I followed Japan-Guide's advice on how to get to Fuji by rail and I was led a little bit astray but not so bad really that I couldn't recover. I left Hamamatsucho at maybe 2:15 and rode the Yamanote line to Shinjuku. In Shinjuku I booked a ride on the Chuo Line to Otsuki. It is a limited express and has only half a green car for some reason. That unfortunately wasn't leaving until 3:30 so I had to sit for about 40 minutes or so before it came in and the passengers could board. This trains starts up at Shinjuki. The ride to Otsuki was just a bit over an hour and put me around the corner from the Fujikyu train line which goes to Kawagachiko. This is where I was led astray. Kawagachiko Station is not the direct point for getting into a Fuji 5th Station like the guide said. Instead Kawagachiko has a bus terminal and there was a bus that actually goes to the 5th station. The train for the record was a local which meant it stopped at every stop along the way which took probably about 40 minutes. It was a nice and clean train. I noticed a lot of people wave to the conductor so it must also be a friendly local line (it is considered a commuter railway for that region).
The bus was a bit more difficult to figure out but I was able to find the ticket office and purchase a round trip fair which was reasonably discounted versus a one way fair so that was at least good. Then I found the number 6 bus stand where my bus was supposed to arrive at 6pm. Yes it was already getting late. It actually showed up at 6:10. There were 4 other buses that came to the stand and told us it was the next bus that would take us to the 5th station. At the stop were Akush and Martin who were also aiming to climb Fuji. While we waited and joked around a bit it became a reasonable idea that perhaps we could commit the journey together which is what happened. Martin is from Slovakia originally but now lives in Northern Ireland and apparently works for DHL where he has finally started to earn enough money to travel as he wishes. He said Japan was his second trip. His first being a trip to Australia. Good for him. Akush is Hungarian and had quit his job to travel the world for 6 months. Apparently it is not difficult for him to find a new job when he gets back though he has to be very tight with his money. Both were in Japan for around 3 weeks and just happened to choose the same day I did to climb Fuji by general accident. The bus ride was about 45 minutes or so to the 5th Station. It was not really exciting except that between waiting for the bus and riding up, all the clouds peeled off the mountain for us before we got there. This is apparently a rare experience.
At the station we discussed what were were going to do. The basic plot for climbing Fuji is it takes typically between 4-7 hours depending on the trail you are going to use and your own physical condition. We were going to take the Oshida trail which is rated at 5-7 hours. The idea is to get to the top in time to see the sun rise on Japan from the mountain top. It was around 7 when we got to the station and we decided we would wait until 8:30 to start the trek. Martin and I both found food at the station in the form of a giant doughy bun filled with pork. I am sure I have seen them before but had never tried them. Basically it ended up tasting like a giant pork gyoza but with a soft and doughy outer shell. It wasn't bad really. I also had a can of hot black coffee. Apparently the machines in Fuji still serve hot this time of year where I haven't seen them anywhere else right now. After that it was just general killing time and using the facilities and talking to each other until it was time to start. Sunrise would be at 4:40 or so at Fuji and that was giving us a reasonably good amount of time to get to the top. Far beyond what we would need. For the trek I had my new backpack with my cold weather running shirt, running gloves, a windbreaker some snacks in the form of nuts I bought at the train station and basically my cell phone and headlamp. I also was wearing my trekking pants which I had zipped off the legs before leaving Tokyo as it was incredibly hot so the legs were in that bag as well. I also brought a water bottle belt that had compartment that I could fit my camera in as well as the 2 water bottles which I filled with water from the vending machines at the station.
The three of us didn't really know tons about how the climb was going to go but we figured we would just find out as we did it. The initial walk to the trailhead for Oshida Trail was down and up hill. For a short while you are in the tree line but then it is back out of it as you hit the trailhead and then onward and upward. Almost as soon as we got into the trail the batteries on my headlamp died but both Martin and Akush had headlamps of their own and the first area was fairly easy so I didn't want to run back and get batteries knowing that there would be stations along the trail that had stuff for sale and I figured that more than one of them would have to have batteries. The climb is sort of divided into stages between the stations. You start at 5 and by the end I think technically what might be considered a 9th station is the top of the mountain. Though it is peak climbing season and the trail is by far the busiest of the 4 you can take at first the trail didn't seem too busy. I think a lot of people probably start at 10 because that should get them to the top closer to when the sun will rise in theory. The initial climb to the 6th station was not really bad at all basically being a series of switchbacks on crushed lava and sand. As we moved up we had to take some stops to rest. Neither Akush nor Martin are all that athletic as they proclaimed themselves so we made periodic rests in the early going to conserve energy and because it appeared we had a real lot of time. It was interesting to see the clouds over the city down below us which we believe was Kawagochiko and how the city lights started to pull out from underneath them as clouds down there also broke during the night. It was also interesting that for the first couple hours because of this effect it appeared the city was getting bigger instead of smaller as we got higher away from it.
