My visit to Fuji-san

A couple of days ago I hinted that I was heading off somewhere to a different part of Japan. Well I have returned and I am surprisingly healthy considering everything. I decided some time ago to visit Mt Fuji before the climbing season ended and when my friend Melissa found this out, she decided that she was going with me. Anyways we ended up going with someone that Melissa had met at her gym. It was a fairly hard climb and it took us about eight hours. We stopped approximately half way up and slept in a "hotel" for approximately four or five hours. I use the term hotel lightly of course. It's more of a shack and you sleep in communal bunks with approximately 20 other people. Not much but it beats sleeping outside on a rock.

I wasn't too well prepared and I went on the trip without a jacket and had to do with wearing two longsleeved shirts which wasn't nearly enough. By the time 4:30 rolled around, I couldn't care less whether I made it to the top in time to see the sunrise-I just wanted the sun to rise period. It turns out that I did make it up for the sunrise but I thought I was going to be stuck on the side of the mountain because the last leg of the journey was like being in a traffic jam-a human traffic jam that is. It gets quite steep and the trail narrows significantly.

Anyways we all made it up but I think that by the time we reached the top we were more concerned with getting off the mountain than anything else. It was a memorable experience if not neccessarily an enjoyable one. Like the saying goes, "A wise man climbs Mt Fuji once, a fool climbs it twice."

Click on the pictures for a larger version!


Here is a picture of my crew. My Trinidadian friend Melissa, the Malaysian girl on the left is called Wong and the lady on the right is Melissa's new friend that she met at the gym. Her name is Chieka (or something like that I can never remember.) The guy taking the photograph is called Kelvin. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of him. He is also Malaysian. Both of them are doing post-grad studies in Japan and I am quite jealous of them because they seem to be able to speak Japanese fluently (along with of course Malaysian, English and apparently Chinese.)





These three are pictures of the mountain. As you can see it's a little foggy/misty. This was disappointing because we should have been able to see way down to the bottom but we couldn't see anything because of the fog. We were also unable to see Mt Fuji itself on the approach because of the clouds. Apparently the only good time to go see Mt Fuji (if you want to climb it) is right after a typhoon because all the clouds have been blown away.



My friend Melissa and myself on the way up. We had our picture taken by some random lady on the way up. Melissa has a great souvenir in her hand. It's a hiking stick that you buy at the bottom of the hill for about 1000 yen and you can get it branded at each station for 200 yen. Much more personal and meaningful than some silly souvenir you buy in a store. Lots of people also had little Japanese flag attachments for them.



More pictures of Mt Fuji. Very scare vegetation which gets even scarcer as you go up. The top has no vegetation at all.




More pictures of the very fascinating fog.






These pictures are all taken relatively close to our stopping for camp. We got lucky in terms of weather but when the sun goes down Mt Fuji gets very cold. I was told it was approximately 5-6 degrees Celcius at night.


Mt Fuji at sunrise. Very beautiful. The sun rose from a sea of clouds. Of course when this happened all the Japanese uttered cries of awe and did what Japanese do best. I suppose I can't talk much-I took pictures too. But at least I used a camera instead of my cell phone.



Me with a stick. Behind me is a very big hole. That's right, just take a couple more steps back, couple more, almost.....perfect.






More pictures of a big hole. Pretty self-explanatory. We were thinking about walking around it but it wasn't a flat circle. It's a lot higher on the other side and we were tired of walking up.



Some more fauna. This is the only thing that grows high up on the mountain.

This picture looks a lot funnier in real life. Picture it with mostly blue sky behind it. I know the Japanese have a propensity for the obvious but this sign just seemed ridiculous.

Me pondering just how in the heck I'm going to get off this bloody mountain.




Mt Fuji on the way back down. Don't be fooled by the beautiful blue sky. It was extremely cloudy only we are actually above cloud level in this picture. Going down was pretty cool because we got to experience about four different weather climates as our altitude decreased. I unfortunately got sunburned on my neck and face-I was wearing a cap but I think the sun must reflect up off all the volcanic rock. Going down was actually worse than going up because it was wayyyy harder on the legs. Too much pressure on the old knees. Anyways we were glad we had climbed it and even more glad that we were off it. It'll be a nice story to tell every one.
In terms of longterm injuries I feel great. I thought my knees were going to be permanently blown but they feel fine. Melissa on the other hand was limping to all her classes today. Guess she needed to spend a little more time in the army or planting trees before attempting Mt Fuji.