FUJI-SAN !!!

I friggin climbed Mt. Fuji... well almost. I climbed most of the way up Mt. Fuji. Let me explain...

Here we are... Chris, Katie, Philippe (said with a french accent) and the lovely Jody. After taking the train to Shinjuku (Tokyo) we catch a bus. After a little over two hours we reach level five of Fuji-san. This is the starting gate for most of the hikers. Yes... it is night time. The prefered way to climb is to hike up during the night, watch the sun rise and then hike back down in the morning. This is us fresh and ready. So full of hope... so full of denial.

After we got adjusted to the altitude we start off. After about 50 feet we wished we had brought more flashlights. After about 2 hours we wanted to quit. It starts to rain. Then it starts to really rain. The guy at post #6 tells us there is a typhoon on the way. Great. But we persist on up the mountain. Here is Phillip and I am station #7. If we thought it was bad before, it is just about to get a whole lot worse. You see... to climb Mt.Fuji you really have to climb. You are grabbing onto cold wet rocks and hurling yourself up this god damn mountain.
So not only is it raining... it is now starting to get cold. Now... I was prepared for the cold and a little wet. What I was not prepared for was a Typhoon. Look how miserable these people are.

Unfortunatly, I didn't get any pictures of the ruff and rocky terrian. It was soooooooo wet. My gloves were soked through by 11pm. In between stations 7 n 8 there are plenty of resting houses. Each small plateau there is a lodge house/ hotel. This is where some people spend the night so we must be quiet during our breaks.

We get up to the red tori gate... still raining. After climing the most gruling part of the mountain since our start, we finally reach station 8. Katie and Chris are 45mins to an hour behind us. It sucks. We try not to rest for to long, becasue we are loosing body heat. Around station #6 we wrapted all of our extra clothes in plastic bags, so that we have something warm to put on once we reach the top. However , this sign is not promising. If we are still three hours from the top in good weather, how much longer would we have to endure in this crappy weather?

So... what did the wet and tired hobits do? WE GAVE UP!!!! The next station after 8, we threw in the towl. It was the best 50 bucks I have ever spent. It was around 1 when we stopted. And Katie and Chris were with us by 2am. They were drenced and freezing. Katie even had blue lips. The lodge house may not be well heated, but it is dry , the house keeper speaks english, is really friendly and helpful. (He even wiped down our rain coats for us)

So after some bowls of hot udon, corn soup, tea and beer.... we were finally ready to call it a night. We bought a pair of socks (three bucks well spent) changed into out dry clothes and turned in. My ass was sooooooo cold. It wasn't till around 4am that I finally got warm enough to fall asleep. Unfortunatly, wake up was shortly after 6 (and after a snickers bar and a quick trip to the bathroom) we were back on the mountain by 7.

Luckily... it was not raining. We were above the clouds (for the moment). The nightmare of the night was over and seeing the Mt. in the morning light was much more pleasent.

Thank goodness we stopted where we did. The decending path was only a five minute walk away from or lodge. As you can see... we were not the only ones that gave up the night before.

The boys ran off down the mountain so Katie and I were left to enjoy a slow walk down.

Katie's walking stick is a common accessory/souvenier of Fuji-san. Some sticks have flags or different color ribbons. They all have bells( but I would suggest taking them off before you leave sation #5 or else your companians may bludgen you to death with your own stick). As you hike up the mountain you can get markers burned into the wood to show your achievment. The stick is... precious to her.

After several hours, we finally reach station #5. We pick up our souveniers (for me: A pink, commerative Hello Kitty charm to go with my collection (yes, I have a collection. It is a cheap trinket you can buy at almost any location in Japan and it really depicts the place where you have been, as long as you don't mind it having a kitty cat.)).

And how did we find the boys. They were getting aclimitized to the altitude by having a beer at 10am. I settled for a bottle of green tea and a serving of hot yaki-soba. Mmmmmmmm yaki-soba.

The saying goes... You are a fool if you never hike Fuji-san. And you are even more of a fool if you hike it more than once. Will I hike it again? I think so. However, I will be sure that there is no impending typhoons. Typhoons suck.

Till next time... Live long, love well and don't climb a mountain in a typhoon.

PS... I apologise about spelling and grammer mistakes. There is no spell check on this damn japanese computer. I will fix it when I can.

PPS... you can enlarge any picture by double clicking on it. That way you can get a closer look at how miserable we really were. hahaha!