As the trek continued the trails did get increasingly more difficult. Fortunately just before the really rocky section that required a lot of pull chain use as well as some hand on rocks climbing to get up I found a station that had AAA batteries. I completely got taken on them paying 1000 yen which is almost $13 for the set of 4 of which I needed 3 but in the long run it was really worth it to have the batteries as my headlamp is the LED type where both Martin and Akush's were older incandescent bulb types and about 3 hours into the trek their batteries were dead and my headlamp was still blinding people until the sunrise. Pretty much everyone wears a headlamp on the trail and that was another interesting thing to watch as you looked up or down the trail and could see the line of little lights bobbing around along the trail. As the climbing got more difficult so the trail got more crowded. There were obviously a bunch of tours that were climbing the mountain as units and they often had very different ability levels in the tour. I will say that I saw young children right up to older retirees along the trail as well as more than a few gaijin. There is a proverb that says that every Japanese person should climb Fuji once but only a fool climbs it twice. The other one is He who doesn't climb Fuji is a fool. He who does climb Fuji is an even bigger fool. Basically each year the climbing season is thousands of people per day climbing the mountain. Worse yet for us it was a Friday so being the start of the weekend many more people were there as they didn't have to work than there would have been on say Tuesday. Needless to say the tours and the varying ability climbers posed an extra challenge that became more and more evident the closer we got to the top. During the difficult terrain they would often cause the entire line to stop for long stretches as they clambered their way slowly and hesitantly up and the tours would block off the entire trail so as not to get separated during the climb making things even worse.
Honestly the trail did get a lot easier the higher we got after those couple rocky sections but of course the climb also got steeper though made of stairs or gravelly path most of the time. The steeper definitely took a lot out of a very large number of the climbers and again we found ourselves taking a step, stopping, waiting thirty seconds, taking another step and repeating ad nauseum. It was certainly not the way I had wanted to spend my climb. I had to put on the pant legs pretty much before started the climb because it was already getting cool out. The 5th station is at around 2900 meters or so I think so it is already a reasonably high altitude. With sun down and clear skies it dropped in temperature steadily and got windy at times along the trail, most often when we were in the bad car accident type traffic where we weren't moving enough to keep warm. I chose at hut past the 6th station to put on my warm weather running shirt but when we were moving I was fine so I didn't want to sweat a lot and never ended up putting on my jacket (I cannot recall seeing anyone else who didn't have a jacket on by the time I put on the shirt). At various points they had thermometers and we saw temps like 8 and 6C. It probably wouldn't have been bad at all but for the wind and the stopping. At times we were able to make our way around the slow people by cutting through unused areas of the trail but often the trail bottlenecked so we couldn't do anything but stop and wait. As this pattern continued we often forsook our own rest breaks just to try to get ahead of the people that were slowing us down. We kept checking the suggested amount of time we had left and for many stretches early on it looked very good but as the crowds of the trail affected us more and more it was sort of a worry that we would arrive late.
When we got to the 8.5th station Martin needed to change his shirts because the sweat inside was freezing him to death. This turned out to be truly unfortunate because he took a long time to get back to us (he was able to use a hut to get out of the cold and dry off and change but said he had a Chinese woman sitting on his shoes and it took forever to find them (no shoes on in the huts). The problem with this is that the large number of tour groups we passed chose this 10 minute span to start up the last portion of the trail to the summit. Akush and I were dismayed and rightly so because when we did finally start are own portion of this climb the very same thing we fought past started all over again. I think if we had managed to get out before the tours it would have been a breeze but instead it was another span of longer than an hour of stopping and starting all over again. We did manage to push past some of the people along the way but as we were wading through the sea of people we could see the beginning coloration of the sun getting ready to rise on the horizon below us and we were getting worried we weren't going to make it. Fortunately our perseverance paid off and we made it up to the tori gate that signifies the top of the mountain by about 4am.
As I said sunrise officially happened at around 4:40 but we were able to perch in some reasonably good spots as all the other people filed up past us and took a lot of pictures and videos until the sun was fully up. From there we climbed to the final station and had to push our way through crowds again. We took a few more pictures from this portion of the mountain and took a small breather before deciding to do the crater trail which basically circumnavigates the main eruption crater. Martin was not going to go all the way around as he was far too tired but in the long run he made it to the end of the trail. We did skip the summit station because the lines were not moving and many people long. Not sure if it was for restrooms or just to see some stuff up there. All the same none of us wanted to wait and see what the fuss was so we just continued on the trail until we got to the descent trail.
