Climbing Mt. Fuji

After Tokyo, Devin, Tynan and I headed to Mt. Fuji. In the early afternoon on Saturday we took a bus to Kawaguchiko, a town near the bottom of Mt. Fuji. Upon our arrival we discovered that there were no more buses from Kawaguchiko Station to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji that day. After some puzzling exchanges with the information desk ladies, we figured out how to get ourselves where we needed to go. One train and one bus later, we made it to the 5th station, where our hike would begin. The plan: climb all night and reach the summit in time to watch the sunrise.

We arrived at the 5th station around 8 pm on Saturday and started our hike shortly after. It was rather foggy, so everything looked a bit surreal. Because our headlamps lit up the mist directly in front of our faces, it wasn't so easy to see. But it was dark out, so there wasn't much to see anyways. The beginning of the hike was along a pretty wide trail, and it wasn't too steep.

As we were walking, the mist gradually turned into actual rain. It wasn't terribly heavy rain, so we just put on our rain gear and didn't think much of it. We figured that once we got higher, we'd be above the clouds and it wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, we never got above the clouds and the rain never let up. As we got further up the trail, there were a number of sections that involved scrambling up steep rocks, and those were a little slippery when wet. But the actual hiking itself wasn't too bad.

Gradually we passed the 6th, 7th, and 8th stations. Each station had toilets, snacks for sale, and some shelters where you could rent a space on the floor for a nap. Unfortunately, you have to make reservations well in advance if you want a spot in one of these shelters, and it's a bit spendy as well. So we would usually just pause for a bit to drink some water and eat a snack, then move on when it started to get too cold to stand still.

As we continued, the weather only got worse. The rain didn't get heavier, but the wind picked up until it felt like we were being hit with rain from all directions. It had been raining so long that our raincoats and clothes were soaked through. I had made the regrettable decision to wear jeans, and they had become incredibly cold and heavy. Some of the gusts of wind were almost bad enough to knock you over, which was pretty unsettling when we were in the rock-climbing stretches of the path. But we were nearing the top, and we were hopeful that we'd find shelter and some warm drinks up there.

By the time we reached the summit, we were all very cold and wet. The wind was howling and the rain was still coming down. We made a very unpleasant discovery: the shelters were all closed, and might not be open for several hours. We had arrived much too early, around 1 am. To my mind there was no way we could stay up there long enough to wait for sunrise; we couldn't stand the cold nearly that long. But I wasn't sure how we could get down the mountain safely, either. I was shivering so hard that it felt more like spasms, and I don't think Devin and Tynan were in much better shape.

While we went to look for the trail that led down the mountain, we passed some small outbuildings that appeared to be locked. We were standing and talking about our options when someone opened one of the doors and invited us in. It was actually just a bathroom with two toilet stalls, but there was some standing space, and it was shelter. It was such an incredible relief to get inside out of the wind. There were maybe 10 people in the bathroom when we arrived. We just stood there shivering for a long time. Even the people in professional quality gear looked pretty miserable, but there were some less well equipped people who were in really bad shape. There was a French lady whose lips had gone nearly purple. Gradually more and more people came by, and each time the same Japanese man let them in. In the end I think there were 20 people crammed into that bathroom. There was only enough space for everyone to stand packed together. Even with that many bodies packed together, it didn't feel much warmer than outside.

We stood in the bathroom for a few hours, I think. The storm just wasn't letting up. By this point I was rather scared about what would happen to us. It seemed pretty clear that we would get hypothermia if we had to be outside in that weather for any length of time, so how were we supposed to get back down the mountain? The bathroom was a good shelter, but even so, we were all freezing and Devin was feeling sick. And eventually someone came to kick us all out of the bathroom, as well. But by that time they had finally opened one of the larger shelters, where they were selling ramen. We all hustled back through the storm to get a spot on the benches in the new shelter, and ordered ramen so they wouldn't make us leave. We waited there until the sky started to get lighter. It was still so stormy that no one could see the sunrise, but we knew it must've happened because the sky had turned gray instead of black.

Eventually we had to leave. The storm hadn't gotten any better, and it didn't look like it was going to. I was really worried about trying to get back down. My hips were painfully stiff from standing in one spot in the bathroom, and from the cold. It was very hard to walk. I tried marching in place to loosen up my hips, but that didn't do much. Jumping up and down worked a little better, though. So we set off down the return trail.

Fortunately, the trail down the mountain was much easier than the trail up. It was fairly wide and descended at a constant slope. We lost our footing pretty frequently because it was mostly loose lava rock, but we could go down at a good speed. If we had to climb down rocks like the ones we had gone up, I don't know what we would've done, but this walk was manageable. We were still cold, wet and miserable, but there was some hope now.

Partway down, there are points where the trail splits and the forks lead to different trailheads. We had been warned that it's easy to get confused and end up at the wrong spot, so we were keeping an eye out for this. At one point where the trail didn't seem very well marked, we stopped to ask a group of guys which trail we were on. It turned out that they were going back to the same place as us, so we all walked together. They were a group of three Japanese college students, and they were in pretty good spirits, so that cheered us all up. We had some fun conversations. However, we (Devin, Tynan and I) were moving somewhat faster than them, and eventually got separated.

We reached the 5th station around 8 am on Sunday morning. We had to wait a while for the bus to return to Kawaguchiko Station, so we bought some souvenirs and hung around in a visitor reception area. A very kind staff member invited us into the visitors room and told us we could sit there as long as we liked. I was nodding off occasionally, but fortunately Devin and Tynan were keeping an eye on the time. We caught a bus down the mountain and finally made it back to Kawaguchiko Station.

At this point, we were able to change into dry clothes and rest a little. We spent the day hanging around the station. Our bus to Kyoto wouldn't come until 11 pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. Fortunately the station wasn't crowded and the station attendants didn't have any problem with people lazing around on the benches. The station was actually a pretty nice place to wait; it was clean, warm and dry, and we could buy snacks and drinks. There was also Beatles music playing in the background all day, for some reason. We had noodles for dinner, ate some Mt. Fuji soft serve ice cream (blue on the bottom, white peak on top), and took a nap on the benches since the station was nearly empty. We were kicked out around 10 or 10:30 pm, and from there we just waited for our bus to come.

There was a little confusion as to where our night bus was coming to, and how we would get on it. Tynan's friend Hiroki had made reservations for us, thank God, but we didn't have any kind of paper tickets. When the bus came the driver first told us that it wasn't the right bus, then ran back and confirmed that the reservation was made under the name Sumisu (Smith) and told us to get on.

Once we were on the bus, we were pretty much home free. We were still desperate for a shower and a place to sleep, but at least we were off the mountain and headed to our next destination. We all dozed as best as we could on the bus, and we arrived in Kyoto at 5 am on Monday. We stowed our luggage in lockers at the station and wandered around until we could check in at the hostel. And so began our adventures in Kyoto.