My trip to Fuji-San

13 of us headed for Fuji on Saturday, the 11th of July.Climbing Fuji has been popular for many centuries. Back in the old days,when this was more of a pilgrimage by Buddhist monks than a hiker'sattraction, climbers would start at the base of the mountain and stop atsome shrines on the way up. Today we don't have to spend so much time andenergy, and can go by bus upto the 'Fifth Station' at about 2300 meters.The mountain is divided into ten 'stations', most of which have some hutsto stay in or to sell you food, drinks or souvenirs.

So we took a bus from Tokyo to the 5th station (called Kawaguchiko) afterwhich only way to go up is to climb. There are big souvenir shops at 5th station.The best selling souvenir is the Fuji walking stick which you can buy for1000 yen, and then at every station they burn a stamp on the stick (for yen200 and 300 yen at the summit) as a proof that you have been there. Thestick has two bells attached to it and an optional Japanese Flag (for 300yen more). After walking a few minutes I had to remove the bells as theywere causing a lot of distraction.

Before starting we checked our fuel level. I can't walk on afull stomach so I just had some coffee but others had ice-creams and food.We knew we wouldn't be able to eat them for next two days.Food and drinks are available on the huts at every station but they areexorbitantly priced - 400 yen for a 100 ml can of drink and 800 yen for afrugal amount of ramen (noodles). No free drinking water or any kind ofwater (even for washing your face) is available on Fuji. So, with 3 litersof water and two days of food, clothing, camera, etc. my rucksack musthave weighed over 10 Kgs. Thank goodness we didn't have to carry sleepingbags.

Many climbers go up to the 7th or 8th station see the sun rise from the seaof clouds and return. We started from the 5th station around 11:30 andreached the 8th station at about sunset at 6:45 PM. The sky was coveredwith bright, silvery and amber clouds -in various shapes and shades of colors. Just too seductive to photographers - who had to ignore the demands of their tiredbody and hungry stomach to catch those moments before the sunset in their cameras.My camera film got over faster than I'd expected and I had to buy anotherfilm at the cost of 1500 yen from a shop on top of the Fuji. I felt sadpaying so heavily for my sin of forgetfulness. But the lovely pictures thathave come out of that evening have more than made up for it.

The Sunset from 8th station

The beds in the huts have to be shared in the season. It is also probablythe only way to keep the dormitory warm as there is no heating availableand temperatures reach subzero in the night. We were lucky as I was told that during this peak season 4 people may have to share a futon (Japanesestyle bedding on the floor). We were lucky to share just one between two.I was worried I may not be able to wake up in time, but the rustling soundof the plastic covered miniature pillows was enough to keep me awake, tillIchiko came to formally wake me up at about midnight. Then I went out touse the nearly open air toilet and I was frozen with cold. I came backshivering not just because of the cold but also at the thought of climbingup in freezing temperature in just a light warm sweater that I brought tokeep the weight of my rucksack minimum. I put on everysingle clothingthat I had in my back pack - 3 shirts, a sweater and a windsheeter, a pairof shorts and trousers. I felt I'd just survive. I actually don't remembernow how it was like walking from 8th station to the top because I was in asort of daze. Howa and Ichiko managed to chat whenever we stopped forbreath. We did stop quite often in the beginning but not much after the 9thstation. We didn't need to, because people were walking too slow and nobodyseemed to much have much strength to walk much faster. We at least hadrest (??) in the hut, but many people walk from the 5thstation to top without stopping to rest in the huts.

The oxygen level gets very low from 8th station. It is said that at thislevelon flights the oxygen masks automatically pop up . I saw people usingoxygen cans but none of us felt the need for it. As long as we walked - wewere warm. Everytime we stopped for rest, we felt cold. There was quite abit of snow on the route. We had all been cautioned to bring our torch.Likeus hundreds of people were walking with their torches. From top it lookedquite interesting to watch a long trail of people illuminated with theirtorches. There were many kinds of torches - the one that can be worn aroundyour head, the one that can be hung around your neck, ones that can befixed in your pocket, etc. It being almost a full moon night plus hundredsof torch lights - there was too much light and I put away my torch. It wastoo much of a balancing exercise - holding the torch while climbing bigrocks thru chains - yeah there are chains and ropes to provide hold to climbupon the big, steep and slippery rocks - which are in abundance on thisroute.Soon I realized that my hands were chilled even though I was wearinggloves. They were kept warm by the glowing torch. So, I held my torchagain. Then we saw a flight of stairs going upto like what seemed to be the10th station but we rejected the idea, as we'd been thru similar situationstwice earlier when it almost lookedlike we'd reached but we hadn't. Moreover we had finished only 3 hours ofwalking against the expected time of 4 hours. BUT! - we had REACHED!! - itwas difficult to believe! There were so many people strolling around. Therewere huts to provide you hot and sumptuous meals, gift shops and vendingmachines - it looked like a holiday bazaar. We were an hour ahead of theschedule and we had plenty of time before sunrise. We decided to celebrateour feat with hot and steaming ramen.

