Mt Fuji Episode II - Attack of the Clouds

Before I continue with the enthralling tale of my adventures, just letting you know we're currently being "attacked" by a typhoon. Walking home from the train station was not fun, but my poor housemate is walking home from two stations away (on the other side of the river) as our train line stopped running. Here's hoping our shack stays up through the night and doesn't fold like the house of cards it so resembles.

Anyway, continuing from last night.
Koko, our guide, told the non-Japanese people to stay up the front with the elderly and other special people. Made us feel very special. Honestly though, some of the climbers were so inspirational. One couple, from Okinawa, would've been in their early to mid 60's, and they made it to the top.

We set off around 11am. Pretty much the whole time we were walking we were either just above the clouds, or surrounded by them.

Since we were in a large group (about 50 people), we kept stopping after about 30 minutes of walking. Sometimes we'd stop for 5 minutes, sometimes for 20. This was somewhat annoying, as every time we'd stop we'd lose our pace, and the clouds that had previously been below us:

... would then catch up to us.

This wasn't particularly a problem at the start, but by the time we reached around the 7th station it had started raining (not heavily, but enough to be annoying and cold), so that every time we escaped the rain, we'd take a break and the rain and clouds would surround us again. Ultimately though, I think the breaks probably helped us, as they stopped us from wearing ourselves out, allowed us to acclimatise ourselves to the thin air of the high altitude, and gave us a chance to eat and keep our energy up.

Looking up at the 6th station huts:

The queue up the mountain:

The inside of one of the 6th station huts:

A man at a 6th station hut branding my walking stick:




This was the old descending route - it was changed many years ago due to an accident in which a number of high school students were killed by falling rocks.


The side of the mountain:

More clouds. Yes, I took many photos of clouds. But they were just so pretty!

But sometimes rather threatening.

Sara looking rather cold and damp. But happy.

At this stage I was only wearing a t-shirt and long sleeved shirt, with my rain jacket over the top. I say rain jacket, despite the fact that the label on the packet said rain suit and had a picture of a man wearing both a rain jacket and rain pants. When I pulled the rain suit out of my bag I was dismayed (hmm, not sure that really captures what I was feeling) to find out it was only a rain jacket. Jeans are comfortable, but not really the warmest of pants, especially when damp.

Finally we reached our hut at the 8th station at around 6:30pm. Shelter, warmth and food - what more could we ask for.
Many people choose to do Fuji all in one go - starting the climb at 5th station at around 10pm, and walking through the night to reach the summit by sunrise. This is certainly a very cheap way to do it, one we had originally considered, and assuming you bring enough food, is most definitely possible. Unfortunately, once the climbing season ends around the end of August, buses up to the 5th station are much less frequent, and cost a bit more as you have to take two separate buses, one from Shinjuku to the town at the base of the mountain, Kawaguchiko, and another from Kawaguchiko to 5th station. So Sara and I decided to book a package deal which provided us with the guide, and allowed us to stay at a hut, with dinner and breakfast the next day provided. I'm so glad we did this - it was nice to have a break after 7 hours of climbing, and to have a hot meal, and to be able to change into dry tracksuit pants when my jeans were a bit too damp to sleep in (for a price of course - 500 yen).

After dinner, I pretty much went straight to bed, as I was quite tired and wanted not to be tired when we were to wake at 2:30 the next morning to head for the summit. Been a loooong time since I've gone to bed at 7:30pm. And well, it didn't really work for me, I woke up at 10:30pm and couldn't get back to bed so went outside to look at the stars. It was the first time I'd seen the stars since arriving in Japan - they were so beautiful. The clouds that had surrounded us (literally, we couldn't see more than about 10metres in front of us) on arrival at 8th station had since descended, and we had a clear view of the moon shining down on the clouds below us. Such an incredible sight, and one I was unable to capture with my camera.

I managed to get back to sleep after a little while (taking off my watch seemed to be the key), and woke up at 2:30. Despite the fact that I'm usually a very light sleeper and people had been moving around packing and talking for half an hour, it took Sara yelling my name at 2:30 to wake me - guess I was really tired. Then again, I seem to have slept through every major tremor we've had in Tokyo, so maybe I'm not that light a sleeper!

And that's where I'll leave it tonight. I'm meeting up with Verity and Lauren in Shibuya tomorrow (assuming my train line is working again in the morning - hopefully it will be as it will be my only chance to see them before they head to Nagoya), so I'd best be off to bed.

But for now, here's another photo. This is the enormous shadow Fuji casts on the surrounding landscape.


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Now playing: Philip Glass - Morning Passages