Fuji

Th highlight of my Japanese trip was to be the ascent of Mount Fuji. The trip is reckoned as an easy yet rewarding climb. The plan was to get my brother, Fred, to fly from Shanghai on Saturday, rush to the bus station, climb the mountain on Saturday night and come back to Tokyo early Sunday morning for a two day visit of the capital. Things, of course, have not worked according to plan. Not one bit.

I received a call on Saturday morning, from Fred, announcing me that his typhoon was delaying his flight. So we had to push back the departure to the following day evening. When it was finally time to go, the Yamanote train line was cut off, preventing us from reaching the bus station on time. After finally getting there and some negotiating in broken Japanese (attendants for tourist destinations in Japan often do not speak English), I managed to get a bus ticket two hours later. I had initially planned to reach the 5th station early in order to get acclimated to the altitude before starting a slow-paced ascent. Never mind, we finally arrived at the 5th station at 10pm and started the ascent almost immediately.

The trek to the top is pretty simple. there are several trails and the most popular one is the Yoshida (yellow) that is on the eastern slope of the volcano and therefore lets you see the sunrise if you aren't done with the ascent by 4:30. It also provides a separate track for descent and therefore makes traffic simpler.

The ascent was very focused and in the dark. Unfortunately my camera is really bad at taking night pictures (admittedly, I am really bad at taking good pictures in the dark with it) so there is very little for me to show. With the light-polluted sky of Tokyo, I hadn't been able to spot a single star for two weeks. On the slopes of the volcano, the sky was so full of stars I couldn't recognize the usual constellations! I used Google Sky to help me and was able to spot the left arm of Orion just above the horizon and Cygnus just above us. The valley was filled with lights and provided an eerie view of the megalopolis slowly creeping uphill.

 View of the valley from the 7th station. This is unfortunately the best picture I could make in the dark.

At the 8th station, trouble started to strike again: we kept running into organized groups (Japanese people are big fans of organized tours) that considerably slowed down our ascent. This is both a curse and a boon: Fred started complaining about dizziness. We had been too fast in our ascent and these were the early signs of altitude sickness. At first, I did not pay much attention to it as I had the same problem when I did the Everest base camp trek. Mount Fuji is also very low, around 3800m, so I assumed everything was going to be fine. We still had 600 meters to go and 2 km to walk, we decided to continue.

Altitude sickness is a very strange affliction: there is no way to tell beforehand if you are going to suffer from it. It is recommended to climb slowly, which we didn't do. In the end, even if you haven't suffered from it before, it can still get to you. Strangely, being fit won't change your odds of getting it.

As we kept on rising, the groups got more and more dense and annoying - and Fred's symptoms became more oppressing. By the time we reached the 9th station (they call it the "original" 8th station), he complained about more severe symptoms like nausea. We kept going as they were still relatively mild, understanding full well that we would not be able to stay up there very long. We passed the first dori on the way, and I took this picture that in spite of being blurry has the merit of showing how many people were climbing this mountain.

On the way, we saw a few people sitting and having real difficulties breathing. The mountain had begun taking its toll. I felt really sad for these people who had to fail so close to their goal. The sun was about to rise, we needed to keep moving.

Finally, we reached the summit. It is filled with souvenir shops and tired climbers. We were protected from the wind during the ascent and the wind was waiting for us up there. Temperatures dropped suddenly and, as the climb was over, we started cooling down. If you ever attempt the adventure, I suggest you pack some extra layers.

Fred laid on a rock. At 4:15am, the sun was to rise within 15 minutes. I went looking around to find some medical help - to no avail. I mustered all my Japanese to ask for information - that's when I realized that your average language course does not cover those situations very well. I finally managed to have someone pointing me the way down. I got Fred up, we took a few pictures as the sun finally rose - and promptly departed.

The sun slowly rises over the valley, that is being covered by clouds.

Before going, of course, I snapped a picture of the crater. Unfortunately, they don't let you come too close - here's my best shot.

Then the descent started. It's not very interesting and very painful: mostly dusty criss-crosses. With the number of people catching up with us, a thick cloud of dust covered us. Fred started feeling better, however, and was fully recovered by the 8th station.

The views of the sun rising over the valley are stunning:

This isn't an artifact of the camera, this is exactly what I saw.

We reached the 5th station completely exhausted, and yet happy to have made it. Just as we arrived, the rain poured over the area. Some luck at last.