The Oshida Trail has different trails for ascent and descent and theoretically the descent trail is much easier. However the truth is that though it was faster it was the part of the whole experience I didn't like. It basically was a series of switchbacks dug out by a bulldozer I am sure. The problem was the grades were steep and the whole path was made of very loose crushed lava and sand. It meant slipping and sliding and falling or almost falling most of the way down. I hated it. If they had just used a less steep grade the whole process would have gone much faster but the path they made was slower for trying not to fall. Also, the trails created so much reddish brown dust that got over everyone and everything during the descent. I could feel my hair felt like it had plaster in it and everything I owned that was visible was covered in a coating of the stuff. About a quarter of the way down Martin and I parted with Akush as he was going to do different things but we were both getting back on the bus and eventually getting to hotels hopefully as quickly as we could. As we got further down the trail the weather started to catch up to Japan in August, meaning getting very hot. The sweat and the dust made a most disgusting combination and I felt gross fairly early on. Also the dust got all in my eyes, nose and mouth as more and more people trying to get down fast kicked up even larger amounts of it.
By the time we got back to the 5th station all I could think about was washing my hands and face and I tried to use the mens room but a man wouldn't let me do it at first because I had a backpack (there are no trash bins on Fuji as is typical for Japan and I am sure he was trying to prevent people from dumping their trash in the restrooms. I dropped my gear next to him and went in and washed up as best I could with no soap and no towels. When I was done I waited for Martin who had gone to have a cigarette before we tried to figure out our bus. During that time a nice old Japanese Tourist Information man came over and talked to me for a couple minutes. We talked about the climb and what I thought of it and he mentioned he had climbed Fuji 4 times (so I guess he isn't a fool) but had never seen the sunrise due to clouds covering the mountain. He said we were very lucky (I used my sun god powers as moon god powers for the full moon night on this climb) and that most people don't have that happen. We also talked about Boston for a couple of minutes because he had been there once before and wanted to go back. He gave me a couple postcards of Fuji for the conversation. Pretty cool I thought.
Martin was not coming to the restroom area like he said he would but I was sure I heard an announcement for the bus wee needed to take so I searched that out and found it was going to be a couple minutes before it loaded and departed and hurriedly I searched until I found him and were able board the thing right away. Who knows when another bus would be there. It was so quick I never got to buy anything to drink. The ride down was about 45 minutes and I think I dozed off on it a bit. When we got to the Kawagochiko Station we parted ways as he had a hotel locally and I had to get to Hamamatsucho. I got right into the train station and of course the express back to Otsuki was already there and I had to get on before getting something to drink. As an express it did not stop at every stop but it still drove very slow which meant it took probably about 20-25 minutes to get to Otsuki. I think we had arrived at the 5th station at around 11:45am. By the time we got to Kawagochiko I think it must have been 12:15 or so. The train ride to Otsuki got me there at about 12:45. I was able to book a green car seat to Shinjiku that departed at 1:04 and arrived at Shinjuku at 2:04. I then immediately jumped onto the Yamanote line to Hamamatsucho and was basically back at the room by about 2:45which was much earlier than I was expecting. I got cleaned up and cleaned my stuff as best I could before writing this then choosing to relax for a bit before dinner (recall I hadn't had lunch).
After a brief stop of less than an hour I headed out to find dinner. I think before I left I set it in my head I would get a pizza at the Dream Factory. You may recall I've been there on both previous trips. Hamamatsucho is dead on the weekend because it is mainly a business area and there was just no one around at all even though it was 6pm on a Saturday night. Not so amazingly I remembered exactly where the place was and entered to see a couple people there and some folks that were obviously family (if not all of them, probably all of them). I ordered a Sapporo draft and the pizza mezalone which is an eggplant and salami with basil leaves pizza. He does his pizzas in the very thin almost cracker like crust. It was honestly an excellent pizza if a bit messy to eat. The eggplant was sliced very thing but was across the whole pizza and slid off the top a bit too much. Nothing to bother me really. The taste was great. I know I'm in Japan but I think pizza and beer was a good way to celebrate completing Fuji. Plus it really required little thought. The owner gave me a free dessert which was a couple of biscotti and some amoretto to dip the cookies in. They were very good also. Meanwhile some of the other people started talking to me in halting English and were very nice. They were all older and were trying to figure out an iPad so I helped them with that a little bit and we talked about a couple other things in the best we could. They gave me a slice of their mushroom pizza which was also really good. I think it had about 5 different types of mushrooms on it at least, maybe more. I then ordered an espresso and finished that (as a sort of thank you for the biscotti). When I settled up I headed to the Lawson around the corner and picked up a can of Sapporo Classic and headed back to the room for the night. It was only 8pm but I was shot from the full 2 days.
The pictures from days 13 and 14 got mushed together due to the days being so and can be found here.
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