Marks Travels: Fuji

Some quick facts about Fuji:

-Most climbed mountain in the world.

-Highest mountain (volcano) in Japan at 3700 meters.

Sunday night I packed my daypack with all my essentials and set it out ready to go for a very early morning. We had originally planned to try to climb at night and see the sunrise on the mountain, however it quickly became apparent that this was impossible with no transportation that left early enough. We looked into getting a Cab, but it would have cost six hundred dollars! So the second best option was public transportation! The subway!

We got up at 5am to catch a 5:30am train. The Tokyo subway system is incredibly confusing and seemed to be the most daunting part of the whole trip. We had to make three transfers, each one with its own confusion. The first transfer was so confusing that we missed our scheduled train and it messed up our whole schedule and put us behind an hour.

After that first transfer all our rides were long distances, one hour, transfer, one hour transfer, 40 minutes, transfer, and then an hour bus ride… so yes, do that math. It took us 4 hours to get to the trailhead. At one point we met a guy who used to live in Philly. He talked to us for a while and gave us some tips on how to make our transfers easier from that point on. It helped. His tips went a little like this, “First, get off at Otski station and look for the guy with the huge pointy nose… then look for the BLUE train and get on it, then when you get on the mountain, DON’T DRINK ANY BEER” he was funny… but probably because he was drunk…. And it was only 7am. BUT… he was right about his pointy nose and blue train instructions!

The last train was a totally different railway called the Fujikyu Railway. It was a much older train, not highspeed and by this point we were out in the country. It was PACKED with kids… ranging from maybe 12-17. At first we thought they were going to school, but then found out that the stop before Fuji is called the Fujikyu Highlands (Fuji-Q). This area has like 3 amusement parks, some with world famous roller coasters (so said the drunk guy from Philly). When we stopped at the Fujikyu Highlands the ENTIRE TRAIN cleared out. No exaggeration,… it was a three car train, and the only people left on it were myself, Cody, and a couple of old people. We looked at an old lady across from us and laughed together that the train cleared so fast.

The last stop on the Fujikyu Railway was Kawaguchiko station, the base area for all the attractions around Fuji. They have a lot of nature and things to do in this area, including five lakes that many people visit. Near the station is the Sengen Shrine (850m) which is the traditional starting point for people climbing Fuji. It is said that this is the area that the monks who originally climbed Fuji would start their pilgrimage from. If you start from here, then you are really going from the base of the mountain to the top, but this would add hours and hours to our trek, and we were already behind schedule, so we had to take a shortcut. We rode a bus to the next trailhead at the fifth station.

There are several trails up the mountain, but the one we chose is the one that is the most famous, and most well maintained. This was key because we were climbing in the off season. If we had chosen a different trail, it may have not been serviced, or much harder to even get to the trailhead. The real season to climb the mountain is July-August. Obon week is the peak week for people to climb it sometime in August. During the climbing season, they can have as many as 10,000 people climbing PER DAY! Fuji is the most climbed mountain in the world.

They actually tell people NOT to climb it at all during the off season because the weather conditions are so drastic. Sometimes they have a couple feet of snow in September at the top of the mountain. We checked a special Fuji website everyday prior to leaving for weather conditions. It turns out that Monday was a quick window of PERFECT weather right between a lot of rain, and yes, a little snow at the top. For Monday, we exected 60 degrees at the base of the mountain, 50 at the Fifth station trailhead, and 40-30 at the summit.

The Yoshida trail has Nine Stations along the trail and many huts that you can sleep in. During climbing season, people climb part way up and sleep in these huts and then watch the sunrise from the summit. Everything was closed down since it was off season however.

The Fifth station is very commercialized and has a hotel, and gift shops and lots of vending machines. At 2305 meters, it cuts the ascent down by half. We started our ascent along the Yoshida trail at 10:30am. Our goal was to reach the summit by 2:30, which would give us a safe window to descend in enough time to reach the last bus leaving the 5^th station at 5:40. This gave us a Seven hour window to climb. I was actually skeptical that we would make it to the top… because estimates at the information center said it would take 6-8 hours to summit, and 3-5 hours to descend. We accepted the challenge!

