It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That's what comes into my head when I think about the experience I just went through. Today I am recovering from hiking the tallest mountain in Japan, Mt. Fuji. In total it is 3,776 m (12,388 ft). I was totally ecstatic to go on this hike expecting to have an exhilarating experience, but ended up feeling so relieved to be done due to our less than ideal circumstances. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad that I can say I have hiked Mount Fuji, but I think someday I may have to hike it again because I don't want my impression of it to remain like it is now. By now you must be thinking, ok...what happened that made this such a horrible experience? Well, let me start to explain. It all began on the last official day of Fuji being open for hiking.
On Wednesday, August 27th I met up with my friend Charity, Luther, and his two friends in Shinjuku. From there we got on a bus at 7:15pm which drove us to the 5th station of Mt.Fuji. After purchasing some necessarry hiking items at a store there, such as wooden walking sticks and gloves we headed out on our voyage at 10:40pm. It was beautiful to look up and see the stars at night, one of the few times I've been able to in Japan since I'm normally in the city. It was quiet and peaceful as our group walked alone. We could see the dark outlines of some trees to our sides, but mostly the rocky path in front of of the path dimly lit by our flashlights. We were eager and excited, buzzing with the anticipation of what our journey would bring.
At the first of the stops for the 6th station we rested a bit adding a few layers more of clothing as the higher altitude brought cooler air, grabbing a bit of a snack, and chatting with a young Brittish man our age Luther had met on the bus. His name was Ananda and his family was from Thailand. He was traveling on his own so we invited him to hike with us, and he joined us the rest of the way, as well as the day after. To his advantage or disadvantage I'm not so sure. He seemed to be pretty pleased with his decision after it was all over, but you'd have to ask him.
We were hiking in the middle of the night in order that we would arrive at the top of Mount Fuji for the sunrise which is quite popular to do. This took away the element of hiking where you can enjoy the beautiful scenery around you, but like I said the stars were quite amazing, and they kept getting bigger and brighter the higher we went. Later, we could see a beautiful small crescent of the moon as well. About halfway up the mountain we started entering the clouds which we could feel as a light mist. You could see it as we took pictures as well because the water particles would show up in the flash. This made us feel more chilly, but we were still enjoying ourselves as we kept moving and getting closer and closer to the summit!
Around 4am we reached the top of the mountain which felt so amazing. I couldn't believe I was standing on top of a mountain! When you looked down you could see dark clouds lit up by the moon that flowed with the curvature of the earth. Our first priority at the top was to get warm and eat something. So, we waited to get into the one restaurant at the top with the many other people who had the same idea. It was basically an open room with rows and rows of benches. The "waiter" would only take orders in groups and so he'd say "how many people want ramen, how many want soba, how many want coffee" etc. and then they'd pass out those things one at a time. There were no doors to the restaurant, but it was still warmer than being outside as you were blocked by the wind, sitting smashed next to other people, and there were a few little areas with coals you could warm your hands. I ate a snickers bar we'd brought along with a coffee and it had frozen!
About 4:45am while I was sitting in the restaurant I looked over and saw the sun begin to peak over the clouds. We all hurried up and finished what we were eating to get outside and enjoy the view. Unfortunately the clouds were quite persistent and we could only catch glimpses in between the clouds floating by. It was beautiful to look down on the clouds that were a deep blue and out at the orange sun. I thought about how I'd seen similar scenery but only from an airplane, never from having physically hiked up a mountain. I wished that even though the clouds were beautiful that they weren't there because they were hiding the other beautiful nature and sunrise we could have seen. It didn't help either that we were all completely freezing and shivering like crazy the whole time. After we couldn't take the cold anymore and had given up on seeing anything more than we already had from the sunset we began to hike down. We walked to where you could tell it was the edge of the crater, and though we couldn't really see down it, it was still pretty cool. You could hike all the way around the crater, but that would have taken about an hour which we were not so interested in being as we couldn't see anything anyway.
I remember thinking that the worst was over, that it would start to warm up a bit now that the sun had risen, and we'd be able to have a better view on the way down. Well, that was pretty far from the truth unfortunately.
You see, just like on the way up, we continued to hike in the clouds. And, on the way down, not only was it a cloud but a rain cloud. We got completely soaking wet. It was miserable. The rain penetrated through everything I was wearing. It was dripping down the front of our face, it was in our shoes sloshing in our socks, and it was keeping us from seeing anything. I wanted to cry, and maybe I did...but with all that rain I wouldn't have been able to feel the difference. Every time we would stop for a break I would just shiver because we weren't moving any more. All I wanted to do was get down that mountain and into dry clothes. The problem though was that I no longer had dry clothes to change into because the rain had soaked through my bag as well and everything in it including my wallet with money.
