Climbing Fuji-san 20th of July 2009

Climbing Fuji-san 20th of July 2009

Originally published on Thursday, 23 July 2009 at ronin.nu.

On the 20th of July 2009 I made the trip to Mount Fuji. We made an attempt to climb to the top, but started to late in the day to reach it, since we had to go back down the same day.

Enjoy the story of our trip up and down the mountain.

Thanks to Chris Porto and Robin Klein

First of all I want to thank Chris and Robin for letting me and Johan tagging along on their trip to Fuji-san. They had planned to go for some time since this Monday was a holiday and we got the chance to join them.

Some tips before attempting to climb mount Fuji
Bring good equipment, hiking boots, warm clothes for the top, and start early in the day if you intended to go down the same day. It is more of an effort than you might think so don’t go up in a pair of sneakers as I did.

But I recommend it to anyone who wants a challenge and hope you have better weather than with did so that you can enjoy the view much more.

The trip from Iwama to Kawaguchiko

We started early by getting up at 5 am in Aikihouse in Iwama. We had a quick breakfast and did some final packing and then set of to our trip to mount Fuji.

We bought a two day round trip for travelling from Iwama and Tokyo and back. The price of that ticket was 3400 Yen and boarded the 6.12 train from Iwama on Joban Line to the Nippori station, which is two stations prior to Ueno station in Tokyo. The train ride from Iwama to Nippori took about 90 minutes.

From Nippori station we took the Yamanote line on the subway and got of at Shinjuku station, which is probably Tokyo’s most crowed stations, but being a holiday it wasn’t so bad.

We exited the Shinjuku station via the west exit onto the ground level and walked to the bus station no 50 close by to buy a ticket to Kawaguchiko. The bus ride costs 1700 yen from Tokyo to Kawaguchiko and takes about 2 hours.

I had not been sleeping so much during the previous night but now managed to sleep for about an hour during the bus ride. I remember the outskirts of Tokyo and then waking up shortly before we reached Fujiyama Fuji-Q amusement park with a gigantic roller coaster called the Steel Dragon. We didn’t have time to stop and ride it but it look really cool.

Just about ten to fifteen minutes later we arrived at the station in Kawaguchiko.

At about 11.15 after a brief stop in the restroom we caught a ride with the shuttle bus to the nearby K’s House Mt Fuji, a youth hostel where we hade a room booked for the 3 of us – me, Johan and Chris. Robin was not planning to spend the night, instead he was going to take the bus and train back to Tokyo and onto Iwama the same day.

We checked in our luggage, put some valuables in a locker and called a taxi that took us back to the station. To get started on our journey up the mountain, we bought tickets to 5th station (Go-gome) on the Fujiyoshida trail and as we where entering the bus a camera crew filmed us and the rest of the passengers. I assumed it was a local news team or the national news, but we had no conversation with them so we could determine that.

The bus ride up to Go-gome (5th) station at 2305 meters took about an hour or so and as the bus slowly rode up the serpentine road along the mountain it grew more and more cloudy/misty and as we reached the starting point it was partially misty.

Johan and I bought a walking stick to use along the trail and to stop at the stations along the way having stamps burned into the stick as we made our way up the mountain.

The route up the mountain

Robin and Chris set of in a high pace and me and Johan kept our own pace behind them along the Fujiyoshida trail. After about 30 minutes climbing me and Johan didn’t see Chris and Robin until we met them much later in the afternoon. Robin is a very experienced mountain climber and also very used to rock climbing and Chris has some experience as well.

Our common goal was to try and reach the top and go back down again the same day. As we really started going up it was about 2 pm. We fairly quickly passed the Roku-gome (6th station) and kept going reaching the 7th station at about 2.53 pm, which was a fairly good pace. After that we continuously meet groups of japanese climber from ages 8-10 to mayby 70 years old.

This slowed our ascent somewhat and also the fact that walking up in the mountain in the air with less and less oxygen also affected us, did that our pace slowed as we kept going along the trail up the mountain. We reached 3100 meters at ca 4.15 pm and met a Swedish climber called Åke, who was climbing with his sister and her son up the mountain. They where planning to reach the top and spend the night up there in the hut and go down the next day.

We realized that we probably where not going to be able to reach the top at 3776 meters, since our plan was to descend the same day hopefully before dark. Johan and I decided that the deadline for starting to return down again had to be at about 17.30.

