You might remember this picture of Mt. Fuji I took from the plane back in April.
Now I've had some mountain climbing experience, including Mt. Shavano in Colorado, which is actually 14,236 feet hight at age 14 with my Boy Scout troop. Now the thing about that trip was that we climbed it over a period of 2 days, and got to sleep in nice tents halfway up. That time, some of my friends got altitude sickness on the second day up to the peak. Some of the leaders stayed behind, and only half of us made it all the way to the top. Most recently, I scaled Half Dome which is 8842 feet in Yosemite on a dorm camping trip in 2004. We had to start pretty early in the morning, I think around 6 or 7 to be sure to make it down before dark. This time, the group also split, and half of us made it to the top while others didn't.
Back to Mt. Fuji. I figured since I was 14 years old when I climbed a 14er, and now since I'm now 21, I figured I could probably take on Mt. McKinley which is almost 21,000 feet. And Fuji-san (as they call it in Japanese) is only a mere 12,000 feet high or so. No sweat. I wasn't really worried though many of my friends who I was going to climb with were a little nervous after hearing stories from their co-workers and reading articles online. Out of everyone in the group, I'd say that Priscilla was the most gung-ho about climbing Fuji-san. So excited, in fact, that she wanted to climb it from the base of the mountain. Most people start climbing Fuji from "gogo-me" meaning the 5th station, which is really already 2/3 up the mountain. But I'm always looking for a challenge and since Priscilla's determination never wavered, we ended up leaving about 8 hours before the others to climb from the base and meet everyone else at the 5th station. My main mistake at this time, I realized was that I had gotten very little sleep before. We were going to climb starting Saturday morning, and Since Thursday night, I had gotten a total of only 8 or 9 hours in those 2 nights before climbing. How long would I last?
So Priscilla and I caught a series of trains beginning at 7am, and we made it to Fujiyoshida around 10:30 or so. We should have taken a direct train there from Shinjuku station but we didn't know about it. Upon arriving at the station, Priscilla had the foresight to find the information center where we got some very, very useful maps of Mt. Fuji and the different trails, along with time estimates for each section. We loaded up on a few groceries inside of the big shopping center. I felt weird inside such a commercial area as I was about to begin hiking a mountain. In the States, you usually drive your car to some trailhead in the middle of nowhere, park, and go. But since most people use public transportation, our hike began at the train station. We walked along the streets until we finally reached a cedar forest where the shrine stands, marking the beginning of the pilgrimmage of climbing Mt. Fuji.
Priscilla and I at the shrine at the base.
We explore the shrine for a bit, and then find the trail behind it, which actually begins as a paved road. Eventually, there is a parallel walking path right next to the road which is better, but sometimes through the trees you can still see the road, which kind of ruins the atmosphere, in my opinion. Around this time, it starts raining. I laugh a little as we put on our raincoats, saying it's better that the whole group didn't start here at the bottom. In less than an hour though, the rain lets up, thankfully, and we continue our hike through the green forested areas. I had gotten so used to the buzz of crowds and concrete while working in Tokyo, that this was a very welcome atmosphere, and I almost forgot I was still in Japan. As we're resting at one of the substations and talking in English, this Japanese looking guy (Note: If you're Asian and you're in Japan, you look Japanese) asks us do you guys speak English. We tell him we're students from America, and in fact, so is he. Will, as he introduces himself to us, even happens to work at the same company as our classmate Jerry, who is among the group that we're meeting at the 5th station later that day. Talk about coincidences. So now in a group of 3 we keep hiking, passing through the broken-down and decrepit stations 1 - 4.
The look kind of like barns, or perhaps an old house or shed that's been abandonded for a few decades, with the wood rotting, and many boards out of place and falling apart. Still, each station is marked with a small wooden sign, and helps guide us on the well-marked trail up to the 5th station. The trail get gradually steeper as we approach the 5th station, but still nothing that difficult. We end up reaching the station at around 5:30 and I text my friends who are on their way (Yes, cell phones work pretty much anywhere on Mount Fuji - even at the peak) and they say they'll be there in about an hour.We eat some Ramen at one of the many (maybe 5-6) restaurants at the 5th station. It's pretty commercial for being 2/3 up a mountain. As the sun goes down, the rest of the group arrives and we prepare our gear, stretch, and take some pictures.
Our group at the 5th station.
At this point we're pretty psyched. Lots of adrenaline running especially for those who have been sitting down on buses or trains for the last 3 hours. Everyone is eager to go. Well, except me and Priscilla. We weren't super tired from the morning hike, but definitely weren't 100%. Personally, at this point I can tell I'm suffering from mild dehydration already which is why I ordered soup and I kept drinking. I should have drank more. You can never have enough water. Nevertheless, once everyone is set, we start off around 7:30pm. I try to pace us, since we don't want to get to the top too early, I said. But in reality, I wasn't sure what kind of pace I could keep up with myself. My legs were fine, but when I walked, I was feeling lightheaded and a slight headache which was emphasized with sudden movements. Still, I figured I could think pretty logically, and I tried to calculate how long it would take us to get to the top. I put us on an admittedly leisurely pace. I figured, you don't want to get too tired at the bottom and run out of gas by the time you get near the top. We pass by the 6th station and take some water breaks in between. At first, the crowds are rather small and we're not sharing the trail with too many people at once.
The terrain is pretty much all rock. At the beginning it's not so steep at all, and the gravel is pretty shallow so there's minimal slipping. Still, I'm wary of pushing myself too hard, and I soon finish the one liter of water I brought along with me. I was carrying more water earlier in the day and finished it, and I decided I'd rather pay the exorbitant prices charged on the mountain for water, considering my current condition, and I'd make things a lot easier since I would be carrying significantly less. Water at this point costs about 300 yen ($3) for half a liter. It was already 200 yen at the 5th station.
Yummy trail mix, thanks to Wei!
I'll stop here for now. Check out some pictures, and look for the rest of the story very soon.
Update: For Part 2 scroll up or click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment