Climb every mountain... (Part 1)

Well, I did it...

I finally found a place to reference The Sound of Music on my blog.

Wait, what I meant to say is, I climbed Mt Fuji. Bringing to 3 the number of Japanese mountains I've climbed (I'd previously climbed Nokogiri-yama and Mt Takao - although "climbed" is used in the loosest sense of the word, sense they're really no more than long and tiring walks).

The trip was amazing, the views from the top were stunning and the landscape resembles that of another planet.

Might do this in a few parts, as I'm sooo tired, but wanted to get some pictures up.

We started out very early on Tuesday morning - we left home around 6am in fact. Which meant I had to wake up at 5am. Blegh. In the last few years, 5am has come to be something I fear, like the boogeyman, but something I know doesn't exist in my day to day life (also like the boogeyman). Despite this (some might say irrational) fear, I found it surprisingly easy to get up when my alarm went off. I found it less easy to stay up after the alarm had been turned off (read: thrown against the wall), but somehow managed to sleepcrawl to the shower.

40 minutes later, chock full of pith and vinegar (and slightly more appetising toast and tea), our bags full of chocolate, water and warm clothes, Sara and I headed into Shinjuku to board the coach that would take us to our date with old man Fuji.

Our bus was very comfortable, and very spacious. I only had one complaint. No disco ball. The people in the coach next to us at the truck stop had one, and they were old and can't even use a disco ball to its full potential! A waste, if you ask me.


Anyway, in spite of (or perhaps due to?) the lack of disco ball, the trip to Fuji was very relaxing - this was the longest amount of time I'd spent on the road in Japan.

Eventually I looked up from my book to see the following:


Now, Mt Fuji is one of the most recognisable mountains in the world, due to its almost perfectly symmetrical volcanic cone shape. Also, consider the fact that our ultimate destination was the TOP of Mt Fuji. So why did I feel the need to ask Sara "Is that Mt Fuji?". Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. I could claim mountain sickness, but that would be a bit of a stretch, given we hadn't even started the ascent yet.

The bus dropped us off at the 5th station at around 9:30am. The hiking paths up the mountain are marked along the way by stations - starting with 1st station at the very base of the mountain, and 10th at the summit. So we were basically starting the climb half way up. In order to climb from 1st station, it would require at least 2 full days to get to the top I think, including rest time, so most people catch a bus to the 5th station (which 5th station they start at depends on which side of the mountain they are coming from) and start from there.

This is a view of the carpark at 5th station - to give you an idea of how high up it is (about 2,300m above sea level).


A few minutes later - the clouds had risen dramatically!


For anyone thinking of climbing Fuji in the future, I definitely recommend bringing a set of clothes to change into the next day. I'd read that piece of advice on another website, and I'm so glad I did - when you reach the bottom of the mountain your clothes are very dusty from the volcanic ash you walk through on the way down. There are lockers at 5th station in which you can dump any excess items you don't want to carry up the mountain - for a fee of course, but it's definitely worth it.

After dumping our clothes I bought a requisite hiking stick. Well, the hiking stick isn't actually required, and it is expensive for what is essentially a piece of wood, but I considered it all part of the experience - at each mountain hut you pass through on the way up you can get your stick "stamped" - branded - with the station name and/or height (again, for a fee, usually 100 or 200 yen each). So as well as a neat keepsake memento of your experience you also have something which comes in very handy when walking along the somewhat unstable ground. My answer when asked "Why did you spend so much money on a hiking stick?" was pretty much "Because I'll probably never get to spend 1200 yen on a hiking stick for walking up Mt Fuji again".

The village at 5th Station:


We met up with the rest of our group and our guide, and were introduced to the other non-Japanese in the group - an English man on holiday/business trip in Japan named Gabriel, and a Swiss girl named Lea, who was visiting her friend in Japan (her friend Chihiro, who could also speak very good English, also joined her for the trip). The guide, Koko, was really lovely, she spoke excellent English and so after giving instructions in Japanese would tell us what was going on as well (but the English translations never seemed as long as the Japanese instructions - this is always a little worrying). Our climb was going to be Koko's 33rd climb of this season - and she does this every year.

Okay... I have reached the point where if I write anymore tonight I risk drooling over the keyboard due to extreme exhaustion. So I'll continue the tale of our quest for glory tomorrow!

In the meantime, enjoy a photo of clouds - this was taken from the summit, just after sunrise. I took many such photos, and there are many more exciting photos to come!



----------------
Now playing: Philip Glass - Metamorphosis Four