Hiking Mount Fuji

Since Alex and I had been doing all of that hiking in Japan, we had been entertaining the idea of hiking Mount Fuji, even though the planning and hike itself would be a lot to think about. He would occasionally bring it up on our way back from the gym some evenings, but we didn't do any serious planning until after classes ended. Alex decided now was the time, and got Jan on board with joining the climb. We made our plan, booked our accommodations, did a little preparatory shopping in the days before, and hopped on a night bus departing Kyoto station at 11 PM Tuesday the 30th.

This bus was way more comfortable than the one I took to Tokyo. The seats were spaced out so you didn't have anyone right next to you, and they also fully reclined into resting positions, so was able to get some decent sleep on the way over. We arrived in Gotemba city at 6 AM Wednesday morning, the 31st. The three of us walked to the closest 7/11 to refill waters and buy food for the hike; I went with onigiri and packaged nuts, bringing a total of 8 liters of water with me. From Gotemba station, we took a different shuttle bus up to the beginning of the hike, the 5th station. We checked in with our reservation, received some information about the hike and a map from some conservationists working a booth at the bottom, and then started our hike around 8 AM!

To provide some context on our hike: there are four routes to the top of Mount Fuji, each starting from a different side of the mountain. Yoshida, Subashiri, Fujinomiya, and Gotemba, all with varying lengths and difficulties. We decided on Gotemba route, because although it was the most difficult and longest, it is the least populated trail, and we didn't want to get stuck behind groups of slow hikers. The trail starts at the 5th station, with an elevation of 1440 meters (about 4720 ft), and climbs to the summit at 3775 meters (12385 ft), over a horizontal distance of a little over 6 miles.

We got lucky with cloud cover on the way up, because at the base of the trail it was probably around 90 degrees when we started. The clouds kept us shaded from the sun and cool as we climbed, and the temperature steadily dropped as we got higher. After a certain point, we were pretty much hiking through the clouds, and visibility dropped drastically during certain sections of the climb. We hiked for six hours straight before making it to the mountainside lodge at around 2:00 PM. The three of us relaxed for a few hours before eating dinner at 5:00 PM, which was rice and curry with infinite refills (I had three bowls), before promptly going to bed at 6:00 PM.

Our goal was to make our way up the rest of Mount Fuji in order to watch the sunrise from the summit, so we woke up at 2:00 AM in order to do so. It was pretty cold, so we bundled up before beginning the remaining two hours of hiking. In the picture above, you can see headlamps from all of the hikers further up the mountain. The clouds had finally left so there was an amazing view of some of the cities at the base of the mountain, but my phone's camera wasn't able to capture what I could see whatsoever. The stars were also brilliant to look at from that altitude.

We made it to the very top, the highest point, just as the sun was beginning to color the sky, a little after 4 AM. We bundled up in all of our layers, because it was windy and only 38 degrees at the peak. While we watched the sun rise, more and more people crowded the area, and I was glad that we had left so early in order to secure a good spot. The three of us cracked the beers we had brought up from the bottom while we watched the sun fully rise, and then began the trek down at around 5:30. It was awesome to be above the cloud cover during that time of day, and even more impressive was the fact that you could see the shadow of Mount Fuji cast upon the clouds, feature in the picture directly below.

After clearing the rocky switchback section near the top, the decent trail split off from the trail going up, and shoots straight down through the volcanic gravel. Because of how steep it was and due to how you could slide through the gravel, we practically ran down two-thirds of the mountain, which made the total decent time almost a joke. It took us a total of eight hours to reach the peak, but only three to get down! Here you can see us running through the gravel, and a great group photo at the bottom gate once we finished the hike.

After getting back to Gotemba, we decided we wanted to go swimming in the ocean, so we made our way down to Shizuoka and found a cool little beach after taking a few trains. We had burgers at a shop on the beachfront, which were pretty dang good, and we swam for a while. I actually got stung by a jellyfish there, but luckily it was quite minor and disappeared after a few hours. We caught a Shinkansen home, and crashed at the dorm once we made it, tired from both lack of decent sleep over the past few days and the fact we had just done a crazy hike. I would highly recommend hiking Fuji if you go to Japan and are capable, definitely an experience I will treasure.