I DID IT!!!!

I CLIMBED MT FUJI!!!! And I survived! Yay!!

Wow - what a trip! Summary - big mountain, long cold hike, feeling good now. Read on if you want more details...

We got up before dawn on Wed morning, and were down at the bus stop just after 5:20am. Thanks to Rachel's diligent preparation, we easily found all our connection points. By 10:20am, we were in Tokyo - I'm usually still in my PJs at that time!! We stopped at Macca's for lunch, and I was at the point of laughing hysterically for no reason other than my extreme tiredness! And we hadn't even made it to the mountain yet!! We did have a little trouble finding the right bus centre in Shinjuku, but this Japanese man saw us wandering around looking confused, and walked us right to the bus centre, a five min walk away - what a sweetie!!

At the bus centre, we discovered that the next bus to Station 5 on Mt Fuji wasn't until 4:50pm - almost 4 hrs away!! We wandered for almost an hour looking for a small patch of grass or park bench to snooze on, but finding nothing, we headed for Starbucks for a few coffees.

We got to the 5th station before 7:30pm, wandered around the souvenier shop for a bit, and started climbing at 8:05pm from 2305m above sea level. I began in a thermal singlet, long-sleeved top and trackies and was still cold, but it didn't take me long to warm up and discard the long-sleeved top. The track was fairly deserted, as climbing season officially ends on Aug 31. The hike to 6th station (2390m) took about 45min, and was a pleasant one. Sweet! We had bought walking sticks at the bottom, and proudly got them stamped. It only took another 50min or so to 7th station (2700m), and once again, wasn't too bad.

But then the fun began... the temperature had dropped and the wind was picking up, and the walk seemed to be never-ending. As the season was ending that day, a some of little huts along the way were already closed, so we couln't get quite as many stamps on our sticks. We did stop at about 10pm for a cup of noodles (like an instant cuppa soup) for about $7.50. When we found the 3000m mark, we were a little tired to be hugely excited, but we did stop for photos. The 8th station was just 20m higher, but I'm not sure what the actual distance walked was. Even tho it sounds so little, it takes so much longer to climb than you'd expect.

About the 8th station, the rocky terrain, lack of oxygen and sleep, and the strong winds made walking a challenge. I swear, when strong gusts of wind came, I nearly lost my balance! It was totally ferocious!! At the next hut, an excellent salesman met us and easily convinced us to come in for a couple of hours for just $12.50/hr. We warmed by the fire, and slept for about an hour.

Just past the 9th station (3360m) it started to appear that we might not make it to the top before sunrise. We could see clouds gathering over the top of the mountain, slowly creeping down, so we found a slightly sheltered spot, parked our weary, cold bodies (by this stage I was wearing: 3qtr tights, trackies, thermal singlet top, 2 warm long sleeved tops a polar fleece jumper and my beanie), and waited for sunrise. It was very beautiful!!! And as the light increased, we had an excellent view of the surrounding area - absolutely stunning!

The last 300m up seemed to take FOREVER, but eventually, we did make it to the top!! We proudly paid for our stamp that I'm guessing says something about making it to the top. We rested for a while, chatting with others and drinking hot chocolate.

Then began the downward hike... boring!!! When you've already reached the pinacle, the rest just seems like working for nothing! We zigzagged back and forth, back and forth for hours!! We sang silly songs, walked, made dumb jokes, walked, complained and whinged and walked some more!

The downward path met up with the upward path at the 8th station, and we bumped into 2 Canadian girls we'd met earlier - they'd fallen asleep for too long and were still heading up!!! While we were chatting, they went inside and got into a yelling match with the hut owner... excitement! Turned out, they had chucked a plastic bottle down the organic toilet - not good! The owner wanted them to fish it out or pay a $125 fine - guess which they chose? Fishing!!! LOL!! We hung around for a while, holding a torch and watching them fish with a stick in a big pile of crap... so funny!! The machine had been turning it over, so they had a bit of trouble - we finally left them to it, and continued the remaining 3 hrs downhill to finally end our hike at 11:30am.

We got down later than planned, and there were no direct busses back to Shinjuku (cuz it was now 1/9 - climbing season was over!), so we didn't make it to our hotel til 4:45pm. This meant we would have to shower and leave straight away for Disneyland, with no sleep. Rachel didn't care either way (she's been b4), so I made the agonizing decision to skip Disney. :( I didn't want to spoil my first impression of Disney by going when I was too tired to enjoy it properly, and we had been overspending our budgets anyway. I'll go back another time.

So instead, we went for dinner at a really nice Thai restaurant and wandered the gorgeous little backstreets of Asagoya, where we were staying. It was so cute and Japanesey - I loved it! We had a good night sleep, and so work on Friday wasn't that bad after all! Yay! I have now recovered almost completely - still just a little tired, but my muscles feel suprisingly good!! I'm fitter than I thought!