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...don't do it.
So ever since I've lived in Japan, I've wanted to climb Mt. Fuji, yet never gotten around to it. There are a lot of people who aren't exactly in shape here who have done it before. I finally had a few friends that wanted to climb and dragged me along. We started climbing around 6:45pm from the so called 5th station.
Here's a view from when we stopped on the drive up the mountain shortly before the 5th station.
We started so late in the day with the idea of reaching the summit in time for sunrise at about 5AM. Unfortunately certain Japanese tour groups think its a good idea to take 80 climbers at a time up the mountain on the weekends, so we did not get there until about 6AM, though we did get a chance to stop and watch the sunrise about 3/4ths of the way up the mountain.
Here are a few pictures of the climb and the sunrise.
The paths to the summit range from a paved sidewalk at the bottom, to paths that were fine volcanic ash, and a lot of it was rocks like above, in many places they were as steep as 60-70 degree angles.
Sunrise from about 3/4ths of the way up the mountain.
After waiting for about 20 minutes we decided to get going again, the above picture is what it looked like looking up from where we were
We finally got to the 12,395 ft. summit around 6:30AM. It was colder than hell and windy which was kicking fine volcanic ash into my eyes. We waited around on the summit for about an hour drinking water and eating granola bars before we decided to head back down. We were all really really tired and freezing.
Here are a few pictures from the top:
A view from the top with a random Japanese guy looking down the mountain.
That's what I look like cold, tired, and sore.
The crater at the top of Fuji from when it was an active volcano.
The walk down sucked too. We left the summit around 7:30 or so. The whole trip down was on very fine volcanic ash and was really steep. I think it would be fair to say that it was easier to climb up than it was to go back down. We got down to the car at the 5th station around 1:30. Here are a picture from the trip back down.
All in all, it was a crapload of work and really really cold at the top. The Japanese say that if you've never climbed Fuji, you're a fool, and if you climb it more than once you are even more of a fool. I think they should change the last part to "if you climb Fuji more than once, you're freakin retarded." Honlestly though, I'm glad I did it, the view was amazing and it'll be cool to look at Fuji and know that I made it to the top. But if I knew it was going to be that bad I probably would have chickened out. The day after (today) if felt like I had been hit by a truck. And to make the day even worse I had to go to the vet to get my dog of 14 years put to sleep. Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures...speaking of if anyone uses them without my permission, then I reserve the right to track you down and kick your ass and take the money that it cost me to find you
.
So ever since I've lived in Japan, I've wanted to climb Mt. Fuji, yet never gotten around to it. There are a lot of people who aren't exactly in shape here who have done it before. I finally had a few friends that wanted to climb and dragged me along. We started climbing around 6:45pm from the so called 5th station.
Here's a view from when we stopped on the drive up the mountain shortly before the 5th station.
We started so late in the day with the idea of reaching the summit in time for sunrise at about 5AM. Unfortunately certain Japanese tour groups think its a good idea to take 80 climbers at a time up the mountain on the weekends, so we did not get there until about 6AM, though we did get a chance to stop and watch the sunrise about 3/4ths of the way up the mountain.
Here are a few pictures of the climb and the sunrise.
The paths to the summit range from a paved sidewalk at the bottom, to paths that were fine volcanic ash, and a lot of it was rocks like above, in many places they were as steep as 60-70 degree angles.
Sunrise from about 3/4ths of the way up the mountain.
After waiting for about 20 minutes we decided to get going again, the above picture is what it looked like looking up from where we were
We finally got to the 12,395 ft. summit around 6:30AM. It was colder than hell and windy which was kicking fine volcanic ash into my eyes. We waited around on the summit for about an hour drinking water and eating granola bars before we decided to head back down. We were all really really tired and freezing.
Here are a few pictures from the top:
A view from the top with a random Japanese guy looking down the mountain.
That's what I look like cold, tired, and sore.
The crater at the top of Fuji from when it was an active volcano.
The walk down sucked too. We left the summit around 7:30 or so. The whole trip down was on very fine volcanic ash and was really steep. I think it would be fair to say that it was easier to climb up than it was to go back down. We got down to the car at the 5th station around 1:30. Here are a picture from the trip back down.
All in all, it was a crapload of work and really really cold at the top. The Japanese say that if you've never climbed Fuji, you're a fool, and if you climb it more than once you are even more of a fool. I think they should change the last part to "if you climb Fuji more than once, you're freakin retarded." Honlestly though, I'm glad I did it, the view was amazing and it'll be cool to look at Fuji and know that I made it to the top. But if I knew it was going to be that bad I probably would have chickened out. The day after (today) if felt like I had been hit by a truck. And to make the day even worse I had to go to the vet to get my dog of 14 years put to sleep. Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures...speaking of if anyone uses them without my permission, then I reserve the right to track you down and kick your ass and take the money that it cost me to find you
.
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