Climbing Mt Fuji

Mid July marks the official start of Mt Fuji climbing season, which lasts until the end of August. During the climbing season, the weather is temperate, all of the huts on the mountain are open, and access to the mountain is generally very easy to arrange. During this time every year, an estimated 200,000 people ascend the picturesque mountain, one third of which are foreigners. Last year that included myself...

Having no previous mountain climbing experience, I did not know what to expect for the climb. As such, I signed for one of the climbs organized by "Tokyo Gaijin's". For information please check http://www.tokyogaijins.com/fuji/hikes.html. Tokyo Gaijin's organized climb appealed to me as they transport you down to Kawaguchiko (the 5th station from which you climb) arrange head lamps, spare batteries, snacks, energy drinks and provide a guided climb, all for a very reasonable fee (around JPY15,000)

Having signed up, on the day of the climb I made my way to Shinjuku station where I met my fellow climbers and tour guides. Despite it's name, Tokyo Gaijin's is a great mix of both foreigners as well as Japanese people. We made our introductions, boarded the bus and were off.

Around 3pm we arrived at Kawaguchiko, the fifth and highest station accessible by road to begin to acclimatize and stretch for our impending climb. Mt Fuji stands 3776 meters above sea level, and whilst it looks very impressive on postcards (particularly in the winter, when covered in snow) it looks incredibly imposing and a rather dull shade of rocky brown up close. That having been said, I was still under the false impression that this would not be too difficult of an ordeal. I was in for a big surprise.

Around 5pm we set off for the summit. One of the downsides of hiking with the Tokyo Gaijin's is that they set the pace very slowly, to ensure as many people as possible make it to the summit. That having been said, we managed to keep up with the faster walkers, and were pleased to stop and wait for the others to catch up, while we caught our breath. As the minutes turned into hour after hour of uphill hiking, the sun fell, the temperature started to drop, and the night slowly wore on, step by step we made our way closer to the summit.

Being Japan, of course things are very efficiently organized, and this also applies to climbing Mt Fuji. From the fifth station at Kawaguchiko, there are another four stations positioned for the ascent all the way up the mountain. As a cruel joke, each numbered station has four different huts, which on the one hand is great for being able to stop for water, drinks etc (each hut sells a variety of mountain climbing essentials such as water, oxygen, food, snacks and beer) however it is rather disheartening to know that once you have made it to the ninth station's first hut, you still have three more huts to pass through before finally being on the way to the summit.

We reached the eighth station around 1am, by this time we had put on all of the ski gear that we had brought with us, which included around five layers of thermal clothing, plus thick jackets. This however, did nothing to take the cold bite of the wind out of the air, as we pushed ourselves to continue to the summit. The last three hours dragged on for what seemed like forever, and we struggled up the final part of the ascent. As our headlamps started to dim, it became difficult to see where we were climbing. Climbing Mt Fuji entails actual rock climbing near the peak; as such we wore gloves so that we could grip the rocks as we made our ascent to the summit.

We eventually reached the summit around 4am, and I have never in my life been so excited to see flat land. The sun rose around 5am, and it was breathtaking. In my opinion it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen - seeing the sunrise from ABOVE the clouds is absolutely spectacular.

As the temperature at the summit was freezing, and because we wanted to avoid the crowds, after an hour at the top, we began the 3.5 hour descent back to the fifth station. The descent isn't quite as easy as it sounds... firstly the path is steep and winding, secondly it is made up of a combination of loose rock, dirt and scoria, which makes it incredibly slippery. Thankfully we had some hiking sticks and a solid determination for wanting to get down which prevented us from doing any major damage.

The Japanese have a saying "you are a fool if you don't climb Mt Fuji, and you are twice the fool if you climb it more than once" which seems to be a wise adage if you ask me. Whilst I highly recommend climbing one of the worlds most picturesque & photographed mountains, I would certainly think twice about climbing again.