Climbing Mt. Fuji

Quick summary - 7 hours to Fujinomiya, 2 hours to the fifth station, 6 hours up the mountain, 3 hours waiting for sun rise, 5 hours down the mountain, 2 hours to Gotemba JR station, 8 hours back to Kyoto and Takanohara... Yes! You too can do this in one weekend!!

We took local trains all the way from Kyoto to Fujinomiya. While this was probably the longer (almost 7 hours) and more boring option, it had the advantage of only costing about 2000 yen. Score... The 5th station (out of 10) is already 2400 m up the mountain, so even though it was pretty warm at sea level, where we started, by the time we piled out of the bus, it was pretty crisp. Oh, and it was dark too (about 8pm). We threw on some more clothes and headed up.

We made pretty good time in the first hour. The trail was pretty steep and covered with dark volcanic ash. Still it was fairly firm, and there weren't any major obstacles. Past the 6th station, we were already above the clouds, so we had a great view of the stars overhead, and the cities below.

Quick break

After the 7th station, the climbing started getting tougher. The wind was colder and stronger, and the trail got rockier and steeper. This was also the point where we saw little kids and old grandparents pulling themselves up the trail with no apparent problem, which meant we had to either continue on, or eat their dust...

Danish makes it to the top

I'll skip the description of the rest of the way up, but to summarize, it was long and tiring, but ultimately very rewarding to get up to the top. Along the way we were fooled by the pseudo 10th station (which turned out to be the 9.5th station), and learned that altitude means $$, cuz the bathrooms stopped being free once you start climbing.

We were at the top by around 2am, over 6 hours from when we started. We hiked around the rim of the crater to the Kawaguchiko station, which faces east for a better view of the sunrise. This is where you will see people gladly pay $4 for a can of hot tea... Like me! We hunkered down to wait for the next 3 hours until the sun came up.

People standing like lemmings on the side of a cliff

Was the sunrise worth it? It was nice, but my limited imagination can't come up with more fitting description. Plus I had the altitude sickness, so my stomach was queasy, and my head felt like there was a little rhino running around inside trying to get out. A little angry rhino. Angry and on speed. Here's a picture though!

The sunrise - purty, ain't it?

After the sun was up, we could see better around the summit, esp the crater we had been avoiding. The last time Fuji erupted was around 1707, so it seems pretty safe for now.

The mouth of Fuji - beware its wrath

Finally we headed back down at around 6 am. We took the long and winding Gotemba route down the mountain. The defining characteristic of this trail are lots and lots of volcanic sand/gravel. And a long sand run that you can run down, bouncing like you're on the moon. You have to be careful not to trip though, b/c it's not really the moon, and the girl that crashed next to me ate a lot of gravel when she flew head first into the sand.

The Gotemba sand run that stretches for miles

At the bottom we realized we were somewhat stranded, b/c we had the wrong bus ticket, but we figure out how to get home by taking a city bus to JR Gotemba.