Conquered Fuji-san with a new respect!

A snow-covered Fuji-san on the day of the ascent.
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So I said I would be posting an entry telling either of a snowy near-death experience or a successful and beautiful climb to the top.  I have to say that it turned out to be a little of both!

At 8am I met Adam at Kofu Station and we headed by bus to Fuji-yoshida.  1 ½ hours later we met Lily and Kelly and the Fuji-yoshida Station.  This was essentially the beginning of our hike at 860 m elevation.  From this point we headed toward Sengen-Jinja a huge shrine complex were we heard that they were sacrificing a deer.  I headed on to check out the shrine while the others checked out the sacrifice.  (Apparently, the deer was not sacrificed just its antlers were removed.)   There was some sort of Shinto baptism going on that day and I got a picture of two women in kimonos holding the baby outside the shrine.

Sunrise from the 8th station (close enough).
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We left the shrine at around 10:45am on the Yoshida-guchi (Yoshida trail).  From the Shrine the Yoshida trail follows the road for quite awhile before coming to the first checkpoint, called Nankanochaya. Here the trail heads into the woods and begins its meandering path up the mountain.  At around 12:45pm we stopped for lunch.  On the road my thermos had exploded.  When we stopped, I learned why; the hot soba that I had made and put into the thermos the night before had somehow gone bad overnight thus releasing gases that built up pressure in the thermos and popped it.  The 1.3 litres of soup that I had intended to be my lunch and supper were inedible.  I now only had the fruit and inari I had brought for snacking left.  With no vegan options on the mountain, I might be in trouble.

Ice-covered hill on the summit. Note the frozen, falling down Torii in the background and the thing that looks like a gravemarker in the foreground!
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After hiking 3.6 km from Nankanochaya at a slight incline, we hit Umagaeshi.  Uma means horse in Japanese and this spot marks the point where the hikers of centuries gone by would leave their horses as they headed up the mountain.  From here the trail got steeper and more zigzagged.  The water drainage system of the mountain was to have a big, square pit bordered by logs above another square pit of the same size bordered by logs and filled with large rocks.  In this way the higher pit (with no rocks) fills with all the water coming down the mountain and travellers can easily pass along the sides of it thus not encountering any mud.

View from the Summit.
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15 minutes from Umagaeshi we hit the 1st of 9 stations.  At the base of the sign marking the first station were many coins left by previous travellers.  We assumed that these were to ensure a safe journey, etc. and so left some of our own while asking for a safe journey and good weather as we ventured up the mountain.

It was 2 km and 30 minutes to the 2nd station.  There was supposed to be a shrine in the woods between the 1st and 2nd station but we didn’t see it.  In the area between the 2nd and 3rd stations there was another shrine that we didn’t see and the women’s holy ground (Nyonin Tenjo).  Historically this was the furthest spot that women were allowed to go and all that remains is an altar hidden in the forest.  We also did not see this altar although we looked very hard!

The way down.
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The 3rd station was 20 minutes from the 2nd and then another 20 to the 4th.  Another 45 minutes and we were at the fifth station.  It is here that most hikers begin their ascent of Fuji-san.  At this point Lily was returning home so, after asking the man at Sato Goya (the hut at the 5th station on our trail) what time the bus came and receiving the answer 4:30, we walked her to the Kawagushi-ko go gome (Kawaguchi-ko fifth station) to catch a bus to Kawaguchi-ko train station and a train home.  We arrived at the station at around 4:17 only to find that the last bus for the day left at 4:00 and a taxi to the base would cost $120.  Disheartened, we started asking random shop owners if they had any suggestions for how she might get home.  One man wrote some words in Japanese on a piece of paper and told us to go upstairs to the restaurant and hand it to the old lady there.  This we did, and with the translation assistance of someone standing in line at the restaurant, we were told that the lady would drive Lily to the train station when she got off work in an hour or two.  With that disaster averted Kelly and I headed back to Sato Goya to pick up Adam and our packs and make the long, dangerous hike to the 6th station.  We asked the mountain man at Sato Goya how long to Seikan-so and he held up three fingers.  We layered up to prepare for a 30 minute hike in the whipping wind that now engulfed the tree-less landscape and headed out.  After 3 minutes we reached the 6th station and the Seikan-so hut where we would be spending the night.

