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Climbing Mt. Fuji |
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(Rainer went up Mt. Fuji with colleagues on 11/08)
It was great! “If you have not climbed Mt. Fuji once in your life, you are stupid. If you climb it twice, you are even more stupid.” The former is absolutely right. And as this is a serious climb which demands a lot from your body, the latter might also be true for most people. However, it was a wonderful experience, helped by an ideal weather and a good company going up together.
Mt. Fuji, or Fuji-san (= Fuji mountain) as the Japanese call it, is definitely one of the most impressive natural phenomena in the world, no matter if you see it from far away or if you are on top of it. Chiko & I had the chance to see Fuji-san already in January 2002 from Gotenba, south of the mountain, at that time covered by snow.
There are many ways and methodologies how to climb this mountain. They will not be discussed here, as it is already intensively done on various websites (see list below). But our way obviously turned out to be one of the most preferable ones for several reasons. Here is
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the whole story... :
Climbing Mt. Fuji is only recommended in July and August. Only then huts and service stations are open and the weather is expected to be good enough for climbing. We chose the Kawaguchi trail, also called Yoshida trail or Subaru line trail. It ascends Mt. Fuji from the North and therefore is best reachable for people from Tokyo. The trail is also not too steep, although a bit longer than the others. All in all it was easy to go up.
It was a bit dangerous at night. However, this is surely not different from the other trails.
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Most people start from Kawaguchi “go gome”, the 5th station on the trail at 2300 m above the sea, the highest point where cars are allowed to go up. Be aware of the Obon-holiday week in August, as then you can only go to 2nd station and have to take a shuttle bus service to 5th station, which actually turned out to be no problem. In the middle of the week it was not too crowded despite Obon (Japanese holiday season around 15 August).
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Our starting time to walk from 5th station was 5pm. The plan
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was to walk throughout the night and watch the sunrise in the following morning from the top at about 3,700 m.
Walking is not so difficult. A bit of climbing is necessary, but not too much. From 5th station there are several huts along the way to the top, which allow you to rest and to buy food & drinks if needed. But you had better bring your own food - it is really
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expensive up there. The same for the toilet: 100 Yen for using once. However, it is a donation and it makes sense as with this money Mt. Fuji is kept in shape to allow us hiking.
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Climbing keeps you warm, but when resting at a hut you will soon feel that it is gradually becoming cold, especially when the sun starts to go down. It is absolutely important to take warm clothes, even if the Japanese hot summer at the bottom of the hills tells you something else.
Another question is about the tactics on
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the way: go slowly and have many shorter rests without sleeping at all, or walk up quickly to 8th station at about 3,300 m, grab some sleep and continue after midnight.
We did the latter, as we arrived at 8th station at 3,250 m around 9 pm. Sunrise was supposed to start from 4 am, so continuing would have forced us to wait a considerable time at the summit. So
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we decided to rest for 3-4 hours, get up at 1.15 am and continue to go up. We paid 5,250 Yen for a small space to lie and sleep. However, as many other people are with you in that room, there is always some noise and additionally, as for me, I was too excited to be able to sleep. Even though, it was probably better than waiting freezing on the summit (we would freeze enough anyway later).
3,250 m sounds high. So here are some words about altitude sickness. Well, you definitely feel you get more short-breathed and can only go at a slow pace in order not to pant for breath. Nevertheless, I personally did not have too many problems. On the stations and the shops at the foot of the mountain there is bottled-oxygen offered for this case. However, our experience shows you do not need it, you can easily survive without it. If you are very sensitive towards altitude and thin air, ok, but then a bottle of oxygen will not bring you up there either, I guess.
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You want to see how Mt. Fuji looks like just right now? Click here!
All in all, an extra-ordinary experience! But you must prepare well, get all the information beforehand, and then go up. The internet offers plenty of information on access, preparation, things to take and so on. A selection of links that we used is listed below. Those links tell you more or less all you need to know:
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