Busy Summer Continued - Climbing Mount Fuji

Before we came to Japan Cliff and I talked about how cool it would be to climb Mount Fuji when we got there. Cliff was a lot more serious about it than I was, but I liked the idea. It seemed like a worthy goal. We found that the logistics of tackling this mountain are a little trickier than you might expect, though, during a sea tour. The guys are rarely home in the summer and climbing season is only during July and August. Cliff was gone last summer and who know what next summer will bring. We had a couple of weeks to work with this year and we jumped on the opportunity. I had a good friend from church watch Lilia for us and we went for it. We woke up at 4:30 in the morning, drove Lilia over to our friend's house, and were on the road by 5:15 ish. We arrived at the 5th station of Fuji by 7:30 only to find that there was NO PARKING to be found! Crap! What were we to do? We waited in a line of cars for 20 minutes before giving up and driving back down the mountain. We found some spaces between the 3rd and 4th stations and hailed a cab from there. $40 dollars later we were at the 5th station with our trademark climbing sticks in hand, ( popular souvenirs of the great climb.) The day was gorgeous and we felt confident... oh boy was that to change...

We got started and it was all "oohs" and "ahhs" at first. at the fifth station we are still below the timber line so there is a startling contrast between the blue sky and greenery.
Even after the parking debacle we are happy to be here!



The clouds and convection currents were so cool! We truly had a breathtakingly beautiful day for our climb.

Aww... we look so happy this early on...

Still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!
Getting our sticks stamped
Looking back at our progress. Still so far to go!
Some of the paths and climbing were preeeeetty steep
I was starting to feel it. The sun... my quads... So I will take this opportunity to describe what the remainder of this climb was like... Silly me, I had Thai curry for dinner the night before, and for lunch... and for breakfast. What on EARTH was I thinking. I also don't like to exercise...at all... so this was a lot of physical exertion for someone that never does much of anything. This stupid mountain nearly KILLED me and I had to visit every bathroom on the way up... what else can I really say? It took us sooo much longer than it should have and I was miserable for 3/4ths of the time.

I actually got a little vertigo too. I had to stop a couple times and regain my bearings. The horizon made me so dizzy every time I looked out. Cliff told me to tilt my head to make the horizon straight... and I almost threw up. No thanks sweetie....NOTE: Cliff just informed me that he did NOT tell me to tilt my head but to hold it straight! That's not what I remember!!! ( Oh, ok, he just explained that he told me to tilt my head to show me an EXAMPLE of vertigo. GEE THANKS!!!)


At this point I was just over it. Cliff was practically dragging me up the mountain and I was dead on my feet. I had headaches from the altitude and was short of breath.
Clouds...


Ugh... Can we just be done now?
The shadow of the mountain on the clouds
I'm almost there... but I kind of want to sleep...
I manage to smile when a polite Japanese couple offers to take our picture
Awesome shot of the shadow of the mountain over the torii gate
I made it! (I am wearing my Georgia shirt in honor of my sister who wanted very much to climb this Mountain.)
Caldera shot. I had completely forgotten up to this point that Mt. Fuji is a volcano! Duh!
Me at the Caldera.
And now for the descent... It took Cliff and I so long to make it up to the top that the sun was just starting to set for our descent. We had not prepared for this outcome AT ALL. Thus, we made our descent almost entirely in the dark. What took us almost 9 hrs going up only took us 2 1/2 going down, though. We all but ran down the steep gravely slopes. I was SO ready to be done and go home. Everyone told me the descent would be harder, but I disagree. I thought it was pretty crappy, sure, but it was all pretty crappy past the 6th station. At least the descent meant the end was near! I thought that my knees would hurt a lot the next day, but they really didn't. I was a little sore for about one day and then I was good to go. Good enough to go again? Not quite that good....