The sand slide
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It was 5250 yen for a futon in the freezing cold Japanese style rooms.  We warmed ourselves near the fire and enjoyed some free green tea.  Kelly got a Japanese style meal that looked very… interesting but I was glad I was not going to be consuming any of it.  We played a game of cards and had some Kurodama before getting ready for bed around 7pm.  The mountain man at our hut asked us what time we would be checking out.  We told him midnight.  He told us that we could not hike to the summit at night because it was too windy and would be cold.  We told him that cold was no problem as we had come prepared with many layers.  After discerning that the wind was not dangerous, only cold.  We told him we would be checking out at 12:00 and headed to bed.

I would like to note here that I mentioned the idea of maybe getting up around 6am and hiking in the first light instead before this grave warning from the mountain man but as the other two were firmly attached to the idea of seeing the sunrise from the summit, I agreed to stick with the original plan.

None of us slept more than one hour total between when we lied down at 7pm and when we rose at 11:30pm but we were determined to conquer the mountain and be on the summit for sunrise.  Here it should be noted that both Kelly and I had pulled a muscle in our left hip on the hike from Sengen-jinja and every second step was excruciatingly painful.  Adam took my headlamp and went ahead at a much faster pace than grandma Kelly and I could muster.  We headed up through the abandoned huts at each rising station in complete darkness, agonizing pain, icy winds, and good spirits.

It took us around 1 ½ hours to reach the 7th station.  From here there were many huts with many signs written entirely in kanji.  8 is the only number whose kanji I did not know before beginning this hike and we never entirely certain whether we had hit another station or not.  Eventually we began to see huts marked as belonging to the what I could only guess said the 8th station.  The problem is that the stations are very long and several huts may lie within one station on succession up the mountain.  The other problem is that there are two 8th stations and one 8.5th and it was very difficult to figure out which was which.

We met up with Adam again around what we believed to be the first (or fake) 8th station.  From the guides and maps we had, we expected that the hike would be another 1 hour and 20 minutes to the summit.  At this point, we were all frozen and the wind was only getting worse as we got higher and higher.  We also began to worry about the condition of the trail ahead.  We could see from the bus ride to Fuji-yoshida snow on the top of the mountain and had continued to see it in the distance during our entire climb.  Around the 8th stations, we were beginning to see chunks of ice littering the path and icicles dangling from Toriis and buildings.  We began to worry that what we thought was snow on the summit was actually ice and wondered how we would be able to walk on it or navigate our way through it in the dark.  While considering our options, we found a nook of benches that was out of the wind and huddled together for warmth.  Somehow, we ended up choosing the option of remaining in that position until the sun rose.

So we sat discussing the joy a hot bath would bring; whether, knowing what we knew now, we would have chosen to do this climb again; our hope of hailing a helicopter by whistle from 3000m up; and the possibility of death.  Spirits were generally good despite the fact that we were all colder than we had ever been in our lives.  Huddled together for warmth we were warmer than we had been while hiking.  (The problem being that Kelly and I were in so much pain while walking that we could not walk fast enough to keep ourselves warm.)  It was only for the last half of the huddle that tears began to well up in my eyes and I believed firmly that I had hypothermia and wished I had never left Halifax, let alone Kofu.  It was from this position, almost at the summit, that we watched the sun rise over Japan.  It was beautiful and had we been in more congenial moods, I am sure we have really appreciated it.

