富士山 に上った! We Climbed Mt. Fuji!

Everyone should climb Mt. Fuji at least once in their lifetime, but only a fool or a masochist would climb it twice. Prior to our departure some of us joked about how Japanese people tend to exaggerate the difficulty of things. We concluded that this would likely be little more than a walk in the park, but I think that now we would all agree that we were mistaken. At about 8:00 on Saturday night we set out with our motley crew of foreigners to ascend the most climbed mountain in the world. We started out from the 5th station (7560 ft.) for a vertical rise of 4825 ft. The weather was perfect, a full moon illuminated the low lying sea of clouds and lit our way as we chased it into the higher realms of the sky.


As we made our way past the 8th station (80% of the way) the temperature began to drop quickly.


It took us 7 hours to reach the summit, which was a little too fast because we had to wait more than two hours for the sun to rise. We had brought a lot of extra clothes but not enough for the 12,385 ft. elevation. It felt like about 20 degrees. We tried to take a nap, but that didn’t work so well. Nothing to do but wait as the masses of people began to arrive. Finally after what seemed like a lot more than 2+ hrs., the sun rose at 5:16 am.












And there was great celebration. . .


Every year about 200,000 people climb Fuji-san, 30% of them are foreigners.


Below is the view of the summit from across the crater. The crater is 2300 ft. wide and 722 ft. deep. Fuji has erupted at least 16 times since 781 AD. Most of these eruptions were moderate to medium in size. The most recent eruption was in 1707-1708. It is still considered to be an active volcano.


The shadow of the mountain viewed from the summit.



The way down was a bit less glamorous. After the sun rose the temperature changed from about 20 degrees to what seemed like at least 70. I started to get a sun burn, and whenever I sat down I quickly began to fall asleep. It was dusty and the descent hurt our toes, but after about four hours we made it to the 5th station where we had started. When I think of all the hills I have been up and down, I don’t know if I have ever been so happy to reach the end.