the big day
The Mt. Fuji hike remains one of my most memorable days in Japan. Only a few treks in the world really gave me that sense of camaraderie and accomplishment: Machu Picchu, Khongoryn Els, and the mighty Fujisan.
This was a full-on expedition. I had a couple of Couchsurfers staying with me at that time. Divya and Sahil, from India.
Ellie, a friend from Korea, also stayed the night over to come with us.
Our group met up with Nikita’s group, one of my best friends from Russia. With him were 3 other Russians from his language school.
We later met up with Miki and Keina, Keina who I met before through Miki, both of them were from Saku City in Nagano.
All in all our group was composed of 10 people but how many will be making it all the way to the top? Mt. Fuji is definitely one for the books.
It was a holiday in August, aptly named Mountain Day. We were able to catch our bus all together and we set off towards the Subashiri trail head which I talk more about in the Mt. Fuji Hiking Guide.
the approach
I always knew Mt. Fuji was huge, but it’s only when you’re actually being taken straight to the trailheads, can you see how badass it actually is.
Mt. Fuji was so imposing, it straight up made us start second-guessing our decision if this was actually a good idea seeing as how none of us prepared for this at all.
The Japanese girls came super prepared, they had rented the full hiking gear, from poles, bags, boots as well as the clothes.
Meanwhile, we were literally just in our jeans and sneakers. Big mistake.
When we arrived at the trailhead entrance, we took some time to acclimatize a bit, around 30 minutes or so before starting the hike, which on hindsight, I wasn’t sure even mattered.
We planned to do it all in one day to avoid staying overnight and paying the exorbitant prices of the mountain huts.
Mt. Fuji was usually completed in two days, so we were quite ambitious. The “bullet climb” isn’t recommended but it’s just the circumstance we were in at that time.
The hike was very fun at first, the Subashiri trail led us through a forest so we had some shade for a bit and enjoyed seeing some green. The views were awesome and the pictures were fabulous.
But just getting to the next station took a lot from us and we still had so much more to go. As we got higher, clouds started to pass by and the views kept getting grander, though we really had to focus on climbing up.
A few stations later, we had our first casualty.
dominoes
One of the Russian girls ended up getting a blister on her ankle. She tried to cover them with extra socks, but she bought new hiking shoes and proceeded to do this hike without even bothering to break them in.
It was a recipe for disaster, and she had to go back.
One of the other guys went with her, so this brings us from 10 to 8 and we weren’t even half way there.
After a couple more stations, the altitude sickness really started to take its toll.
Breaths became shorter, oxygen thinner, heart rate faster, and the body felt extremely fatigued.
The terrain did not help at all, it was barren with just a lot of volcanic gravel.
My shoes was another wrong choice, every two steps up, I slide back down, it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress at all.
Yet, some people were literally using slippers to climb up, you see all sorts of characters climbing Mt. Fuji.
There was even a guy cosplaying as a highschool fairy-girl. Really odd.
just keep swimming
As the hike went on, my motivation was slowly dwindling. I really started to doubt if I could make it, that I was way over my head thinking I could do Mt. Fuji.
My friends really encouraged me, and I did the same for them and we made it from one station to the next.
Good companions are so important, Mt. Fuji is a mental battle as much as a physical one. The emotional support I got from my friends was crucial to my success, though most of the time we barely talked anymore.
Everyone had their own pace, the distance between us started to become more apparent.
The final problem was time. It didn’t look like we were going to make it back to the last bus at the rate we were going and our group was split to just give up and go back or finish it through and risk not having transportation.
Divya and Sahil decided to call it off and go back, and to be honest I was with them as well but the others wanted to finish it.
Seeing both Miki and Keina with determination made me realize how much I wanted to finish it too, so we just went for it.
Ellie was seriously lagging behind as the altitude sickness was hitting her the most, her ears were hurting and she could barely breathe, I stayed behind to help her get through, not that I was well-off.
This went on for a long time as the paths zigzagged infinitely.
The summit was quite visible but it seemed to be getting further and further away as we climbed up, the distance didn’t look like it was shortening at all.
Eventually, we finally made it up pass that final Torii gate and at that moment it was pure euphoria.
All the fatigue disappeared and we all celebrated, from 10 people, only 6 made it to the top and I was extremely proud to be one of them.
It seemed that it might be true at how spiritually cleansing Mt. Fuji is because I couldn’t even feel tired after stepping foot on its holy summit.
We did not have much time to spare but we tried to savor what rest we could and started to head back down. We were surprised that there’s a vending machine up top and even a post office!
see you never fuji
We had to sprint a lot and it was quite easy on this trail, Sunabashiri, meant sand running. And run on sand we did.
We ran and ran this endless path full of nothingness. We were blessed with a nice sunset seeing the shadow of Mt. Fuji cast down the Kanto plains below.
Aside from that it was just a winding downhill which really put a lot of pressure on our knees.
This continued on for several hours. It had gotten dark, and we couldn’t see much anymore. We brought out our cellphones to function as a flashlight but I still ended up tripping on a root.
Finally, we got back to the base and were just in time for the last bus.
We actually (unknowingly) cut in line in the middle as we saw there was a huge gap, and when the bus came we barely fit through.
If we lined up at the end of the line, we would have had no way to come home.
I was quite guilty to see the people who were probably supposed to have gotten on the bus be left behind as we took their place but at the same time, I was literally too tired to even think straight.
It was a long way back, and I had to walk my way home still, finding both Divya and Sahil still awake. They celebrated the successful hike and I pretty much crashed for the night.
