Disoriented David : Mt. Fuji ('the big Fooj')

While I had generally planned to post on a roughly weekly basis, I feel like the Mt. Fuji climb deserves its own post, both because it was a kind of self contained day trip and because there is a fair amount to say and to show through pictures.

As I write this, I have been awake for coming on 40 hours, save for a couple of bus naps and a couple of hours trying to sleep at the freezing summit of Fuji (more on this below). Since I got back to Tokyo at lunch-time and am about to board a night bus to Osaka, it wasn't worth paying for a night's accommodation for the intervening hours. Instead, I spent the last few hours relaxing at a 'Manga Cafe', essentially a supercharged Internet Cafe where you have your own cubicle with a little safe box, there is free coffee and soft drinks and (much needed post-climb) shower facilities are available. I didn't actually sleep on the comfortable chair provided, but it was a great environment in which to keep myself going on a low burner until hopefully crashing out on the bus.

The Climb:

Yesterday (Sunday) began when I checked out of the Shinjuku capsule hotel in which I had stayed for a night, thus achieving both proximity to the Mt. Fuji bus and, much like the Manga cafe, another uniquely Japanese experience in itself, only to an even greater degree. On the face of it, the capsule hotel would even justify a post of its own. Ultimate though, it was more of an immersive experiential thing, so you'll have to suffice with the picture of the capsule itself, below.

The plan for the morning was to take it easy and to gear up for the trip, buying any necessary equipment and provisions and otherwise taking it easy, in anticipation of the long night ahead. Of course in practice everything takes longer than expected and I ended up at the bus station, having missed the bus on which I had originally planned to travel and fairly wiped out from running around in the heat and humidity.

As it happens, it worked out for the best that I got the later bus because I didn't really need any more time than I had at the 5th station, the start of the climb for the vast majority of climbers, and from which I set off at approximately 20.15. Climbing at night, there are not many views, though the stars are highly visible. Similarly, due to the tremendous volume of people who climb in the open season of July-August, there isn't that much solitude either. In fact, while at later stages of the climb I found myself alone for stretches, for much of the climb I was sandwiched between groups of Japanese climbers sprinkled with a significant minority of foreigners. There are even queues to ascend certain narrow passages of the route. The real fun of the climb is to be a part of this kind of surreal moving carnival.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the goal is to reach the summit by sunrise, which was scheduled for 5.00 (and would you know it, showed up exactly on time). The internet said that the ascent can take between 5-7 hours, and I had figured I may want to rest at the stations spaced out over the course, especially because the body's adjustment to higher altitudes can take some time. As it happens the climb was quite easy (there are loads of older people and children who complete the climb, though some don't climb straight through the night, instead starting earlier and breaking for sleep at the 7th or 8th stations), and I completed it in a whit under 5 hours. This left me with approximately two and a half hours until just before 4.00 when dawn would break. I lay on a bench and tried to sleep but was largely prevented from doing so by the cold. I had heard accounts of the low temperatures and winds at the summit, even in August. Though I did bring a hat and gloves from home and also bought a nifty lightweight down jacket for the occasion, I had largely dismissed any concerns from the vantage point of a steamy Tokyo day, in a classic example of the problem of affective forecasting. It was COLD. Half my kingdom for an extra pair of socks! Warming myself with an overpriced can of cocoa from the vending machine (!), a tinny and sickly sweet beverage that at that moment may as well have been the nectar of the gods, I silently cursed my nonchalant past self (and for good measure pre-emptively directed some disgust at my future self in anticipation of inevitable further misjudgements).

As I intermittently dozed on a spartan bench, the surrounding area filled up with lesser human beings, those who aren't such f***ing climbing superstars, and we were all treated to a sunrise the stuff blog posts are made of.

One can walk around the whole crater in about an hour and a half (Mt Fuji is a dormant volcano) and at one point ascend to the actual highest point where there is a sign marking the summit. Many people were photographing themselves by the sign, but I ascended for merely a moment, cooly declining the kind offers of others to capture the moment for posterity. The message (which I have elegantly undermined in this post in general, and this paragraph in particular) was crystal clear: This moment is enough (callback to first blog post for late adopters).

The descent was kind of tiring and a little frustrating after the long night - most of it was enveloped in cloud, and the pathways are slippery volcanic rock - complaints have been lodged with the Judeo-Christian God and the National Council on Fujisan World Heritage. It was however punctuated with some nice views when the cloud coverage broke and some vegetation on the lower reaches.

Anyway, your patient tolerance for my sleep-deprived ramblings has earned you some pictures.

Will hopefully follow up soon with a post about Kansai.

May you be exhausted only for good reasons.

Love David