I thought I'd been so clever, having looked up all of the train timetables before even leaving Australia so that we knew exactly what trains and subways we had to catch in order to get to the meeting spot for our tour in time. Unfortunately my directions didn't help us inside the train station when we couldn't find the exit we were supposed to be taking, so we found ourselves outside asking every person we could find the way to the hotel we had to meet at.
The general consensus was in a certain direction, so we decided to start jogging our way there (with our bags - always something I try to avoid in 100% humidity conditions), checking with more people along the way. We arrived dripping and exhausted, with about a minute to spare before the time we were supposed to be there. Whew! And then we waited around for 15 minutes while people asked the guide questions. Sigh.
Never mind. The important thing, we were on our way! Here's our first glimpse of Mt Fuji from the bus.
The bus stopped at a place that had a little viewing platform (perfect for tourists like us), so we couldn't resist this shot.
Nor could we resist buying a little packet of locally made sweets that claimed they were "The Power to Climb Mt Fuji". They were basically just like cubes of pure sugar, so I'm not surprised.
We then hopped back on the bus, and they took us up to 'Fifth Station', which is the highest spot that buses can get to.
It was well set up, with souvenir shops and convenience stores and toilets, and we spent a little bit of time there (and left our bags there).
And then, we started our walk! Look how foggy it got even after just a couple of hundred metres!
We got a bit excited about the view. As you can see, Donald remained squarely on Tom's head for the journey.
Here we were, having traveled 1.6km, with 5.3km to go to the summit.
Looking mighty chirpy at that stage, even with that pile of dirt ahead of us!
I was chirpy enough to even attempt some fancy artistic shots.
This is what the path looked like on the way up, particularly in the lower parts of the mountain. Zig zag after zig zag.
And as far as the eye could see up, too! The guide kept us going at a fairly slow, plodding pace. To be honest, if Tom and I had been alone we would have bumped up the speed a lot, we were feeling pretty impatient with the pace. But in retrospect, the speed we were going at didn't require very much energy, and meant that we could keep it up for hours on end. We might have burnt ourselves out a bit fast if we'd had free reign.
It got a lot less fun when we had a little rain storm. Because this climb was only a small part of our trip, we didn't want to go all out and buy hiking boots and fancy rain-proof hiking pants and things, so we weren't really prepared for how miserable rain can be on the side of a mountain. I was soaked through and feeling very sorry for myself in no time at all. Very fortunately for us, in the whole trip up (and back down again), that one rain shower was all we got. The sun came out immediately afterwards and dried me out again, and everything was much more bearable once I was dry again. This was obviously once the rain had cleared up. The trail of colourful raincoats below us is quite funny, isn't it?
You can see in that photo above that I'm holding a stick. We were encouraged to buy these Mt Fuji climbing sticks at Fifth Station to not only help us on our way up the mountain, but also to take as a souvenir of our achievement. Apparently at every rest house on the way up you can get a stamp burnt into the staff that proves you were there. We decided to pay our 300 yen at the first one for our stamp, but didn't feel much like forking over the cash at each one we passed after that, so just got our next stamp at the summit. Here they are burning our stamp on.
The higher we got, the bigger the little trail of colourful people got behind us.
And the better the view. It was so strange being on solid ground but still being above all of those little clouds!
The temperature dropped as we climbed, but apparently the day we climbed was unusually warm, which again is quite fortunate for us, who didn't want to pack for arctic weather considering the rest of the country was so hot we could hardly bring ourselves to wear clothes at all!
And here we are perched on the platform outside a guest house at Seventh Station.
This was where we were scheduled to have dinner, and then sleep for a few hours before resuming our climb a little later. The food they gave us was quite nice, although with all the constant climbing we were pretty hungry. We were in need of more than Japanese-size portions by that stage, but just had to supplement our dinner with snacking on the bits and pieces we'd brought with us.
We then packed up all of our bits and pieces...
And went to the room of bunkbeds where we were all supposed to retire to nap for a few hours. The bunks were essentially designed with no divisions between them, so we were all just packed in a little like sardines, next to our fellow tour members. Here I am attempting a hamstring stretch before sleep.
Because we'd had so little sleep the previous night in our capsule, we probably managed a bit more rest than we might have otherwise, but we found it a bit difficult to manage more than an hour or two going to sleep at 6pm to then rise at 10pm.
At 10pm, the view from that platform outside looked like this.
And we looked like this. Needless to say, it was a little chillier once night had fallen! The guide recommended that we not put on too many layers though, since we'd warm up once we started climbing. Good advice, although it didn't feel like it while we were standing waiting for the group to gather!
And there are no more pictures of the next 5 hours of climbing. The climb from that point upwards was more difficult than everything previous, which was mostly quite good paths zig-zagging their way up the mountain interspersed with rocky sections where you had to pick your way upwards as if they were steps.
The path from seventh station was basically the latter, all rocky bits to climb. We actually found it a lot more fun to climb than everything up to that point, and we became pretty grateful for the slow pace we were kept at, since we would have worn ourselves out going any faster.
And so, around 3am, we arrived at the rest house at the summit, and paid an exorbitant sum of money for a bowl of udon noodles. It was very cold, and we were pretty tired by this stage.
When the sun was nearly ready to break the horizon, our guide took us all outside, up to one of the highest points on the mountain. And it was SO. COLD. The wind whipped straight through us, so my teeth were chattering so violently I thought I might break one.
