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!
Maisy In Japan 