Thursday morning at 7:50 Shelly and I got picked up by our guide company, Club Go. After about a 90-minute drive we arrived at the base of the mountain, Station 5. After a bunch of preliminaries and encouragement from our guide Ken, we finally left at noon on our climb. The weather forecast called for afternoon thunderstorms, but so far, we had clear skies. On we went. Later in the day still no storms. We arrived at the 8th Station, at about 6:30, just in time for dinner. We were each assigned a small section of a plywood platform and given a pad and a sleeping bag for the night. Dinner followed shortly after and consisted of rice and a meat patty. Lights went out at 8:30. We tried to sleep but never got there. Our wake-up call came at 1:00 am.
Breakfast was served at 1:30–rice and a piece of fish. We were walking by 2:00 am. Shelly and I and the rest of our team arrived on top a little after 4:00 am. On the way up we were slowed considerably by the extremely high number of people doing the same thing. My conservative estimate is that at least 500 people were all trying to occupy the same narrow, rocky trail from our hut to the top. It was a sea of headlamps moving slowly upward. The log jam probably doubled the time it took us to get to the top. Fortunately, our guide had factored that in at the start. Apparently, this is a very common occurrence on Mt. Fuji.
The sunrise was spectacular. We took time to soak it all in and enjoy the optimum conditions.
Soon it was time for the down-climb. What was ahead was all scree, very steep slopes and too many switchbacks to count. But we managed. We left about 6 am and arrived at Station 5 at about 9:45.
The bus arrived at about 12:30 to take us to a traditional Japanese spa. My legs were grateful for the hot soaking they received. Shelly was banned because of her tattoos. After we got back, we headed to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was amazing. We ate till we couldn’t find room for more. It was a fitting end to a great couple of days.
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