After what seemed like an eternity but was really only 1 hour, the sun was fully exposed and the mountain slowly started to get warmer.  We continued our hiking very slowly.  We passed the 8.5th station at could see the Toriis that marked the entrance to the summit.  Having forgotten to fill up our water bottles before leaving the hut that morning, we were all almost out of water and I had run out of food.  The altitude combined with the extremely cold temperature of the air made it very hard to breath and we were taking breaks every few minutes just so I could make it up.  Near the end of the hike was another period of about 30 minutes in which I believed I had been defeated by the mountain and could not go on.  The mountain is hard enough to climb but add to that an injury, dehydration, starvation, and a lack of oxygen and I thought it was nearly impossible.

At around 7:45am and 2 hours from the 8.5th station (the map said it would take 60 minutes—the guidebook 30!) we made it to the 3776 m summit of Mount Fuji.  We were correct in our guess that the path would turn to ice and it was a good thing we waited it out in the huddle because there were many spots where we had to watch our step.  The icy summit was amazing to see.  The ice-covered craters and hills were spectacular and icicles hung from the Toriis and statues.  All of the huts were closed and we put some icicles in our water bottles to use as water once it had melted.  We were all completely exhausted running on no sleep, little food, and sheer determination.

We asked an experienced mountain man (who said he had climbed Mount Fuji several times and this current climb was preparation for his upcoming trekking in the Andes) about the sand slide (or Suna-Bashiri) that we had planned to be our quick route down the mountain.  He pointed to an icy hill with a decrepit looking Torii on top and said that the path to the Gotemba sand slide was there.  He said that while the sand slide was not dangerous, the path that would lead us to it might be.  We thanked him and began on our way around the crater to the distant post office shrine where we believed the start of the Gotemba route was located.  The mountain man yelled to us that we should not go to the Gotemba sand slide but should take a different slide down the same face of the mountain we had come up.  He pointed to an earthen zigzagged road that looked to be for emergency or service vehicles.  It would most definitely be quicker and easier than the path on which we had ascended.  We discussed the new option amongst ourselves considering such issues as danger, distance, time, and the fact that we didn’t really know whether there were any buses from the Gotemba 5th station to Gotemba this time of year.  We decided that we would again ignore the sage wisdom of a mountain man and stick to our original plan.

It turned out that the path was ice-covered but not dangerous.  We made our way toward the post office shrine only to see a sign pointing out the Gotemba route much earlier than we had expected.  It had only been about 10 minutes from where we had arrived at the summit.  We took that route down and waited for the turn-off to the sand slide.  In the Lonely Planet’s “Hiking in Japan” book it had said that the slide was like a sand dune and that using this route it was possible to get down the mountain from summit to 5th station in 1 hour and 10 minutes.  They reported one hiker who had done it in 45 minutes with no gear.  We estimated it would take us around 2 hours to complete the descent.

This route was covered with many porous volcanic rocks of all sizes and many colours.  The rocks, especially the small ones, slid down under your feet and made it very difficult to keep your step and your balance.  There was a rope handrail along side that was necessary for remaining standing.  As we navigated our way down this slippery slope, we came across a road.  It looked much like the one that the mountain man had pointed out from the summit and was probably used for the same purposes on this side of the mountain.  We decided to take this instead and found it much easier.  We could take giant steps and allow ourselves to slide forward on the sandy road with no danger of falling.

After around 2 hours, we finally reached the sand slide.  It was faster than the road and it was certainly possible to go very fast on it, but was dangerous to do so.  You could run down and the slide would carry you for around 2 m per step but there were many large rocks mixed in and it was very difficult to stop.  Adam wiped out once without injury but we mostly just walked fast on the sand.  The slide was fun and a great way to get down but after around 1 hour, we hit hard gravel.  We had to walk on a slight decline the rest of the way with no soft sand to cushion us or help us slide along.  My knees were killing me and the 5th station in the distance looked so far away but at least we could see some buses parked there and knew we were almost done.

