Fuji-san

Believe it or not, we climbed Mt. Fuji. We went with our friend Brian Donahue who was visiting with his family. Here's the scene from the beginning of the trail. You look straight up the mountain to see switchbacks leading to tea houses. Tea houses are rustic huts where one can bunk for the night, drink tea, grab a quick bowl of ramen. Most people spend the night on the mountain and summit the following day for sunrise.

We got lucky on many accounts. We went after the official closing of the Fuji climbing season. You can still hike, but it's not recommended and many of the concessions on the mountain are closed. Therefore, the trail wasn't too glutted with people. I've heard horror stories of climbing the mountain in a single-file line, all the way to the top---not being able to pass anyone due to the mass of humanity. We also had sunshine galore. Everyone climbing was in good spirits, saying hello and "Gambatte" or good luck along the way. We saw children out for a day hike on the mountain, teenager school groups, up to elderly people who were climbing to fulfill their lifelong ambition of reaching Fuji's top.



Here's Aaron and Brian. Aaron's goal was to "eat his way up the mountain". He wanted to end the climb with a surplus of calories from when he started. Ha! This is a tea house where you can buy hot noodles and soup. This was a novelty for us. I've never climbed a mountain that had concession stands all the way to the top.

Aaron's pointing out some chocolate chip cookies that were available...

Oh, and did I mention the cigarettes and bottled oxygen you can get here too?

Brian's in front of a lovely tea house, complete with a sprinkler system and landscaping. It was very weird to see this half way up the mountainside. There were cars and tractors too.

Not at the top yet, just a stopping point. Blue skies and we were above the clouds at this point.

This is near the final stretch. You can see the red and black crushed lava pathway we were walking on.

I took this picture looking up at Aaron. This part was a scramble on all fours.

Here's the Torii gate near the top with a marble lion guarding it. The kanji on the marble stone means dedication. You can rub any ailing part of your body on this stone and you will be cured.

Here we are in thin air. Feeling great to be near the top finally. We started at 8am and were at the top by noon. Brian summited earlier, I guess it pays to be a marathon runner...

Just above this, they have a picnicking area. The concessions were closed, no worry--we had brought our own sushi with us...and Aaron had bought us some chips and candy bars for the top.

This is the wooden gate that many people consider the top. They place 100 yen coins in the wood for good luck and leave their climbing stick bells here.

The motley crew: Tiffany, Brian and Aaron at 12,388 feet.

Actually, at the real top the Japanese have built a weather station. Being the climbing purists that we are, we circled the volcano rim to get to the weather station. Once there, we climbed a ladder to a lookout for temporary weather staff only. We thought we qualified as good temporary workers. To circle the rim took 45 minutes.

We ran down the mountain on crushed lava rock, they have a separate pathway down. We were in the parking lot by 3:45pm and at home by 6pm. A wonderful day on the mountian!

***You can see our friend Brian's Fuji-san blog entry too, he got some decent video footage:

http://squeakersreport.blogspot.com/