13/9/12
1636 (local time)
Mt Fuji, Japan
Written in Koenji, opposite the
train station on a park bench…
I’ve been thinking how im going
to start this blog… and to be honest the only way I feel I can express my-self
is probably through a facial expression. To sum it up in several words: Tired,
Hurting, Hot, Thirsty, Stressed… but when I recap about what has happened in
the last 24 hours! I’d say the most important words I come to think of are:
Relief & a feel of accomplishment, as I have just climbed the highest
mountain in Japan, and also went the highest I’ve ever been in my life. I
Climbed Mount Fuji!
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| Mt Fujisan 3776m |
Before I get into the story of my
climb, I want to provide you, the audience with a little bit of information about
Mount Fuji, thanks Wikipedia.
Mount Fuji or (Fuji-san)
is the highest mountain in Japan located on Honshu
Island at 3,776.24m (12,389 ft).An active strato-volcano that last erupted in 1707–08.
Mount
Fuji lies about 100 kilometres
south-west of Tokyo,
and can be seen from there on a clear day. Mount Fuji's exceptionally
symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known
symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well
as visited by sightseers and climbers. It is one of Japan's "Three Holy
Mountains. Along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku;
it is a Special Place of Scenic
Beauty, a Historic Site, and has been submitted for future inscription on the World
Heritage List as a Cultural (rather than Natural) Site.
For me, what made this such a
memorable achievement was the fact that I have never, ever hiked that high in
my life, Mount Fuji stands at 3,776mtrs, and although it isn’t all that high
compared to other mountains in the world, what makes it special for me is that
I planned this trip all on my own.
When I first had the idea of
coming to Japan, Mount Fuji stood there as a Number 1 thing to do! When I
started reading into it a little bit more I realised that when I get to Japan,
the official climbing season is over. Which means there will be no rescue
support if something goes wrong, and at 3,776mtrs there is a high possibility
of things going wrong – my main concern was Altitude Sickness.
The reason being, is that I had
never been this high before so I had the fear of unknown, I didn’t know how my
body was going to react to the thin air of 3,776mtrs. So obviously I was
worried.
With the climbing season
finished, it also meant that there wont be regular busses running to and from
the mountain which meant I would either have to fork out $50AUD for 3 hours of
sleeping, or just battle it out in the cold for free… obviously I chose the
latter.
Anyway, I bought my ticket that
dropped me from Tokyo to Kawaguchiko, this 2 hour bus journey cost me 1,700
Yen, which is equivalent to $20AUD. (as it stands the exchange rate is 1AUD is
81YEN)
From Kawaguchiko you can do a bit
of exploring of the 4 lakes here, but honestly I wasn’t all that concerned
about that – as obviously my aim was Fuji.
So when I arrived at Kawaguchiko
bus station at around 12midday, I only did small bit of walking around the
lakes, but most of my time was spent buying supplies and resting my legs!
The lakes were quite beautiful,
but when I looked towards Mt. Fuji it was almost completely covered in clouds!
Not a great sign, and actually I was confused as I had been studying the
weather over the past week to pick the best day for hiking, and for this day
(Wednesday 12nd of August) it was predicted to be the best weather to summit as
there would be no clouds, wind or rain.
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| The Lakes of Kawaguchiko! |
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| Beautiful flowers ran along the side of the walking path! |
As the hours ticked by the
weather had gotten worse – it had started to rain! I was devastated as I
thought I would be in for a very wet and miserable night!
To drown my sorrows I resorted to
eating, so I went to a local restaurant and ordered just the standard dish of
Ramen (noodles, in a soup with beef and seaweed). As I enjoyed my meal, I
studied up on the different trails and routes you could take.
After my meal, I called Mum and
she wished me luck and it was almost time to catch the 1650 bus from
Kawaguchiko bus station to the 5th Station on Mount Fuji which is
2,300mtrs high, so basically already I had climbed in altitude 2,300mtrs in one
day without any acclimatization! Normally you are meant to spend at very least
an overnight at 2,300mtrs… but not me!
Since it was off-season I also
had the slight concern that I would be hiking on my own, which in any
circumstance is extremely dangerous, but fortunately for me I met a French guy
called Bruno who I was going to be doing a majority of hiking with. But before
I even start to tell you about the start of my hike, I need to tell you about a
bunch of 21 year old Americans from California.
