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Climbing Fuji-san: Part 2, The Summit and the Descent

(Read Part 1, and check out the photos: Part 1 and Part 2)

Sitting on top of the world

1. Imagine the satisfaction from a job well done. Now imagine it from the perspective of one who had not slept for 22 hours. Invigorating, isn’t it? That’s how I felt, climbing the last few steps towards the shrine. A job well done indeed.

2. We all had preconceptions of what the summit looks like from descriptions and travel guides. All mention the vending machines, the hawkers, the post office, and the hour long walk around the crater. I pictured the typical Japanese urban flare on top of its most revered mountain, and the image jarred violently in my imagination. But, once hitting the summit I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw: stone and wood buildings, benches, and a bustling crowd of people. It looked more like a busy Sunday morning in a Nepalese village than a marketer’s wet dream, so much so that even the brightly coloured vending machines did not seem out of place. Quite welcomed, actually: the hike up had exhausted my water supply.

3. We looked for the estranged members of our party, but to no avail. We decided to look around the summit in hope of bumping into them. The first thing I realised is that the summit is not that big at all — if the walk around it is an hour long then it must descend somewhat, because you can walk from one edge of the summit to the other in only 15 minutes. Though we felt reinvigorated, neither of us were up to test that theory for ourselves.

4. We wandered past the shops, past the most disgusting smelling toilet this side of a sewer, and ambled up to the crater. It was surprisingly small, at a guess it was only 60m or so in diameter. All this mountain came from such a small hole? Obviously there was an awful lot of geology I am not aware of. Surprisingly, I also noticed a distinct smell of sulphur in the air near the crater. I was taken aback somewhat — Fuji is dormant, right? The last eruption of Fuji was in 1707, some 300 years ago. During that last eruption Fuji belched a cloud of ash that covered Tokyo some 110km away. I’ve since read some Volcanologist suspect the next eruption might not be so far away.

World’s Highest Truck Stop

5. Wandering away from the crater, we found some empty benches to sit at and enjoy the view. I fire up my mobile, and bam! full reception. The mobile signals come from the towers covering the towns below, and with no obstacles between the summit and the towns some 3700m below we managed to get good reception from the summit. I woke a few friends in Australia and abroad with a well timed text message, and I made a couple of phone calls. Bet you can’t do that on Everest.

6. Luckily, soon after we spotted another of our crew. He told us where to find the others, who were resting in one of a string of restaurants catering for the weary crowds. They served food, drinks, a bench to sit on and provided a warm respite from the near-zero Celcius temeratures outside. Some even had futons for any who wanted one, but the access to a warm flat surface was heaven enough. The ground around the summit consists of fist sized volcanic rocks, some of which were quite sharp — making sitting an uncomfortable (and possibly dangerous) experience.

7. Despite the lack of sleep and the desperate need for rest, my stomach demonstrated once again that it is the ruler of this domain; I promptly ordered a meal and a drink, paying the premium expected for such a remote location. Food never tasted so good.

8. It was obvious we were all exhausted, but proper sleep for us would not come for some time yet. We still had to get off the mountain, a feat that we had not properly assessed, or appreciated. The longing for a bed conquered the wish to stay just a bit longer, and at 8am or so we made our way off the summit of Mt Fuji.

Coming Down

9. Climbing at night does two things for you: the temperature is lower, so it’s not so hot; and it reduces whatever spatial awareness you have to the bright lights in front, above and below you. I had no idea at all just how high we were until we started coming down.

10. I am, at this point, at serious danger of running out of superlatives I could use to describe the view — but needless to say it was glorious. The weather had been perfect for our climb, it was not as cold on the summit as we had thought it might’ve been, there was not a hint of rain or snow or other nastiness, and it wasn’t all that windy at all. With the morning sun this all came together in a perfect ensemble, providing the reason why people go to the bother of climbing mountains at all.

11. We started by going down the ascending route, which is not that great an idea. There are, unsurprisingly, other people coming up, and being quite steep and rocky it proved moderately treacherous (though occasionally amusing) and a hazard to both bottom and ego. The walking sticks we all had were essential at this point, it gave each of us another point of contact with the ground and provided stability, though that didn’t mean a few of us didn’t fall on our arse a few times.

