Climbing Mt. Fuji: A Tale of Misadventure in Three Parts

*this post is dedicated to my sister, who left this week for Zambia to volunteer for 27 months in the United States Peace Corps- read about her experience here: http://polar-bear-travels.blogspot.com/

Part I: "Ready" to "Hike"

first view from the bus

When I woke up on the bus I was staring right at it: Mt. Fuji standing solidly against the sky. In stark contrast to most of the iconic photos I've seen of it, it wasn't blue with a perfect white dome and strategically placed cherry blossoms peeking out from beyond your peripheral vision; the monolith, in its current condition, was the color of cocoa fading into a dark green kilt at the tree-line, with wisps of cloud at the top clinging close to the sides of the cone, as if magnetized. It didn't look so high or abrupt compared to other mountains I've seen, and that gave me some relief. Until I took note of the snow. I suppose I had heard that temperatures could be below freezing at the summit, but I also didn't picture that in the middle of summer there would still be great swaths of the stuff strewn down the side of it...

me thinking I'm ready... ha!

Nevertheless I wasn't worried. We got off of the bus at the 5th station, slightly more than halfway up the mountain. My friend and I got ready to start. There was an immediately recognizable difference in the way we had prepared. She had all the proper attire- waterproof pants, a winter jacket, hiking boots, scarf, and ski gloves. I was wearing three shirts (only one of which was long-sleeved), a sweatshirt, socks (an extra pair in my bag), white tennis shoes, leggings and two pairs of pants, none of which were waterproof. I pulled the look all together with a tank top tied around my neck in lieu of a scarf- only the highest in fashion for me! (I would put on my autumn jacket just an hour later, with a thin, only moderately-rain-repellant coat, to realize in an amused/disturbed way that it was the warmest I would be for the entire climb). The rest of our group would be along later and would catch up with us at some point, as they planned to climb faster. Phones weren't working but we trusted that we'd be able to meet up easily enough at one of the checkpoints on the mountain.

this way to the "trail" 

We grabbed some wooden hiking sticks and set off. The trail from the 5th to the 6th stations was in most ways the leisurely stroll I had joked about taking up this volcanic "hill". Dusk was settling peacefully down, lights were appearing in towns in the valley, ghostly fingers of clouds were creeping up between the cream-colored corkscrew branches of the forest below. The haunted quality of the atmosphere seemed apt, as I was also aware that this forest, Aokigahara (nicknamed Jukai, "The Sea of Trees"), is a famous place in Japan for people to go to take their own lives. The presence of the forest skews the region's suicide statistics, as even many out-of-towners make the trek here to end it all. It made for an interesting backdrop, at the very least.

From the 6th station to the 7th station, the difficulty of the trail increased significantly. From here, we traveled on steep-angled switchbacks, laden with small pebbles that had the effect of quicksand, feet getting sucked down spitefully so that you had to use extra force to take each step. By this time my friend was well behind me, deciding to take her time to walk slowly and rest- I trudged onward and told her I would meet her at the next station. Volcanic dust was wafting into my eyes now, which caused me to turn around and look down the mountain. A burst of color caught my eye. Fireworks without sound, from some unknown festival back on Earth, appeared in the dark. I became aware of the pervasive silence that surrounded me as I stood there- neither the wind nor my own breath made any noise. It was utterly and forebodingly quiet, but peaceful.

I noticed I was having to rest more and more often due to the altitude robbing me of my endurance. There were times when I did not see a single other climber on this supposedly crowded mountain for many minutes. The wind also began to pick up, inversely to the temperature. I continued...

view from above at dusk