A Woman's Perspective On A Mt. Fuji Climb
I received the following story at the beginning of the 2003 climbing season, and decided to put it up on the site. A lot of what the author reports validates the preparation and safety information that was the primary purpose for setting up this site in the first place. She also reports from the heart, with great feeling and respect for her mountain climbing experience "in the present moments."
I have marked a few comments in the story, and provided clarifying footnotes at the end. Otherwise, the story is basically unedited.
I climbed Mount Fuji the way of traditional pilgrims -- that is, from the Kitaguchi Hongu(1) Fuji Sengen Shrine at the foot of the mountain (850 m elevation) to the top (3,776 m). These days, nearly everyone takes a big bus half-way up the mountain and starts the climb from there. It has been said that the upper part of Fuji-san is where heaven meets earth. I did not want to take a bus to heaven. Plus, the beautiful Fuji Sengen Shrine at the bottom is worth seeing, to put you in the right frame of mind for your climb, even if you do take a bus or taxi up the mountain!
I'm a very physically fit 46-year-old woman but not a technically skilled mountain climber. I had no idea how much I would be able to climb, since I've had some trouble with altitude sickness in the past. I thought that maybe starting from the bottom and ascending more slowly would help with that, and it did. No altitude problems.
I aimed to have no goal except to just hang out with the mountain, and get to know it a bit, not necessarily to conquer it. I only saw one other person on the lower half, which was beautiful green forest that I had all to myself. It was hot and humid in late August, but on the lower half of the mountain at least you are in shade, for the most part. As you ascend it gets cooler, and cold at night, so carrying clothes for all situations plus plenty of water is crucial.
I began hiking around 10:30 a.m. The first 5 kilometers or so from the Fuji Sengen Shrine was paved double-lane road, which was nothing to write home about. Then it became a tiny one-lane road edged by shrines, which ended and became strictly footpath shortly before the first of 10 "stations" up the mountain. It is possible to take a taxi to the end of the paved road and start where the footpath begins.
Nearly every station has one or more mountain huts, but on the lower part of the mountain most of these are abandoned and fallen apart. Which, to me, added to the charm of my hike.
I only met one other person climbing the lower part of the mountain, which I greatly enjoyed. Along about the time I reached the Fifth Station (now closed because this was near the end of hiking season)(2) at 2,239 m and 5 hours into my hike I began to wish I had a walking stick, as the terrain was getting steeper. Lo and behold -- Fuji provided. Someone had left a serviceable tree branch that clearly had been used as a walking stick. As the tree line fell away I hiked up 2.5 more hours to near the 8th station, where I stopped at dusk (around 6 p.m.), watched the sun set, and decided to sleep in a mountain hut.
Everyone raves about seeing the sun rise while on Fuji-san, but I found it equally beautiful seeing the sun set, because what you see (if you're lucky enough to have clear weather) is a long, crisp shadow of Mt. Fuji stretching out across the land for what seems like hundreds of kilometers.(3) Stunningly beautiful.
The sleeping facilities in the huts are basically huge long plank bunks with thin futons, blankets, and buckwheat pillows, where everyone sleeps and snores and coughs and sneezes side by side. This, I believe, is where I caught a wicked cold that showed up a few days later. I dozed fitfully (I wouldn't call it sleeping) until around midnight, when a hut employee made an announcement that I guessed translated to something like, "Anyone who wants to reach the summit to watch the sunrise should get their butts moving now." Since I wasn't sleeping all that well, I got up and went.
I mentioned that most people climb from the 5th or 6th stations of various trails. The other key factor is that most of them climb at night, to catch the sunrise. So my night-time trek was a matter of getting in line with hundreds of others, scrambling 10-20 steps up the rocks, and stepping aside to catch my breath and let my heart rate settle down. It was another 5 hours to the top. I was very glad I brought a headlamp, because I needed my hands for balance instead of holding a flashlight.
Don't let any of the tourist brochures fool you -- it's a very hard climb, not just because of the altitude but because of the jagged terrain and the air quality. Every mountain hut has a diesel generator, and at the upper elevations you must pass many of these huts. Plus, it seems that every Japanese man smokes cigarettes, as do plenty of the tourists. So I was gasping for air in more ways than one.
Fuji-san often is clouded over, but I was extremely lucky in that it was clear the entire time I was there. The views all along the way were spectacular. Sunrise was gorgeous, though it was very cold at the top at dawn. I could see for hundreds of kilometers(3) up the coastline of Japan.
I did take lots of pictures, although I mainly did the climb to experience the mountain in the present moments. I guess Fuji-san knew this, because the mountain kept my camera, lost somewhere just before reaching the top. And there was NO WAY I was going to backtrack even a little bit down that trail to try to find my camera. On Fuji, most of the descending routes are separate from the ascending routes anyway, so I would have had to fight the uphill traffic even if I'd had the energy to go hunt for it. Which I DIDN'T.
I climbed down for 5 hours on the Gotembaguchi(4) trail, which is the dryer, volcanic scree side of the mountain. The final 5 kilometers or so I felt like I was staggering through a hot desert, hoping that the parking lot ahead was not a mirage, concentrating on putting one shaking, wobbly-kneed leg in front of the other. As the Japanese would say, "my knees were laughing."
On the whole, I greatly enjoyed it.
Kitaguchi Hongu = "North Entrance Main" (gu = is a classification for the type of shrine)
I think the author must have been at the 5th Station on the Yoshida trail, at Satogya (Sato's hut.) It's a small place, at nearly the same elevation as the Kawaguchiko 5th Station which is about two kilometers around the mountain to the west. Sato-san must have gone to town and locked the place up, otherwise his hut is usually open year-round. The 5th Station Rest House, at the Kawaguchiko 5th Station, is generally open from April through November. See my Links page to view their site.
Just in case anyone is interested, the distance to the horizon from the top of Mt. Fuji is about 219.3535872 kilometers (136.3 miles), give-or-take a few millimeters.
Gotembaguchi = Gotemba Entrance. In addition to the definition, what this phrase reveals is that the author basically climbed Mt. Fuji "up one side and down the other." A very interesting adventure! Not many hikers challenge the mountain in this way.
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