When we went out to catch a glimpse of the morning sky at around 4:20, theplace was too crowded with people already positioned with their cameras. Sowe went a little ahead and found a more secluded spot. I was in anentranced state of mind at the beautiful sight of the Sun rising above thehorizon - and standing on the top of the summit at the height of 3770meters made me feel like I was on top of the world! For the first time Isee the beauty of a 'Cloud with a silver lining'! Even if I try in best ofmy linguistic abilities I don't have words to describe that heavenlyland(sky)scape. May be my pictures will give a hint of what it was like.We strolled around the crater after the sunrise and came back to the hut towait for the other groups. There was one more battle left. Had it not beenfor the many travel accounts that I had read (thanks to internet), I surewouldhave fainted to know that where we were was not the official summit ofFuji-San. For that we had to walk past the crater and reach there in about30 minutes. There were interesting volcanic sights on the way. We alsocollected some stones from there to take back as sovenirs - despite theannouncement (in Japanese) that we can not take anything from Fuji. Theconical shaped crater gives a worn out look - its also broken on its edges.If I have to compare it - I think I've seen a better looking and morerecently formed but smaller conical peak in Fukushima - on Mount Azuma. InFuji-san, I saw a few people going into the crater and I felt like doing itmyself, but its risky. Once 5 people died due to poisonous gas leaking fromit.

We chose to climb down via Gotemba trail - covered with loosely formed lavastones. Coming down was (phew!) the toughest part of the hike for me. Bythistime all of my energy, enthusiasm, excitement and motivation woreout. The last time I went for hiking, my ankle got twisted and bent, andkept hurting for a month. This time I didn't want to push myself too hard,but we couldn't help going very fast. The trail is so cushy that your feetsink down in the lava stuff by about a foot and so steep that you walk downone step and you go sliding down by 5 steps. Now I know why everybody keepadvising to wear gaiters. Our shoes got filled with lava stones which madewalking even more difficult. This route is perhaps not very popular amongtourists, as we hardly saw anybody except for some who seemed likecrossbreeds of hikers and joggers as they were jogging up and down thatdifficult trail leading to the cinder cone. After walking for an hour theweather got worse. We were enveloped by clouds and mist and couldn't seeanything ahead of us. We kept walking and walking and walking .....forabout 3 more hours. Finally it came to an end and we just made it to the5th station at Gotemba at the time of the last bus at 3:00pm.

According to a Japanese saying "the one who never climbs to Fuji is a fooland the one who does more than once is twice as fool!". But I would like toclimb to Fuji Yama again! I am quite infamous for being foolish but thistime I'll probably escape from being labeled as one as I'm returning toIndia for good next month.

Yes - I'm planning to take back my Fuji walking stick to India as my mostprecious souvenir - with all the proofs stamped on it - some quite specificlike the one to prove that you reached there at the time of Sunrise.I forgot to mention a most interesting thing. There is a post office on thesummit - along with a shrine and a weather station. This post office opensonly during official hiking season of Fuji from July 1st to August 31st.Guess what are the modes of transportation? I had read earlier that theonly two modes of transportation to the top are helicopters and backpacks.But we discovered the third - a bulldozer carrying parcels up. In the postoffice you can buy picture postcards and post them free of cost. I did thatquite apprehensively as I was afraid that my parents would probably notbelieve that a mountain which can have a postoffice on top can be sodifficult to climb. They however do not know that if its not fortheir(Japanese)concern to preserve the nature on Fuji, there would probably have beenbullet trains running on Fuji by now!