Conquering Mount Fuji!

The first thing I'll say about climbing Mount Fuji is... that I'm not sure I ever want to climb it again. Not that it wasn't worth it. The sunrise at the top of the mountain was incredible. But it's a long and tiring way up. And climbing it once in a lifetime is enough according to me... and my body.

Warning: LOTS of pictures ahead! Probably the most picture-loaded post I've ever written. But you won't be disappointed because they're awesome pictures!

We left the dorm early at 6:30 am on Monday morning.

Geared up and ready to climb

Arriving at Fujinomiya Station

We took the train to Fujinomiya, and then a bus to get to the Fujinomiya 5th Station. That's where we started climbing. As you can see in the map below, there are different trails that lead to the top. We chose the Fujinomiya trail on the way up and Subashiri Trail on the way down.

The Fujinomiya Trail is the blue trail

Starting off at the 5th station

The first day (Monday), we made it up until the 9.5th station. At first, we were motivated and the climb wasn't too difficult. I think we made it to the 7th station with only 2 breaks. Then, from the 7th to the 9.5th, the climb got steeper and steeper and we took breaks about every 10-15 minutes to rest our legs and breathe properly again.

It was hard. The terrain were dangerous and you could easily fall if you placed your foot on the wrong foothold. Or twist your ankle. Or hit your head on a rock as you fell. Lots of ways to injure yourself if you weren't careful. But we climbed slowly and tried to choose the safest paths.

Steep...

And steeper...

Taking a short break

What surprised me was that kids as young as 4-5 years old and men and women that seem to be about 60 years old or older were also climbing Mt. Fuji. It kind of motivated me and I tried to hide my panting when we passed them. If they can do it, then I can too. That's what I told myself a couple of times when the going got tough.

When we arrived at the 9.5th station, we checked into a small mountain hut, what they call a yamagoya in Japanese. It's really just a place to sleep, not to do anything else. We couldn't even brush our teeth. And we slept in a room full of other people we didn't know.

This is the mountain hut at the 9.5th station,
where we slept for about 8hrs before climbing again

The room where everyone slept all together

View from the 9.5th station (at around 6 pm)

After sleeping for a few hours, we woke up around 2 a.m. and got dressed into warm clothes, installed our flashlights and started climbing again. It was so dark! During the day, when the sun was high up in the sky, the going was dangerous but at least we could see. This morning, when we started climbing, it took us a lot more time because we couldn't see beyond what our flashlights lit up. But slowly, steadily, with a few breaks, we made it to the top at around 3:00 a.m. And then... we had to wait. The sun only came out around 5:00 so during 2 hours, we froze our butts off. The wind was strong and there's no place to hide from the wind at the top of the mountain. So we huddled closely together and sang some songs to distract ourselves.

My roommate Anzu with her headlight

Finally, the sky slowly started showing tints of pink, yellow, and orange. And about 30 min later, out came the sun!

Starting to come out

With my roommate Anzu

Amazing view!

We did it! We climbed to the top of Mt. Fuji and saw the sunrise!!!

Then we started our descent. Going down was much easier than going up but it was still tricky and dangerous at times. The trail we took to go down (Subashiri Trail) was made mostly of soft sand so we kind of "slid" our way down. There were still a lot of rocks here and there so you had to be careful. I think I fell about 5 times along the way because I slipped on some rocks but fortunately, they weren't hard falls because of the sand. In total, it only took us 1h45 minutes to go down while it took us 3h04 minutes to go up (breaks not included).

Kage Fujisan: Mt. Fuji's shadow

Another surprising thing is that I had great phone connectivity up on Mt. Fuji. I even sent a picture of the sunrise from my phone to my parents and grandmother when we were up at the very top.

Finally, after taking the bus and the train, we arrived home. I immediately took a shower because we hadn't been able to wash ourselves the night before. My face, feet, and skin were full of sweat and sand and dust. It felt so good to take a shower. Then, later, my roommate and I went to a hot spring bath and that also felt like heaven.

I can now say that I climbed Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan! But I would never have been able to do it without my roommate Anzu. She's climbed it twice before so she reserved the mountain hut, she lent me hiking shoes, and organized the transportation to the climbing site. And we pushed each other when we got tired. If I had climbed alone... well, I would have probably given up halfway. It's so much more fun to climb with a friend. So again, thank you Anzu!