I Climbed Mt Fuji!

Well, I had been in Japan for one day and then it was time to take on one of the toughest hikes in my entire life time! Still jet-lagged and worn out from the twelve hour flight to Japan - it was off on a bus to the most famous mountain in Japan. A national obsession, this hike is a thronging mob of people scrambling over lava rock in an effort to reach the summit in time to see the sun rise.



The weather was changeable to say the least. Quite rainy at first, but we had moments of clearing and actually even some sun on the following day.

I just loved the instructions for the Western-style toilets in the bathrooms.



This was the guide for our group - (Group name - Gogosan.) We were number 5. He reminds me a lot of a Japanese TV star I saw in a show about a fire department, called Fire boys.



This was his seventh trip up the mountain. The way it works, is that one gets a guide up to the eighth station, where one spends the "night". Night here actually means, you get to sleep almost four hours in a tiny little berth with 3 other people before being rousted out of bed to continue climbing the mountain in pitch dark. The stars are very beautiful and everyone brings flashlights or helmet lights and there is a long fiery procession up the mountain.



The climb was long and hard and sometimes I needed all four limbs to scramble up cliff-like lava walls. There is quite a spirit of doing something impossible together. When I was too tired to climb and pulled to the side there would always be ahelpful person asking Daijobu desu? Are you okay, to which one replied Hai, Daijobu desu. It took me three hours longer than the rest of my party, but I made it. In the end it was worth it for this view of silvery clouds in the valley.



Here is the peak - with the volcanic crater descending down some 700 meters.



The saying is that a wise man climbs Mount Fuji once, and only a fool climbs it a second time. It is an exhausting experience, and I wasn't sure I would manage it, but yes, daijobu desu.