Fuji

Definitely one of the highlights of my first couple of weeks in Japan was my trip to Mount Fuji, or Fuji-san as the Japanese call it. At 3,776m it’s the tallest mountain in Japan by quite some way. However, as it’s the most sacred mountain in Japan, it’s also one of the most frequently climbed. So, if you head to Fuji during a holiday weekend in the height of the climbing season, don’t expect to have the place to yourself…
A group of the Joetsu ALTs set off in convoy early on Saturday morning in high spirits. The sun was shining and it was nice to leave our little town behind for a day or two. Three carloads set off from Sanko (the accommodation for one group of ALTs) at around 10am. However, the group soon split up/got lost. Japanese road maps in English aren’t easy to come by and they aren’t especially detailed either. Therefore, most of the journey involved confused mobile phone conversations trying to determine exactly where x and y have taken a wrong turning and why they’ve run out of expressway!
For my group everything was going fine until we stopped in a small town near the base of Fuji for some dinner. Having fuelled up on whatever stodge we could get our paws on, we then set off (in the dark) to drive up to the 5th station on Fuji. In the daytime, trying to find this road would be very straightforward – there’s the volcano, the roads probably between here and there somewhere. However, at night, the task is a little trickier. Two failed attempts and numerous u-turns later, we were crawling our way up Fuji to an altitude of 2,300m.
It is possible to climb Fuji from sea level, but it’s also possible to swim the Channel – but I choose not to. At 2,300m you are already much higher than the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis at 1,344m, and you still have that height to climb again to get to the top of Fuji. I for one make a point of aiming for the line of least resistance.
At the 5th station we prepped ourselves for the ascent. Our aim was to climb at night and in order to see the sun rise (in the Land of the Rising Sun, clever, eh?). Due to the temperature difference between a clear night at altitude and the baking morning heat, we were all kitted-out like Arctic explorers setting off on a three-month reconnaissance of the East Siberian Sea quickly followed by a fortnight in Magaluf.
Rarely are the words “souvenir” and “practical” used in the same sentence, but the Fuji-san Walking Stick™ was just that. Providing a third foot on tricky inclines and offering some support to weary feet on the way down, most climbers opted for the walking stick. Tie a Japanese flag to the top and even the most tight-fisted of tourist couldn’t resist. As an added bonus, you can get various stamps burnt into your stick at the various stations you pass on the way up to the top. Needless to say these were all in kanji and I couldn’t read them, but I like to think that they are all very poetic, meaningful and full of Eastern wisdom. So, having picked up a few last minute monkeys and parrots, we set off at about 9.30pm, everyone suitably full of beans.
A few early jokes along the lines of “oh, this is a bit tough, ha ha!” soon turned into somewhat more serious concerns about exactly what had been taken on. As we were already at quite an altitude, some of the guys were puffing and panting quite early on, so the pace slowed to make sure that everyone stayed together – it was pitch black after all! The general terrain was coarse, volcanic gravel, which was quite frustrating to walk on – two steps forward, one step back… Some light relief was given through sections of vertical, rocky climbs using handily attached chains.
Along the way we came across various official stations and pseudo-stations. They all provided a place for a short rest, a shop to buy some basic food and drink, and an old weather-beaten man to burn the must-have stamp for that station onto your walking stick (for 200 yen of course).
As the night wore on we began to realize that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park that we had hoped for and that we would actually be climbing through the night. At about 2pm tiredness was starting to take hold. Up until then the blood pumping through my body had done a great job of keeping me awake irrespective of the time. However, the stations were no longer for catching your breath, but for catching 40 precious winks. It’s very surreal to fall asleep, even for a moment, and awaken halfway up a volcano in Japan in the middle of the night…
At the 10th station I decided to make use of the “facilities.” I’m not a fan of the Asian loo; I’ve never claimed to be. Crouched in position with your trousers around your ankles, if you’re not crapping into back pocket, you’re peeing into your front pocket. The loos on Fuji were pretty primitive and generally just a hole in the floor of a wooden hut. Plenty of “misfires” ensured that the wooden floor around the hole was well soiled, and a pile of poo sat at the bottom like some kind of decaying pyramid. At almost 10,000 feet it’s pretty hard to hold your breath for very long. You enter the hut bravely, breath held, and desperately try and do what you have to do without inhaling. Inevitably you give up, start gasping and are left squatting there puffing in the most rancid of smells.
The penultimate station was reached at around 3am, and from there on it was a straightforward slog for the top. The last station had a tatami room where you could, for a fee, have a proper kip before the final assault on Fuji-san. As a result, when we passed that station we joined a queue of people pouring out onto the climbing path, all hoping to reach the top in time for sun rise. It became very slow going from this point on. What should have taken an hour to climb took a good two and half hours.
We were now in Indian file and had to stop for five to ten seconds every couple of steps. This is where standing still in the dark whilst incredibly tired started to play funny tricks on my mind. While standing waiting for the queue to inch forward I would doze off sleep apnea style – not the best thing to be doing when you could fall and roll all the way down the volcano you’ve been climbing for the last eight hours. During these little naps I would have sworn that I saw a little old Japanese lady dressed in white run though the queue selling bowls of steaming hot ramen. I have been assured that this was not the case…
It was now past 5am and there was a strong orange glow on the horizon. For a short moment you could see the stars in the night’s sky, the orange pre-sunrise glow on the horizon and the lights in the village below. Luckily we seemed to time our walk to perfection. We reached the summit (no sign of the old lady, hm…) just in time to get a good position for some photos before the sun burst out from behind the horizon. It was spectacular. There were gasps and shouts of “sugoi!!” (cool) and “o-hayo gozaimaaaaasu!!” (good morning). Naturally, all the tiredness was replaced with a combination of awe and a sense of achievement. As we were officially climbing out of season, we were very lucky to get the view that we did – it could very easily have been thick cloud, especially at 3,776m.
One final stamp and a peek into the crater and then we set off back down the mountain. There are two (and only two) good things about climbing Fuji at night. Firstly, you are entirely unaware that you are climbing what is in fact a very ugly mountain, close-up at least. Secondly, you can’t see how far you have to climb, beyond a faint line of head-torch lamps that zigzag above you. On the way down, however, you get to see the red, volcanic dust all around you and you can see precisely how far you have to go before you can take your boots off and have a beer. The early-morning sun turned into full-blown midday sun and jackets and fleeces were swapped for water bottles and sunscreen. At 11am we arrived back at the 5th station and treated ourselves to a well-earned burger and an ice cream. The best thing to do after such exertion is to relax in an onsen and we found a suitably relaxing onsen nearby. We slowly soaked our aching muscles before passing out on the communal tatami floor.