Tom and I decided that, for the sake of our sanity, we had to find ourselves a more sheltered position, which we did, a few metres lower than the summit. It was still pretty cold there, although it was protected from the wind! My face says it all.
I didn't know which view was better, actually. The view of the sunrise, or this view of a person curled up under a foil blanket. I wished I was them so much!
The sun put on a pretty good show for us.
It didn't take long for the novelty to wear off for me though, and I spent most of my time huddled like this, waiting to be allowed to start the descent so I could get warm again.
Tom, brave soul that he is, decided to make a trip to the nearby crater, the edge of which was completely unprotected from the wind. I was happy to just look at the photos he took aftewards.
I love this self portrait he took. Reckon he was cold?
When he returned from his crater exploration, we plastered our smiles on and attempted (unsuccessfully) to capture both ourselves and the view behind us...
And took a few more shots of the sky and the mountain...
And my feet... looks quite precarious, doesn't it?
So we'd done it! We'd seen sunrise from the top of Mt Fuji!
Once the sun was out things started warming up, so in my little sheltered spot from the wind, I began to feel a lot happier.
One last shot of the sun and the Tori gate near the top of the mountain...
And we were on our way down. And here's were the photos essentially stop again.
That's because the way down was not the same as the way up. And the path consisted of a never-ending stream of steep zig-zags almost all the way down to Fifth Station. But that would have been manageable. What made this possibly one of the worst things I've ever done in my life was that the surface of the path itself was not a surface. It was made up of loose sandy gravel interspersed with larger rocks. You couldn't simply take a step and have your foot stay where you've planted it, you slipped and slid your way down. We eventually adopted a skiing style gait to make our way down, which worked pretty well (although after two hours of it our knees were not particularly happy) until our foot caught a submerged solid rock and we'd come to a jarring stop, having to fight for balance. I'm proud to confirm that I only actually fell over once, giving myself a nice little graze on one palm.
But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it was that there was no water. All the way up the mountain, there had been water for sale (at increasingly exorbitant prices) every couple of hundred metres, almost. We'd brought quite a few litres with us, and tried to ration ourselves, but we still went through it pretty fast. We'd run out by the summit, and actually intended to buy more there, but somehow got sidetracked (blame the sunrise), but we figured it wasn't a crisis, we'd just buy some at the next opportunity on the way down.
There wasn't one. So, of course, with the exertion involved in actually making our way down the mountain, we were PARCHED, to say the least! It became my sole mission in life to get back to Fifth Station as fast as we were physically capable of doing it, without actually fainting from thirst.
I did manage to divert my attention away from my burning throat long enough to take one shot of the path back up the mountain...
And we were back at Fifth Station within 2.5 hours of having set out, very grateful for the first vending machine we came across selling water. We just plopped ourselves right on the ground next to it with a bottle of water each, and so we stayed for about half an hour.
The rest of the day remained eventful. There was one lady in the tour group whose fitness was probably not good enough for the climb. She actually managed quite well on the way up, but must have had some serious problems on the way down (I don't blame her!). Our tour group (excluding her and her husband), was back at the meeting spot at Fifth Station by the designated time, and we waited. And waited. And waited. After about an hour and a half of waiting, our tour guide eventually turned up, telling us that the lady and her husband had tried to make it back but couldn't manage it any faster, and that they were leaving the tour.
So the rest of us that remained hopped gratefully on the bus, and off we went. The next part of the tour involved a visit to some 'Hot Springs', which sounds lovely, right? It was actually just a building with a couple of communal bathrooms, one for the men, one for the women.
In my weary, disappointed, dirty and smelly, aching state, I was having none of it. I'm not into nudity. I wasn't interested in all the other female members of the tour group seeing me naked. I wanted a nice, long, hot, PRIVATE shower, and I was not going to settle for anything less. My willingness to step outside my comfort zone and try something I don't like is inversely proportional to how tired and grumpy I am. So, first, Tom and I got ourselves lunch in the restaurant, and then while he went to brave the men's communal bathroom, I took myself upstairs to the other restaurant (which had tatami mats all over the floor on which there were already people sleeping), and I went straight to sleep.
And so I stayed until it was time to hop back on the bus and make our way back to Tokyo.
Thankfully our next hotel was only a fairly short walk from where the bus dropped us off, so we found it easily, and headed straight for the shower.
Once we were feeling like humans again, we went out in search of food, and found a little restaurant not far away from our hotel, where each table had a touch screen that you ordered from. We had a good laugh at some of the English translations... "Beer & Hoppy" anyone?
The pictures certainly helped us figure out what everything was...
And they even gave us free edamame beans!
This looked like chicken on the screen. It wasn't. It was a weird battery thing with strips of ginger inside. I can't say I liked it much.
Our best order of the night? Slices of "smorked" duck.
They were beautiful.
And dessert wasn't too shabby either. Little dumpling-ish cakes with ice cream.
And so ended our two-day Mt Fuji-climbing extravaganza! I certainly won't be repeating that experience, but I'm glad we did it. My essential verdict is this: the climb itself is very manageable. Even the lady who had virtually no fitness whatsoever managed it. It's the way down that gets you. The way down was honestly one of the worst 2.5 hours of my entire life.
How's that for ending on a positive note?
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