*Note: My photo blog has been updated with Fuji photo madness! Check it out dammit!
I think I heard somewhere that Mt. Fuji is the world's most climbed mountain. I'm too lazy to check, so I'll just play along with that. With so many people of all ages climbing each year, it's really easy to believe that climbing Fuji is just a walk in the park. I went into my Fuji adventure with this mindset but came back down cursing its name
One can't live in Fujiyoshida and not climb Mt. Fuji. There's no excuse for it. Mid-September is just about the right time to climb Fuji. The fire festival official ends the climbing season and the amount of climbers drops tremendously afterwards. This is in spite of the weather still being very hot, so a Fuji climb at this time of year is probably ideal (wow this is a choppy paragraph, bare with me). My friend Matt had climbed Fuji a few weeks prior and said that there was essentially a line of people from the bottom to the top. This huge line dissipates after the climbing season, hence the reason we chose to climb when we did (whew, thank God that awful paragraph is over).
As I said in a previous blog, I decided to start from the very bottom whereas most people start halfway up at the 5th station. Our neighbor Mike (a super energetic marathon runner) told us that it would be practically be just as easy to start from the very bottom. Why I listened to a marathon runner's opinion on how physically demanding a long hike is I'll never know, but the traditional feel of starting from the Fuji shrine in town as well as the ability to say "I climbed the whole mountain!" shaped my opinion enough so that I agreed to start from the bottom.
The group from the bottom was supposed to leave at around 3:30; however, my posse was delayed due to the late arrival of an out-of-prefecture friend. The Mike group left early and I stayed behind to wait for my crew. I did all the traditional Fuji stuff while waiting for them to arrive (bathing in the holy Fuji water, saying a prayer at the shrine and looking for souvenirs) and we finally got under way at around 4:30, about 40 minutes after the Mike group.
We began to realize why most people start at the 5th station shortly into our hike. The first two or so hours of climbing occur right on or beside the road that goes up near the 1st station. In addition to the pointless feeling of walking, the road is very steep and wore us (me) out very quickly. Phil and I had actually hiked part of the lower half of Fuji the week before and we became worried as the road seemed to carry on without leading to a hiking train; we didn't recall the road to the trail being so long. It was also getting dark which added to the feeling of being lost. Feeling a little panicked, we took a long rest and called Mike. Mike actually told us that we went the wrong way so we had a pow-wow about what to do next. After about 15 minutes of discussion we decided that as long was we kept going up that we would get to the summit somehow so we continued on our way. Embarrassingly enough, the hiking trail started about 3 minutes away from where we stopped (thanks a lot Mike!). At least now we could continue on our way knowing that we weren't lost.
At the entrance to the hiking trail there's an old torii (those common Shinto gates all over Japan) with two monkey statues on either side. This is where Phil and I had hiked the previous week so we were familiar with the path and how long it would take to the 5th station. What we didn't take into account was just how much more difficult this part would be with the weight of carrying backpacks and being worn out by the previous 2 hours of hiking uphill. To make matters worse, I didn't bring a headlamp. This was especially bad because the path has many of these weird pit-like structures designed to collect the dirt and water that come down the mountain when it rains. As a result, the remaining 3 hours of hiking to the 5th station really took it out of me and I was beginning to question my ability to make it all the way to the top.
We met up with the Mike group at the 5th station where we had a long rest (about an hour for them, 40 minutes for us). We got acclimated to the elevation, changed into warmer clothes, had some food and refilled our water. I felt pretty refreshed after this rest and I figured I'd be good to go for awhile. From this point on each station would actually be a place to rest and to get food/drink if you needed it. The 1st-4th stations were just old abandoned structures left over from before it was hip to climb from halfway up. These stations would also give me a mental boost as the climb went on (Hey! I'm at the 7th station! Only 3 more to go!). Despite leaving late, we were well ahead of schedule to reach the summit by sunset and we all felt ready to continue tackling the mountain.
As it turned out, I felt exhausted again about 10 minutes after the 5th station. I would have to hike for about 4 minutes and then stop for a minute to catch my breath, and so on. It was also about this time that my legs started to get sore. We also started to see some climbers that started from the 5th station. While my legs weren't really hurting that bad at that point, it pissed me off to so many people just charging up the mountain because they were just beginning. In fact, I got pissed off at a lot of people and things and the climb progressed, so I guess this was about when I entered the first stage of my dementia.
