Fujisan 3

(an unofficial trip organised by Thomas Henkel)

Report by Laure Bourgeois

Hello everybody,

Last weekend's trip to Fuji-san was a great success -- many thanks again to Thomas for the organisation, which included arranging that the weather would be perfect on Sunday.
As expected, there were very few people in the hut (5th station) where we spent Saturday night. 15 people only ! This included the seven of us plus a few other interesting individuals: a South-African businessman, two Chinese guys who had decided to climb Fuji instead of visiting Tokyo, but forgot to bring warm clothes with them, a musician from Germany, two Russians (father and son, the father being close to 70 years of age) and a Polish astrophysicist. When climbing the mountain, Tadashi was relieved to see that he was not the only mad Japanese on the North side of Fuji -- we met two men coming down the summit.

At the hut on the evening before the climb.

After desperately trying to warm up our futons (the temperature in the hut was probably near 0 degrees, and "unfortunately" there were about 10 futon spaces per person...) it was decided that walking up the mountain was a better way to get warm. We set out on our walk at 4am. The sky was shining with stars, and down the mountain one could see the lights of the nearby towns. We saw the sunrise from near the 7th station. The snow on the summit (yes, there was snow...) turned a light pink colour, and the scenery north of Fuji took on lots of beautiful colours too, which I find difficult to describe (but hopefully my camera did a better job...). The great views were a good excuse for people (well, me at least) to stop walking every five minutes. Cold wind, smaller oxygen content and in places large amounts of snow made the climb rather difficult. In fact, after the 8th station (or was it the 9th ?) it felt more like crawling than walking ! It was almost a surprise to see the top station with its toris and lions, about 6 hours after we had started the climb. Lying in the sun on the tables near the hut initially felt like a good idea, but with the temperature probably near -10C, I quickly changed my mind. We had an early lunch there, and also took lots of photographs of ourselves (many of us felt amazed to have made it to the top of Fuji, especially the two Chinese guys, who had had to borrow warm clothes and boots from the 5th station). Of course the view was pretty good (i.e. it was excellent !). Lots of mountain peaks were visible in the distance, some covered with snow (presumably the North Alps ?). To the east one could see the Pacific ocean, and behind more mountains, the Kanto plain. Had I brought my binoculars I may have been able to see Tsukuba, and perhaps even Hot Staff !?

At the summit. Freezing cold.

Our walk continued along the crater for a while, then went down the Fujinomiya route, on the south face of Fuji. To our surprise, many people were climbing the mountain on this route. But the conditions were much kinder, with hardly any wind and a warm sun. There was still a lot of snow, and it was great fun to leap down the track, often sliding uncontrollably. Lars and Marcus (the musician) even tried sliding on plastic bags, which was not easy with backpacks. A pity I didn't manage to take pictures of their antics ! But Abdou couldn't escape being immortalised by the camera, as he was trying to keep his balance in a rather ballet-like way... Further down, the track became very monotonous and clouds hid most of the view, so everybody was happy to arrive at the bottom of the walk. Going to Gotemba station was a bit of an adventure, as some of us hitch-hiked their way there. Coming down the Skyline road from Fuji, in the distance one could see the volcano covered in snow -- very pretty.

On the way down.

By now you're probably tired of reading this account of the Fuji walk, so I'll stop soon. But not before saying that for people who want to climb Japan's highest mountain but don't want to feel like they're caught in a traffic jam in Tokyo, late autumn seems to be the best time. And Fuji-san even looks beautiful, thanks to the snow !
Laure

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