12. The one thing that you notice on the way down is how much difference a hundred meters of elevation makes when you’re up that high. It was near-zero up the top, but by the time we had reached the Gansomuro hut (about 3200m, half way between the two 8th Stations) it was back to t-shirts again. From the Gansomuro hut we cut across to the descending route, and began our descent in earnest.

13. I mentioned in Part 1 that Fuji is not so interesting to climb. Well, the same goes for the descent. The descending route was basically a zigzagging gravel service road that winds all the way to the summit. While we were there we saw three or four tractors hauling a variety of stuff up the mountain, and a proper 4WD should find the track dead easy. Human beings, however, might find it a bit more difficult. It’s the same loose gravel as before, and steep, and with the odd sized rocks underfoot it was easy to lose your footing — it might as well have been snow and ice, it was about as slippery. It was a serious strain on knees and ankles, and it bloody hurt.

14. Those winding zigzags went on seemingly forever, and after a couple of hours of that we were getting pretty fed up, and the view just wasn’t distracting enough any more. A few of us had discovered that if we just took big steps and picked up the pace a bit it was a lot easier on the knees, the momentum meant you use the slippery gravel as part of your suspension. It had it’s own hazards (falling became a lot more spectacular), but I found it a lot easier, and it meant we got of the damn track a whole lot quicker. The hours past, and eventually we made our way back past Roku-gome (2390m) and on our way back to Go-gome.

Back where we started

15. We arrived back to Go-gome at midday, rounding off the climb. All up we took 14.5 hours to get to the summit and back, including a two hour stop on the summit itself. By this time it had been over 24hrs since anyone last had a decent snooze, and it was beginning to show. We would’ve made good zombies in a Z-Grade Horror flick. Getting back to Go-gome was a pleasure indeed — as was being able to sit down somewhere in the shade. By this time we had spent a good four hours in the sun, and no-one had thought to bring sunscreen. I escaped without serious damage, but the fairer skinned of the group got scorched pretty bad. Lobster style.

16. By now all I really wanted to do was to find a shower and sit in there for a while, but we were still lacking a bus back to Tokyo. A short enquiry secured us a seat back to Tokyo on the same direct bus as we had caught on the way to Fuji, a stroke of luck that had me thanking which-ever deity was in earshot. We were hot, dirty, tired and (I at least) started smelling like a sewer. The midday sun reminded me why I spent so much of my early adulthood indoors, and damnit I just wanted a shower. One should never have to feel sweat rolling down one’s back and into… well, nevermind. But, at last, the comfortable (and air-conditioned) highway bus came, we boarded, and I finally got the chance to relax. Sleep rolled over me, and as I closed my eyes a feeling of great satisfaction cut through the lethargy; I looked out the bus window and bade a silent farewell to this great mountain.

Epilogue

17. The trip back from Fuji was uneventful, and pleasantly so; though at Shinjuku our propensity for getting lost resurfaced, leading to a hilarious exchange where we argued back and forth about which street the map is showing, forgetting all the while that our hotel was actually in Shinagawa, not Shinjuku! Resurfacing back to civilisation was a welcome change: the climb was brilliant, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do it again.

18. Shower, change, food; those were our new priorities, and all was accomplished with ruthless efficency. Though we were all tired, the lure of the Tokyo streets and the English teacher Thirst (TM) proved a potent combination, and we were coerced by a very insistant barkeep to finish the trip as it started — drunk. Proper sleep came at 11pm, thirty-eight hours and a mountain after we left Hiroshima.

19. The Japanese have a proverb: “He who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool”. It’s not often that you find out first hand the meaning of a proverb. Fuji-san holds a special place in the heart of many Japanese, and standing on its peak I got a glimpse into the reverence that influenced centuries of Japanese art and literaure. One may be a fool to climb it twice, but to not climb it at all may be the most foolish thing of all.

• Posted in Japan, LeftBrain on the 09.09.2006 @ 2:12:03 AM, Permanent Link
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