Anyways, the placement of the stations are kind of cruel and deceiving. For example, it probably look less that an hour and a half to get to the 7th station from the 5th station. It really gives you a skewed sense of distance and just how far you have left. You're thinking that you're making good progress, you're thinking that you're covering a lot of ground. And then you notice something. Every building for about a 2 and a half hour stretch of hike says "7th station". There has to be at least 8 "7th stations" on the damn mountain, and they're spread apart really well. There's nothing more discouraging as being at the 7th station for multiple hours while your legs are burning and you can hardly breath; however, apart from the frosted of the endless 7th stations, this was one of the nicer parts of the climb. There were still relatively few other climbers, the moon was full (eliminating the need for a headlamp, thank God) and by that point you're up high enough to get a great view of the area around Mt. Fuji). That was enough to keep me persevering for awhile.
We stopped for a rest at about the 108th building of the 7th station. By now the concentration of Fuji climbers were beginning to increase and fatigue was beginning to become hard to deal with. This particular building was an inn for climbers who get an early start. They can rent a place on the floor and sleep for several hours until it's time to time to start the climb again (based on getting their by sunset). We happened to get there right as a giant tour group was waking up and preparing to leave. We were hoping to have a very long rest at that building but we knew that we couldn't afford to get behind the tour group, so we ended up leaving with very little rest.
Why in the hell would you need to have a huge tour group of at least 50 people climb up Mt. Fuji together?! The thought of this still boggles my mind. The way it worked was that there were took leaders: a man at the front of the line who carried a glowing red stick and a guy at the back with a glowing green stick. All the people on the tour were between these two people. The pack of people moved at a slow and steady pace. They also completely consumed the now narrow hiking trail, making it impossible to get around them. As we climbed, the glowing red stick the leader was holding acted like a beacon of danger for about the next hour or so of the hike. Although we were fatigued, we also had to ensure that we stayed in front of the effin tour group. It was surprisingly good motivation to keep my weary body moving.
At this point the Fuji climb actually became more of a climb than a hike. The trail narrowed and we had to make our way up steep piles of rocks rather than a (relatively) smooth hiking trail. It was actually good for my legs as I think maybe I was using a different muscle group. I began to catch my second (third, possibly fourth actually) wind as we made our way to the 8th station.
Finally, at about 2AMish (I think) we made it to the 8th station. At this point the density of the climbers was very thick, especially around the station. It was here that we met many of our friends that had started at the 5th station. They had been hanging out at the 8th station for hours because they were going too fast up the mountain and it was starting to get noticeably cold, so they wanted to avoid getting to the even colder summit too early. By now I had already reached the second stage of my dementia: I had just chewed out my best JET buddy Phil a few minutes earlier for making fun of me for not being prepared enough (I was running low on food). For some reason they thought I wasn't with the group and were all talking about me like I wasn't there. Although they weren't saying anything that bad, I got really pissed off, most likely because I was going insane. It was then that the group split up and I merged with some of the 5th station people.
We had a good long rest at the 8th station and I was able to recuperate a little bit. The 8th station is the last really good place to rest (thankfully there were also multiple 8th stations). At that point I finished up the rest of my food and continued to plod my way to the summit with my new group.
I don't really remember much about what happened after that. Although the actually hike of Fuji is easy, there are a lot of factors which combine to make the climb hard. The length of the hike, the altitude, the crowdedness of the mountain, the shift from hot to cold and the steep, rocky parts all combine to take a real toll on the body. As a result, I went insane and was no fun to be around. It especially got bad on the last hour of the hike when it just became one slow moving line of people trying to get to the summit. Think of it as an hour wait to get into a line at Disneyland, only that line goes uphill and is in freezing temperatures. Also imagine that you had to hike for 11 hours uphill to get to that line too. That's about how it felt to be on Mt. Fuji at about 4:00 AM. So close to the summit, yet so far away.
The ridiculously slow moving line began to get frustrating as it became close to sunrise and light emerged. I really think I would have gone postal if I didn't make it to the top in time for sunrise. Thankfully for the lives of the other climbers, I made it up with out 10 minutes to spare. I took some pictures, saw the crater and the rest is history...
...except for the climb down. God that was the worst part. It took about 4 hours and was killer on the knees. I could write a whole other effin' blog on just how bad that was, but I'll spare you the pain. Needless to say that I was freakin' ready to get home by the end of it.