We reached the 5th station at around 12:30pm, 4 hours after beginning our descent.  Our knees and hips were rendered almost useless by the extreme pain bending or using them caused.  What I had thought was a building from so far up, turned out to be just a parking lot.  We attempted to purchase some drinks from the vending machine only to find that it had no power.  We asked a man sitting on a bench if this was the bus stop.  He told us to wait and went to his car.  About 10 minutes later he came back and showed me a piece of paper which stated that the buses from Gotemba 5th station ran only from July 1 to August 31.  He told us we would need to take a taxi.  The buses that were parked in the lot were tour buses and the rest of the many people present had come by car.  I know at this point you are thinking that I am stupid for not having checked this out more thoroughly but the guidebook said, “Buses run every 30 minutes or hourly depending on the season.”  This led me to believe that they ran in more than one season.  And any attempts to secure such information as bus schedules online were futile as searches are only available in Japanese.

Having been designated spokesperson due to my knowledge of Japanese words associated with public transportation, I headed to the parking lot to see if I could find a taxi or maybe even a generous person willing to give us a lift to the train station.  I approached a couple just packing up their kids in the car and asked where I could find a taxi.  I told them we had planned to take the bus but had just found out they were no longer running.  He asked how I had gotten there in the first place and I told him that we had come from Sengen-jinja by way of the summit.  At that point, it seemed that the whole parking lot full of people became engaged in the conversation wanting to know what we were doing there.  I heard the words “Sengen-jinja?!” and “Fuji-san?!” several times amongst their murmurings.  They asked if it was only me and I have a feeling that if it had been these nice people would surely have taken me for free.  When I replied that there were three of us, one of the men offered to call a taxi.  He said it would be a 20 minute wait for the taxi, would take 30 minutes to get to the station and would cost around 3000-4000 yen.

After returning to the disheartened crew with my good news, we sat by the public toilets to wait for our cab.  We tried filling our water bottles in the sinks in the toilets only to find that there were no sinks.  After a 4800 yen cab ride to the station we got some food and liquids and waited about 10 minutes for our 1370 yen each bus to Fuji-yoshida.  After 2 hours on the bus, we passed into Fuji-yoshida and through the Torii that had marked the beginning of our journey just one day before.  It felt like it had been years since we left and we were glad to be almost home.

Kelly left us at the bus station to head home.  It was just after 4:00pm and she had a work dinner at 6.  Adam and I had to wait until 5:20pm to catch our 1530 yen each bus to Kofu and so killed time by buying more snacks and water and checking out the video arcade.  We looked like a couple of beggars sitting on the ground near the bus station with our dusty backpacks by our sides, our clothes and bodies covered in filth, our eyes red and bloodshot, smelling like we hadn’t showered in weeks.  As the bus carried us away from Fuji-yoshida, we could see Fuji-san in all its glory towering over the small city of Kawaguchi-ko.  Somehow it looked much bigger than it had before.  We marveled at what we had just done despite all the odds and 1 ½ hours later, we were back in Kofu.  Climbing Mount Fuji from the base in the off-season for the sunrise with an injured hip and little food, water, or air was the single hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  It was simultaneously the best and worst experience I have ever had.  If I had the choice to do it over again in exactly the same way, I would.  If I had the choice to do it over again with some minor changes, I would not have left the hut at midnight and would have filled up my goddam water bottle!  I think a few hours of sleep along with a bit of light and warmth from the sun would have made this hike much more enjoyable and would have eliminated the moments of hopelessness and wishing for death.  If someone asked for my advice on whether or not they should attempt this climb the same way we did it, I would make sure they understood the pain and difficulty we endured and the immense preparation that is necessary.  When we were warned about Mount Fuji, I thought that the unpredictable weather was the most dangerous thing with which we would have to contend.  We had the best weather anyone could ask for this time of year; the sky was clear and the sun shining high both days.  And, although I don’t think we were ever in any real danger, every aspect of this climb was just as difficult as any blizzard or typhoon would have been.