So I met these guys, whilst
waiting for my bus to the 5th station, and being my friendly self I got
chatty to them.
“Hey guys, are you planning on
hitting Fuji tonight”
“yeah we are, but we don’t really
know anything about it” they replied.
“hahaha, well what are you
planning on hiking in?” I asked.
“this” they all replied.
Ok, so 1 of them, was in shorts
and a t-shirt, the other two were in a pair of trendy jeans and a t-shirt, I
was clearly shocked by this, as I started to realise how unprepared these guys
were!
I then explained to them, that it
gets to below freezing up on the summit, and that snowed last night!
Their faces dropped as they
started to scramble through the bags trying to find clothes that were suitable!
I asked them, if they had head
torches.
They replied “no”.
I then proceeded to explain to
them that “we are hiking at night time, and granted if there was a full moon
yeah, there might be enough light, but unfortunately tonight its very close to
becoming a new moon, meaning that it will be very, very dark”.
I told them where the local shop
was and told them to get plenty of water, snacks and of course torches!
Anyway, we saw these Americans a
few times on the mountain and they were battling. The last that I saw of the
Americans the tallest one was suffering from Altitude Sickness, and the rest of
them were freezing cold… I didn’t see them leave the mountain. But then again,
I caught the first bus back down.
Right, let me get started about
the story that was ‘Summiting Fuji’
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| the bus station in Kawaguchiko |
So, like I said earlier I had met
this French guy named Bruno, who was also very much prepared for the trip, with
plenty of food and warm clothes! I had decided he was going to be my hiking
buddy.
When the bus dropped us off at
the 5th station (1000YEN each way), which marks the boundary between
heaven and earth and at an altitude of 2,300mtrs you felt pretty high. We got
changed into our warmer clothes and started our hike. It had gotten dark pretty
quickly but I didn’t want to get out my head lamp out as Bruno (Frenchy) and a
Korean dude (James) had theirs on already.
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| 5th Station of Mt Fuji |
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| James and Bruno |
We hiked and hiked trying to keep
a slow and steady pace, as we were in no rush because we started our hike at
6pm and the sun wouldn’t rise until 5.34am the next day. So we basically had 11
hours to reach the summit but the actual hiking time was 350 minutes or 6
hours.
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| TO THE SUMMIT! |
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| View of the city below! |
So we basically had 5 hours to do
nothing apart from get cold, so the slower we went the better it was.
The start of our hike went really
well, and I was able to take some awesome photos of the city below. It was an
hour into our hike when we realised we had been going the wrong way… lucky for
us we only had to back track 20 minutes. It didn’t bother me, it just meant we
wasted some time.
Anyway, so we hiked up and up and
up until we reached the 7th Station at 2,700mtrs. We had climbed
400mtrs up so there was no real sign of the altitude having any effects on our
bodies.
Myself and Bruno (Frenchy) just
waited at the 7th station, thinking that it will be warmer at the 7th
than the 8th or 9th, so we sat around trying our hardest
to keep warm, as it was only 7 degrees and getting colder. Eventually a couple
from Spain had the same idea as us, so our group of 2 (as we lost James, the
Korean dude) turned into a group of 4! Perfect more chat, meant time went by
faster.
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| All the hikers we met on our way to 7th station. Japanese, French, Korean and American in 1 shot! |
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| The 7th Station was 6 degrees! COLD |
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| The city below! |
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| The lovely Spanish Couple! |
I think we mucked around, telling
jokes and talking about our travel stories for about 2 hours, until we got way
to cold so we decided to hike up to the 8th station at 3,200mtrs.
According to the map, this hike was supposed to take 100minutes! We did it in
50minutes, and that was taking it slow.
This sucked for us, as it meant
we had to sit around, and get cold for even longer… GREAT.
At 3,200mtrs I felt the altitude
starting to have an effect on my body, I didn’t feel dizzy or sick… just out of
breath. Probably due to the lack of oxygen at this height, it probably didn’t
help as we were no longer hiking, but scrambling up pretty gnarly rocks, using
our hands and feet – see the photos!
The higher we climbed the colder
it got!
