of the various sights

Ticket vend!

Our tickets for the Retro Bus

It does look very retro…

Mark taking photos using the most trip-appropriate filter ever

Those eyes know that doom is approaching…

Our actual destination was the bat cave, which turned out to be pretty amazing. A short walk through a pathed area of the forest and we got to the entrance. That gave us plenty of time to muck about on the way! They gave us helmets, and good thing too as the cave was very much a crawler in some places. We didn’t see any actual bats though; just where they hide beyond some fence. But I love caves so I had a blast! The pictures below are far better at telling you how cool it was 🙂 Notice how the roots often grow above ground; this is because the ground is quite impenetrable, seeing as it’s made of volcano eruptions!

 

Pre-helmet

Helmet selfie!

Rob is preparing

Snow!

The first of the fun pics… is that someone in amongst the roots?!

Yup… Looks like it is.

Giant hole… for whatever purpose

Pretty cool outcropping

Mark had a turn in the dark too

Even the tree is telling us to stop; who knew they understood road signs?!

We made it to the bat cave entrance. In we go!

The entrance

Cave map

Looking back out from just inside the entrance

Some parts were boarded, all parts were wet!

Rob with the bat area

Bekah Bat

This very low part was pretty fun. Love this photo Mark!

Good to know.

Cool! Lava!

Oops… now we’ll never get him out

Some contemplating by the adults

Rob seized the opportunity. Can’t say I blame him!!

Once we’d had our fill of the cave, it was time for a proper forest walk. We made our way from the empty car park, down the empty road and into a small path. Bekah and I had it all figured out including bus times. We’d be fine. Off we plod into the strange and haunting forest. We had a great time! Mark took a video, which you really ought to watch. It’s pretty amusing.

We walked for a little while and came out where we were supposed to with some time before the bus. We found the stop and then messed about a bit while waiting for the bus. it did seem a little odd that the bus stop was all the way in the forest up a mud track… but that’s what the map said! Shortly after the bus should have come and gone, we realised it must not come up that far. Oops. So… we were stuck out in the suicide forest with no bus home? Cool. Great. Good-oh. Better start walking! Only how every horror movie starts ever.

As you’ll obviously note, we did make it out! We had to walk down plenty more empty roads, with Mark filming just in case. Made for some great video footage!

Still lovely and misty when we left the bat cave area in search of more natural forest.

Off we go

This path was a lot snowier than the bat cave one.

Cool guys

Another, bigger random hole. This time with some kind of religious thing at the bottom!

Wondering what to do now…

So the hike home begins

We eventually made it back to the station and got home. But man was that a day and a half! If you didn’t watch the video, go back and watch it. It’s worth it. I’ll leave you now with a picture of Rob munching at the station, sad for his noodle loss.

P.s. Many of the photos from today (and a few from the other Mark and Rob days) were taken by Mark. The blue filter ones are good, eh?! You can see more of his work here: www.markhatchard.com 🙂