I climbed mt. fuji yesterday

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I didn’t make it to the top though. You know, our community center here, who sponsors these tours, completely misinformed us about what to bring. Besides having too much food, we had loads of raingear and flashlights, heavy layers of clothing and hand and toe warmers for the arctic weather we’d be experiencing. Well, high up on mt. fuji you seem to be above many of the clouds (at least the ones yesterday) so it was actually mostly clear and sunny up there. In addition, this time of year in the daytime it isn’t that cold up there, and besides you are climbing so you’re going to be warm anyway. And flashlights??? We brought them because we were told to, but in the daytime what use would you have for that?

So basically, we were both (me and my husband) over packed by a few pounds. My bag proved to be too heavy for me so there was no way I could have gotten to the top with it. Also, it was much more climbing than I thought! Everything I’ve read made it sound like more of a steep hike than anything else…well, no, a lot of times you are going up rocks with your hands and feet and your walking stick just makes it more difficult.

We made it to the 8th station, which is pretty high up (over 3,000 meters) but still a couple of hours climbing time from the summit, and turned back. The air does seem thin the higher up you go and we had canned oxygen, which works better than I thought it would. Seems like one breath of that and you instantly have caught your breath. The view up there is scary, I would say it’s not a good idea to look up OR down as you go because the sloping sides of the mountain can be a bit nauseating if you’re not currently on level ground.

A word about the bathrooms: OH MY GOD. They are outhouses, japanese style. They stank like death. There was no toilet paper (nor did our community center tell us to bring any) or water. They cost 100 yen (a little less than a U.S. dollar.) There seemed to be no running water at all on mt. fuji, even at the 5th station where there are restaurants and gift shops. I kept hoping to find the customary japanese hand wipes or wet towels, but none were to be found, so I felt rather grimy all day.

But it’s totally awesome gorgeous up there. I am sad I didnt get to the top, but if I had packed better I could have. Most of the japanese people climbing had packed MUCH lighter than the americans.

It took us 5 1/2 hours to get to the 8th station and 3 hours to get back down to the 5th (where the paved road down begins and our bus was.) I am sore and sunburned and have volcanic dirt in my hair! Hooray!

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Very cool!
Pics, pics, pics!

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my dad was stationed there when I was 2 years old for a couple of years. we did the climb. not sure how far I actually got, but dad and a friend of his went to the top, spent the night, and then came back down the next day. I still have the walking stick with all the burn marks from the various stations. this was back in the early 70’s.

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I never climbed Fuji-san, but I stayed at a Ryokan nearby, across a lake (the name escapes me now…) and when I opened the window late at night, I could see a trail of lights zig-zagging up into the sky where the mountain was; people climbing all night in order to see the sunrise from the top. That was an amazing sight.

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So satisfy my curiosity…how much garbage WAS up there?

There is a mountain climber here in Japan, his name is Ken Noguchi who has done a number of climbs of Everest simply in order to pick up litter. He said Fuji-san is foul. The toilets open up onto the mountainside. And its the only mountain in the world with vending machines at the summit.

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Congratulations! I climbed Fuji twice in the mid-80s, when I lived in Tokyo. (Tsubaki, I don’t recall seeing any trash lying around at all, and certainly not the toilets you describe.) I will never forget the view looking down the mountain; it looks almost like flat ground, but then you look at the perfectly flat land all around it (volcano = no foothills) and that is what appears to be sloping toward you, as if those lakes ought to be draining since they’re inclined so, and then you, if you’re like me, start to feel a mite woozy…

The first time I made the climb was dreadful. Storms that the locals were calling the worst they’d ever seen, and the only wind that’s ever literally knocked me off my feet. In that wind, raindrops felt like rocks hitting my head. Of about ten of us who started, four of us made it to the top.

The second time, though, was magic. Beautiful blue skies with downy clouds, a big group of terrific people. Japanese climbers hollering “Gambatte!” to us as they were heading down and we were heading up.

We climbed up to the ninth station (first one below the summit) and spent the night, then got up at about 4 a.m. to climb the final hour and see sunrise from the top. I climbed up to the very highest point on the rim of the crater–well, the highest point is a weather station, so I climbed to the second-highest point–and watched the sunrise. Since the top of Mt. Fuji is the first place in Japan, and therefore in Asia, that the sun hits in the morning, I like to imagine that for one brief moment my shadow stretched all the way across China. [sub](Hmm? Curve of the Earth? Don’t distract me with facts when I’m daydreaming!)[/sub]

It was a fabulous trip, and one that I would love to repeat.

I would also like to add for the record that I climbed Mt. Fuji in a pair of old Chuck Taylors held together with duct tape. The rock, being volcanic and as abrasive as coral, kept shredding them worse and worse, and I kept adding more and more duct tape. I wish I had taken a picture of those shoes when we got back to Tokyo.

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I didn’t see any garbage at all, actually. Perhaps it is all at the summit, I didn’t get up there so I don’t know. I honestly doubt it though, if there is none anywhere else. The toilets do open up onto the mountainside though, since all they are are holes in the ground with piles of excrement at the bottom. I didn’t think about it at the time but where ARE the bottom of those pits? The mountain itself!

I couldn’t bring myself to use the bathroom. I payed to go in, even though the smell was so bad that you can smell the various huts before you reach them due to the little shacks of sh** next to them, but could not use it. I have never used a Japanese style toilet yet but the ones I’ve seen all have handrails so that you can squat down (if you are female like me) without peeing on your clothes, this one didn’t and I dont have the slightest idea how a woman can use it without touching it. I did, lower down, use a porta potty which was like a palace in comparison!

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I would love to share my pictures, but do not have a website. Any ideas of where I could post them?

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You can get a free site with a few MB of storage at http://fff.fathom.org.

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Learning to use Japanese squat toilets is a fine art, acrossthesea. First time I ever encountered one, I was wearing a skirt and pantyhose! But they’re actually well designed, you just put your feet on either side and squat, and it all works fine. I never peed on myself once, even in my pantyhose. (Although I did hold my clothing out of the way pretty carefully!) And I never touched the handrails. I heard that Japanese don’t like western-style toilets because they consider them unsanitary, but I must say I’ve been in few American public toilets that were as unsanitary as some of the Japanese ones I’ve been in!

Are you going to climb Fuji again? Don’t leave your flashlight behind; it’s always a good idea to have one with you when you’re hiking, even in such a popular place. It sounds like a neat experience, I hope to do it someday myself!

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Congratulations on your climb, acrossthesea. I envy you the chance.

Tsubaki, there are (I’ve heard) vending machines at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, USA, but that doesn’t really count because there is an observatory there. It’s a much smaller peak – 6,288 feet – but has the repuation for some of the worst weather in the world.

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You can also drive to the top of Mt. Washington, which kinda takes the challenge out of it! Although the highest non-tornadic windspeed ever recorded was there.

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Bah. I am having trouble getting my pictures on that site. Anyone who wants to see them, let me know and I will email you. I think my email address is in my profile.

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Huh. You seriously used bottled oxygen at 3000 meters? Huh. Any idea how long the hike up is, in both distance and vertical feet? I’ve always wanted to climb Fuji, and hope to if I ever make it to Japan.

Anyway, the extra stuff you brough (flashlight, wet weather clothes) is not necessarily for what you will experience on the mointain, but for what you MAY experience. Weather changes VERY fast in the mountains, and you can get in trouble very fast if youre unprepared. And, if you had gotten lost and needed to spend the night on the mountain, you would hav welcomed the extra clothes and flashlight. My normal summitting pack usually weights in around 15 lbs or so.

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I was expecting a thread about eating sushi! This was better!

Congrats!