I thought I had prepared well for
the cold, well as well as I could have with my current equipment. I had 2 t-shirts,
1 long sleeved t-shirt and a Wind & Water Resistant Jumper, I borrowed a
beanie and gloves as well. And still this wasn’t enough. Ideally I would have
brought up thermals and ski gear.
But I still managed, when I
started freezing, I just started to jump on the spot or do push ups, I may have
looked stupid, but it kept me warm.
We waited around at the 8th
station for ages, but we all got too cold and climbed a little bit more to
another mountain hut just above the 8th station. What made it really
depressing, as that we would look inside these mountain huts to see people
sleeping, all rugged up in blankets and sleeping bags, whilst we are outside
freezing our asses off! I suppose that’s the down side of not paying 3,000YEN
($45AUD) for 3 hours of sleep!
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| It was no longer a hiking path... but a scramble up volcanic rock! |
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| Inside one of the mountain huts... i wanted desperately to use the 'flash on my camera to wake her up!! :) |
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| Getting Closer! |
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| To the Summit! |
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| You arent even allowed in the huts!! |
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| Temperature drop to 5 degrees |
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| So cold, but still a smile on my face! |
We waited around at a
mountain hut called “the Real 8th station” and we stayed there for
about an hour freezing again in 2 degrees! We eventually paid 100yen ($1.5AUD)
for some ‘hot water’ inside the hut to defrost! After 15 minutes of defrosting
we started the epic journey to the summit! We were going to climb from
3,400mtrs to 3,776mtrs!
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| The 'Real 8th Station |
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| A Stamp for 2euros. |
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| A Small Bottle of Water 5euros |
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| We were close!! |
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| Dropped to 0 degrees! |
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| Toilet - the sign above the WC reads -anyone found sleeping has to pay 30euros for a nights accommodation- |
We set off, I wasn’t very
quick at all, I was having to stop after every 10mtrs of hiking to catch my
breath and to stop behind the trail of other hikers! I honestly wasn’t feeling
all that good, I’m not sure what it was, it could have been the altitude or it
could have been that I haven’t slept, or the cold getting to me, or it even
could have been the fact that I was just exhausted from all this hiking… either
way I was not feeling great but, it was just mind over matter! I just forced my
legs to keep going! And keep going they did! I finally made it to the summit!!
The Spanish couple were the first to witness a broken Stephen!
I had over heated, I had
started to sweat which wasn’t great, it means that when the sweat cools, you
get even colder… luckily it wasn’t that bad, and we found an ice covered bench
sat down and settled to watch the sunrise!
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| The american boys struggling! |
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| Almost... there! |
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| ...getting closer! |
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| .... 10 more meters... |
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| ....just keep going... |
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| I MADE IT! |
So even though we were on
the top of the mountain, we weren’t actually on the Summit or Peak. To get the
peak we had to hike up a really, really steep incline for 100 – 200 meters and
then we were on the official top! This didn’t take us all that long, yeah we
were all tired! But for me, I just wanted to get to the top!
I was so glad to finally
get to the end and take off my shoes to reveal my blisters and also to share
with the world the beautiful aroma of sweating in Gore-Tex hiking boots for 15
hours!
Anyway, we caught the
9.40 bus back to Kawaguchiko station, as soon as I was in the bus I was asleep…
no joke! Apparently that bus was full of people that were sleeping as well, it
would have been great to get a photo.
When we got to
Kawaguchiko I bought my ticket back to Shinjuku, Tokyo, and for some reason I
got a discount… not sure why! But again, as soon as I was in the bus, I was
asleep again.
Eventually we made it to
Tokyo and after a kinda stressful afternoon of me finding out where I would be
sleeping that night, an Aussie dude called Locky put me up for a couple of
nights, and we went out with his friends for a massive meal! It was a great way
to end a very intense 24 hours!
As soon as I got back to
his Apartment I passed out!
The next day we had to
get up pretty early as Locky had to head to school, so I road his bike to the
local park and slept for another hour it was fantastic, sleeping in beautiful
green grass in the shade was a lovely way to end a pretty eventful 48 hours!!!
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| The beautiful park i napped in! |
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| Blue sky, nice soft grass... perfect! |
Thanks for reading and
stay tuned for the next updates!!
FANTASTIC!!
ReplyDeleteWell done Stephen