18/07/14: Mount Fuji
The Japanese have a saying:
“there are two kinds of fool: those who have never climbed Mount Fuji, and those who have climbed it more than once”
Mt Fuji is a famous mountain admired for its symmetrical beauty. It’s a symbol of the Japanese nation and is often described “the soul of Japan”. To the Japanese, Fuji-san is sacred. Some say it’s a gateway to another world. There is even a religious sect that claims the mountain has its own soul!
From a distance, Mount Fuji is a breath-taking site. But, up close in person, hiking Japan’s best-known volcano was not quite the experience I’d expected.
First of all; there are the crowds. Since becoming a world heritage site in 2013 the mountain has seen ever increasing numbers of tourists. Recent estimates suggest that 300,000 people a year hike to the top. Mt Fuji is only officially ‘open’ for around 10 weeks each year between July and early September; which means that on any given day there are hundreds of hikers clambering up the mountain.
Most hikers start out from ‘Station 5’: a large car park and tourist centre located roughly half way up the mountain. From here it takes around 8 hours to reach the summit. The first couple of hours are spent walking along a huge 6-foot wide concrete highway which zig-zags up the side of the mountain. Sadly, large concrete walkways are fairly common on many of Japan’s mountains. A note of caution to anyone planning on hiking Mt Fuji: the long, slow, gradual ascent from the base of the mountain is the reason most people start half way up at Station 5. Stating half way up the mountain on a flat concrete path means it’s very easy to make a ‘quick start’ up the mountain. What might seem like a useful short cut to the summit presents a hidden risk of altitude sickness. I discovered this the hard way. I arrived at the large mountain hut at Station 8, just before dark. The plan was to sleep here and make an early morning dash to the summit before sunrise. Packed into a hut with hundreds of other hikers, squashed side by side like sardines, and suffering from altitude sickness, made for a terrible nights sleep. After a sleepless night and with a splitting headache I set off for the summit at around 4 a.m. The summit of Mt Fuji often sits above the clouds. If you reach the summit before sunrise, in the right conditions, there is a chance of catching the sun rise through the cloud layer. I’m told this is a spectacular sight. After standing in a tightly packed and very slow moving procession to the summit, I reached the peak under cover of darkness. The summit was surrounded by thick fog and whipping gale force winds. Hundreds of hikers waited patiently, shivering on the summit, for the sun to rise. Gradually, it became clear that sun had risen but this had passed without notice. The fog was so thick it was hard to tell if it was still night or day. With a thumping headache, I descended back to Station 5 as quickly as possible. A man was being carried down by stretcher at the same time.
All in all, I left Mt Fuji feeling disappointed. That old Japanese saying about only fools going back for more made a lot more sense.
* Mount Fuji, Japan. 18/07/14. iPhone 5c
