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Mt. Fuji Trip Sept 13-14

Posted on October 12th, 2007, by sam

Like everything else this is way late. But finally here. Some of you may have already seen it on my Face book page. So it won’t be too new.

One of my “Must Do’s” In Japan was climb Mount Fuji. the tallest mountain in Japan standing at 3776 Meters. Back in August, one of my fellow instructors at my branch did the organized tour through NTB – Nova Travel Bureau. After he did it, and said it was awesome, it started to occur to me that the official season for climbing was soon over. I thought to myself, if we didn’t do it now, we may never get to do it since we probably wouldn’t be here by the climbing season next year (July-August).

It wasn’t the easiest decision for us to make. Neither of us had climbed a mountain before. I will always remember Chris’ comment on this whole thing. It went something like this “Where did this all come from. We’ve been together 2 years. Not once have you mentioned wanting to climb mountains. Then all of the sudden we come to Japan and Bam!, you want to climb the tallest mountain in the country. I just don’t get it.” I thought it was pretty funny. In my defense, I told him I’ve always wanted to do something like this, I’d just never really had anyone to do it with me and now I had him:-) The morning I called to make the reservation, I basically sat there and thought about it for like 2.5 hours and continuously asked Chris if he thought we could do it. Finally, I called, transferred the money and we were all set. The next morning, as we’re sitting on the train, Chris says to me “I don’t know about this, maybe we can’t handle it.” I’m pretty sure I totally freaked out on him, but the money was already gone and we would have lost a big chunk to cancel so we were “stuck”.

I started going to the Gym in the mornings before work and went on the elliptical machine to help build up some stamina and muscle. My exercising had been pretty minimal with the exception of the hike to and from the train station in the morning, which does involve a couple hills and a long set of stairs:-)

I wanted us to be as prepared as we could be. Trail mix for snacking, snickers, lots of water. We had to buy backpacks because neither of us thought to bring them from home. We bought headlights for hiking overnight so we could see where we were walking (a pricey purchase, but well worth it).

When the weekend finally came our schedule was like this. (of course we stayed up until probably 2 am getting ready, packing, etc.)

Thursday 13th
5:30am – Wake Up
6:00am – Get on the train to Osaka
7:20am – Meet Tour Group at bus Station
7:30am – Leave for Fuji (We almost missed the bus because we got lost and kept asking for directions and getting the wrong ones so had to run with heavy backpacks to make it. We were the only non-Japanese people on our tour of about 30. This was only the beginning of our being late for the bus. At almost every rest stop we ended being the last ones on the bus.)
3:30pm – Arrive at Fuji 5th Station – change into gear and eat a light dinner.
5:00pm – Start Hiking
9:00pm – Stop at 7th Station Hut for 1.5 hour nap
11:30pm – Start climbing again.

Friday 14th
4:30am – Reach the top to see the sunrise.
5:30am – Start the decent
9:45-10:00am – Reach 5th Station – collapse with exhaustion:-)
10:15am – Leave for Hot Springs resort (not real hot springs)
11:00-1:00pm – Hot Springs – shower, bath, lunch
1:00pm – bus ride back to Osaka
8:00pm – Osaka
9:00pm – Home (apt. in Kobe)

Sat. Morning – go to work for a full 8 hour day.

In total, actual hiking time I think was about 15-17 hours. WOW!!! and we did it!!

This was a big topic of discussion for my voice lessons. Everyone asked if it was hard. Yes, it was obviously difficult. Part of me though felt at the end that it wasn’t as bad as I was imagining it would be. Also, I didn’t think I’d make it. But a big fact is that even if you didn’t make it all the way to the top, whatever distance you hiked up, you had to turn around and hike back, so really it’s not worth it to give up. When we were going up – I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. When ever we had to stop because the line of people got a little backed up it was actually harder on me than if we’d just continue to walk at a slow pace. It stopped my momentum. There were a few times times when even though the group kept going, I had to stop and catch my breath, but we were always either toward the front or in the middle so we never got behind. Instead of stopping at the designated rest areas with benches, our guide would stop us in the middle of the trail whenever he felt like smoking a cigarette. And, yes at every rest, he’d smoke. It seemed like that’s how he timed our break. I’d say we hiked for about 15 minutes and then rested for about 2-3. Although sometimes it felt like we were walking forever. It was cold way up in the mountains but we worked up a sweat hiking so it was frustrating when we had to stop and shiver in our cold sweat.

We reached the peak just as the sun began to rise. Everyone was in awe. Some of the Japanese people were praying. We were only at the top for about 30 minutes and then started the decent. For me, this was almost more difficult than the climb up. The path was less steep and wider but the gravel was slippery so I was walking really slowly. Even though it wasn’t very steep it was a killer on my knees. I think I’ve actually caused some permanent damage to them, nothing really serious, but even now when I am climbing stairs, sometimes they hurt.

We were pretty much exhausted for the next few days but both of us feel it was an amazing experience and well worth it. Something we’ll always remember.

Here are some pics below. Hope you enjoy!