Johan lead the way and we both struggled along to reach the Hachi-gome (8th station) at 3250 meters. Just prior to getting there we met up with Robin who was going down again. He had reached the top after ca 2.5 hours, which is amazing. He also had the time to walk the circle around the top before returning down.

He told us that Chris also had made it to the top and was coming down behind him. Robin gave us some pointers on techniques for how to descend the mountain, zig-zagging down and digging your heals into the gavel along mountain side while going down.

Johan and I made a final effort and got to the 8th station after adapting our breathing to exhale as we stepped on the right foot and inhaled as we stepped on the left foot. The air was continuously getting thinner as we went up and now you could really feel this having to focus more on your breathing.

As we got to Hachi-gome we met up with Chris again. We took a short break having our last stamp burned into our walking sticks.

 

Just for fun we made a little video where me and Johan are attempting the 31 jo kata using our walking sticks. Not the most perfect kata we ever have done, but OK after climbing that far up the mountain, and I challenge any other aikido-ka to do the same and send me the video ;-).

 

 

 

The route down the mountain

Going up the mountain was hard but descending it became the true adventure. We looked at the map of the trails and decided to use the alternate route for the Fujiyoshida trail to go down. Robin was descending the same route as we came up, be we thought it might be easier using the zig-zagging alternate route.

The desending route was all gravel and minor rocks and you had to dig your heels deep and zig-zag, jump/walk down not to slide or slip. I did not get the technique working so well and my knees where very strained going down. After a while though I got the hang of it and it worked better.

As we descended or shoes filled up with sand and gravel from the trail and my sneakers got ever so dirty from this part of our journey. Chris was really skilled at the techniques for descending and moved much faster then Johan and I.

We really struggled the whole way down and after about 2 hours we realized that we had gone down another trail than the one we intended using, but there was no return only to go on. We reached an abandoned 5th station for that trail, which later turned out to be the Subashiri trail. Now it was getting dark and had started to rain. My glasses where all steamed up and I had to put them in my pocket.

We asked some young guys who passed us how long it was left, and they said about 30 minutes. We stopped to empty our shoes from the gravel and sand and then kept going. It was getting dark and suddenly we lost the trail. We started going back to the abandoned station, considering spending the night there in the rain. However we where lucky meeting up with a Japanese family and tagged along after them down the final part of the trail.

Johan assisted with the light from his mobile phone and we slowly descended through the trail in darkness, tripping on stones and roots along the way. After another 25 minutes or so we made it to the Shin Go-gome station of the Subashiri trail.

Chris was there and he told us that we had now managed to go down the other side of the mountain ending up in another prefecture than the one we started in. He had check on how we could get back to Kawaguchiko and we had to take a cab, which would take ca 1 hour, costing us each 5 000 yen. Chris was a bit annoyed with the situation blaming himself a little as was Johan, for not having check some fork in the descending trail.

I was just happy we did not have to spend the night in the rain at the abandoned station and did not mind having to pay 5000 yen for the ride back.

The cab came after ca 30 minutes and we set of to Kawaguchiko. We had a nice time chatting in the cab back and after ca 1 hour we reached Kawaguchiko. Now came the final part of the adventure. Getting the cab driver to find the K’s House Mt Fuji hostel. It took us about 15 minutes extra, but by using the Kawaguchiko train station as our starting point we finally found the way to the hostel.

 

Reaching the hostel we where both wet, sweaty, dirty, tired and hungry. Chris and the two of us set out to find a local onsen (bath house) and found one still open. At 9.30 pm we got to clean ourselves and get into the steaming hot bath for a few minutes.

It was heavenly to sit in the hot bath outside and rest our tired legs.

As the final highpoint of the evening we visited a local Chinese restaurant and had a nice meal, before finally crashing at the hostel going to sleep.

What happened to Robin?

Robin successfully went down the same trail we came up. He made it down in 1 hour and then managed to catch transport back to Tokyo and then Iwama arriving there at 1.30 am. That was an amazing thing going up and down the mountain in ca 3.5 hours.

The trip back to Iwama

The next morning we slept in and then left for Tokyo with the same bus line we used before. At Shinjuku station we parted with Chris who was checking into an apartment he was renting for a short while and me and Johan took the train back to Iwama, reaching Aikihouse at about 1.30 pm.