Every station had an estimated time of arrival, and we were able to keep track of our pace by this method. We should reach the 6^th station in 30 min, we reached it in 15. The 7^th station at the 2 hour mark…. We reached it in an hour. 8^th station is about the halfway point, and we reached it by our goal time’s halfway mark… so we knew it was possible to conquer this mountain in our window of time after all… we pushed hard.

THE SIXTH STATION

The first part of the trail was still under the tree line, so we saw some very pretty vegetation and some cool trees, but that quickly turned into shrubs and tundra type vegetation. At the lower altitude the trail was mostly small gravel of sharp, black , volcanic rock.

After this short bit of tree cover we soon passed the 6^th station and continued along the most boring part of the trail, wide switchbacks cut into the loose rock. Most of the trail was wide enough to drive a car. I think because of the loose rock, and also because of the extreme high traffic during climbing season, this area needs immense maintenance. There were countless Giant structures meant to prevent erosion and falling boulders. They destroyed the beauty of the mountain, but the views to the surrounding area were gorgeous!

THE SEVENTH STATION

Somewhere around or after the 7^th station, the terrain changed drastically, it turned into sharp lava rocks that we had to scramble over. Throughout much of this section, there was a chain to guide people where the path was, and also provided something to hold on to while climbing these steep uneven rocks. This area was really cool, and fun to climb, but the altitude was hitting me hard at this point and I had to go much slower.

THE EIGHTH, and NINETH STATION.

I’m not really sure when the 8^th or nineth station really were. They even had a 8.5… None of the stations were marked, but they were in such close proximity, that it seemed like each station almost ran into eachother. This area was mostly steep staircases, ledges, and generally really really hard terrain to ascend.

While we were ascending, I noticed that people who hike are all exactly the same no matter what country they are in. Hikers always say hello to one another and ask eachother questions Japan is no different, every single soul that we passed was so happy and excited “Konichiwaaaaa!” (they always drag out the waaaa part) Some spoke English, but we saw some others that were not natives as well, A French guy, an Irishman, a Canadian, and a couple other Americans.

THE SUMMIT

We reached the summit at 2:25 and were thrilled to be there. However, when we got there, we had to make a quick decision, Do we sit at the north side of this volcanic crater for a few moments, take a rest and descend…. Or do we REALLY conquer the mountain and run around summit to the REAL highest point on the south side of the crater? The answer was obvious, we had to conquer this volcano for real. We darted along the trail. It was estimated 60-90 minutes around the crater, but we destroyed all the other estimates, so we decided we could do this in 45 minutes. The other side of the mountain provided some sweeping views, we could even see the ocean! But at this point, quite a lot of clouds had rolled in and it looked like it might rain at lower atitudes. So we rushed along and finished the crater in 50 minutes.

This decision was risky because now it was 3:15 and we only had 2.5 hours to get back down to the bus station. We decided to take a quick break and eat a fast lunch and then dart back down at 3:25. We carefully descended the steep areas, but every time there was those wide tracks of switchback, we were running. It was going to be CLOSE. We were past the 7^th station and it started raining, we stopped for just a moment to cover our packs and waterproof as much as possible, and then started running once more.

By the time we reached the tree cover, it was 5:20 and we knew we would get there by 5:40, but were still worried that maybe the bus would leave early if no one was there… so we rushed and reached the station by 5:30.

The trip home was a long and tiresome 4 hour journey once more and we were back in our hotel by 10:20.

The trail was definitely the most unique trail I’ve ever been on. Firstly because it was a volcano, secondly because of all the crazy commercialization, all the stations and huts… If you climb the mountain in season, then there are vending machines at the summit. Its very very weird. But our ascent in September was quiet, and beautiful and one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.