(hehe 8st station)
Well, Ananda, Luther's two friends Will and Mike, Luther, Charity and I had all gotten pretty acquainted with each other by this point. We'd shared various things about ourselves, our jobs, our pastimes, our travel experiences and now we were sharing this common experience. We had banned together encouraging and looking out for each other as we struggled to survive it seemed. It was Ananda's 24th birthday that day so we all sang to him on the mountain. We were all Christian, but he was a Buddhist who considered himself not quite as strong as an atheist but more like agnostic so it was interesting to talk with him. Apparently many of his family that live in Thailand still have become Christian and he'd like to read the Bible so maybe someday he will be also.
(you have to pay to go to the bathroom on Mt.Fuji!)
The whole way down I had pretty much one thing on my mind, reaching the 5th station and being done. Occasionally, a few other things would enter my mind. For example, "These green bushes growing up here are quite interesting I wonder what they are?". "Why are there all these one yen coins stuck in this post?"
I also marveled at the ground I was walking on I was not able to see on the way up which was all various volcanic rocks. They were red, gray and black. Much of the trail was not your easy dirt path hiking, but truly mountain climbing as we watched our every step to carefully move from rock to rock. I mean Fuji is a volcano, so it's not like you have this nice dirt path among the trees. It's hard jagged, steep and unforgiving molten rocks.
As we grew closer to our destination we began passing people who were hiking up the mountain. I kept wondering who would seriously want to climb a mountain in this rain? Then I realized well I guess I am, and maybe they thought it would stop just as I had. They were saying Ohayoo gozaimasu (goodmorning) when I kept wanting to say Konnichiwa (hello), because it didn't seem like 7am to me since I hadn't slept since like 10am the day before.
Finally we made it to the 5th station of Fujinomiya. From Fujinomiya we were going to take a bus at noon, but it was only 9am and seeing as how we were freezing and soaking wet we didn't really feel like waiting around that long. So, we called a taxi and figured out that it would be about 30 $ a person to get to this onsen that we wanted to go to. So after much deliberation about what to do we decided to go with the taxi and by noon we were at the Onsen. It was pretty much the most amazing feeling ever to get into that hot bath.
This onsen was a really nice one so they gave you yukata you could wear around which was perfect since all my clothes were so wet and I really didn't want to put them on after getting nice and warm. They also had a dryer which I was super excited about. Unfortunately, as I had heard from my brother Eric, dryers in Japan don't actually dry your clothes, they just play with them. I put in a small load with a friend for half and hour and some of them felt more wet than when I had put them in. So we tried another half and hour. They were still damp, but at least a little better. Well in the meantime Charity and I headed up to the restaurant to eat some food as I was pretty hungry, while most of the boys slept in massage chairs.
So once again it felt as though our troubles were over, and yet they were not. We planned to take a bus from the onsen to the Fuji train station like Luther had heard his friends did. So he asked the people at the information desk, and they informed him that there was a bus that drove for free to the station, but it only left at 3pm. Or, we could walk to fujinomiya which was about 20 minutes away. So again we had to decide what we wanted to do. We decided to wait about an hour to take this bus since we were pretty tired and not wanting to spend more money. We passed out on some couches in the lobby.
Then, a little before three Luther discovers that his camera is missing, and thinks that it was stolen. So, he of course is quite concerned about this and begins trying to find it and asking workers about it. So, we finally get everyone outside and the only bus there is one that goes to fujinomiya. So we don't get on hoping to get on the bus that goes to Fuji station. Well, either we misunderstood what people were saying since it was japanese, or we missed the bus, because it never came. So now we missed both busses and our only option was to walk to the Fujinomiya station. Walking outside again in the rain. We did that and just barely all purchased tickets in time to get on the train which comes about every 30 minutes. Usually I can just use my suica everywhere but since it was such a remote place they used a different system which I wasn't expecting.
We got on the train about 4:00pm and it was about a 3 hour train ride back to my apartment from there. I have never been more happy to get home to my apartment before. I made some dinner and then collapsed in bed exhausted. I could barely walk up the 12 or so steps to my apartment my knees were so weak. Today I did laundry of all my wet clothes and the machine had a black soot left from the volcanic mountain at the bottom after I took them out. It was quite the unforgettable experience and I'm still trying to process it all. I'm glad I can say I've hiked up and over Mount Fuji, but not so glad that was the way I experienced it. I did meet some great people and took advantage of the chance I had to do the one thing I really wanted to do when I found out I was coming to Japan. After I got home I saw a message from one of my students who had seen on my facebook that I was going to hike Fuji. She said to be careful and that some news stations had reported that there was snow on Fuji already. Well I didn't see any snow, but it was certainly cold.
