Our Mt. Fuji Adventure: 8/3 - 8/4/07

Our Fuji Experience/Adventure

Note: Here's a link to my co-workers' pictures for more entertainment
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=11lb44x5.3pai9dxt&Uy=-5iw65f&Ux=0

Friday – August 3, 2007:
So Friday was a crazy day…We had lots to do at work plus we were leaving early (4pm) so we could make our 5:50pm Highway Bus to Mt. Fuji – 5th station. But let me back up to the beginning…organizing this trip was a hassle from the start!

On Wednesday I went to our Hotel Concierge to find out the best way to get to Mt. Fuji. My friend Raman had mentioned that he took a bus to get there so I thought it would be easy to do the same. Understanding that August is holiday time and the peak hiking season for Japan, I knew things would get booked early and therefore wanted to take care of arrangements in advance. This concierge was not very knowledgeable (possibly new), so after she called the Highway Bus service, she told me that the times I wanted to go – either Friday evening or anytime on Saturday – were ALL booked! Obviously I was extremely disappointed. But I was also determined to go, so I asked for alternate ways to get there. She told me that I could take the train and then catch a bus to go to the 5th station and printed off directions for me to take. See below:
Taxi to the Tokyo Station (take _____ line) --> transfer at _____ (take ____ line) --> arrive at _______ to take the bus to the 5th station (but not the Kawaguchi station that we wanted).
Pretty confusing huh? There was also no time table or schedule on it and I couldn’t find anything online. Thursday I asked our PwC translator, Mia, to help me decipher this and she helped a great deal. I still didn’t know anything about the bus, so Thursday night I called the concierge and asked for more details. It was a different concierge and a much more helpful one at that. She informed me that I wouldn’t be able to take this route if I was doing the “night hike” because it would take you to a different 5th station that was not open at night. Good thing to know!! We could’ve been in for who knows what if we tried this route. So she was great and called this Highway Bus place again and made a reservation for 5 of us to take the 5:50pm bus. This would give us plenty of time to reach the 5th station of Mt Fuji and hike to the summit by sunrise (4:30am). The bus ride is about 2 ½ hours long so we would have reached Fuji by 8:30pm. Supposedly it takes about 6 hrs to climb to the top, so we would have reached by 3am at the latest. And given the right conditions…I bet you’re wondering what happened now huh? Well, it gets better (or worse)!

Apparently there was some confusion (and lack of organization/planning) on some team members’ behalf and the other 4 people that were going to Fuji with me (Shannon, Sonia, Holly and Eric) ALL had to check out of our hotel (Hotel Okura) and check into another hotel (the Intercontinental) for the weekend. They didn’t have a reservation for the weekend and by the time they checked in to the Hotel – it was booked up and couldn’t extend their reservation. I had checked on all this before we left Chicago, so I was good to go. At 4 pm they had to come back to Hotel Okura to get their things, take a cab to the Intercontinental to check-in and THEN take another cab to the bus station at Shinjuku. Of course they hit Friday rush-hour traffic and ended up missing the bus, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I came back to the hotel at 4pm to change and finished packing my things. By 4:30pm I had left to go to the Shinjuku station and reached there by 5:10pm. Luckily my cab driver spoke a little English and was actually pretty funny (or was he a little crazy?). But I reached there with enough time to buy our tickets. The ticket office wouldn’t let me just by my own ticket since the reservation was for 5, so I had to buy all 5 of our tickets (round trip). This ended up being pretty expensive, but I didn’t have a choice…luckily I had enough cash on me – the cost was 26,000 yen in total (5,200 yen per person roundtrip via Highway Bus for anyone’s future reference). The rest of the group was supposed to be there by 5:30pm and when they weren’t I got a little worried. Of course I knew they would be late and that’s why I went to the station separately…nothing was going to keep me from Fuji-san! I tried to call using my cell phone that we got for our time here and of course it didn’t work. I should have tested it before-hand, but at $1.50 per minute I didn’t want to use it except for emergencies. Everyone elses had worked previously, so why wouldn’t mine? Luckily I found a nearby pay phone and had Shannon’s #, so I called to find out where they were. Stuck in traffic of course. Well 5:45pm comes and they still aren’t there. I checked with the bus guy and they wouldn’t even wait 5 extra minutes. These guys are serious about being prompt. I checked with the ticket office and they wouldn’t let me leave the other 5 tickets for the rest of the group to pick up, so I ended up just letting the bus go without me. Thankfully I found someone to help me translate to the ticket office and was able to change the tickets for a later time (but not without a fee of course). The next bus was leaving at 7:50pm – I wasn’t happy about it, but at least everyone would have been able to go and the tickets wouldn’t have gone to waste. The other 4 arrived 5 minutes later and were actually surprised that I hadn’t left them. I thought about it but couldn’t do that to the group. So now we had time to spare and checked out the area for some food…ended up eating pizza. We made the next bus and even came across a group of American students who were studying here for 4 weeks.

Now comes the real adventure – ON Mt. Fuji:
We arrived at the Kawaguchi 5th station around 10:15pm and added a few extra layers on since it was colder than we anticipated. Typhoon Usagi had been nearby and affected the weather more than we would have liked.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-japan-typhoon,0,405263.story

- Eric getting "geared up"

At the 5th station, it was sprinkling a little, but as we proceeded with our climb, the weather got significantly worse. I just had some workout pants over shorts and a fleece over a short-sleeved shirt as well as a scarf and a toboggan. I had also bought a headlight (recommended by Raman and VERY useful). Also quick side note on that. If you plan to hike Fuji at night, you’ll definitely need a head light, but they are significantly cheaper in Japan. I bought mine in the States for 3x the price. OK, so back to the hike. There were lots of other people doing the night hike, so we definitely weren’t alone. We started our journey and it wasn’t TOO bad at first. Just some drizzle but a little windy and chilly. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the 6th station, so we thought we were doing pretty well. Getting to the 7th station was a little tougher, we actually had to use our hands to do some climbing (my gloves that I brought got soaked through so I had to buy some new ones at a station for 300 yen). I’m not exactly sure how long it took us, but all the huts along the way were closed unless you were spending the night there due to the rain. Another bummer – we had all bought walking sticks at the 5th station for 1200 yen so we could get our sticks stamped at each hut along the way. I’ve seen my friend Raman’s and really wanted one of my own. Little did we know that they wouldn’t “stamp” your stick if it was raining outside. - sign telling us "no stamps"

- our "view"

Stamping meaning they actually branded your stick with symbols marking your trek up the mountain. So we had one “stamp” from the 5th station, but couldn’t get any more for the entire night .

As you can see from the pictures, we were bundled up but still pretty miserable from the weather…stupid Typhoon! By the time we got a little past the 8th station, all 5 of us were completely useless. We could have kept going, but I was so soaked and freezing that I worried more about our health at that point. We were at 3200 meters and the summit was 3700 meters. It had taken us about 1 hour just to go 100 meters and we knew we wouldn’t make it to the top by sunrise as it was already 3:45am by now. I had felt like we were in that Discovery Channel show “Man vs. Wild”…except luckily we had found a place for some shelter. The lady at this station told us it would take about another 2 ½ hours to get to the top and at that point we caved. Since we weren’t even able to see the sunrise because of the fog and weather conditions, we figured our time was served best by trying to keep warm in the shelter. They really banked at that station because we ended up paying 6300 yen per person to stay in a room with 20-30 other people…on top of blankets basically. Just each having a blanket of our own to cover with. I had to buy new clothes because I was so soaked and all my spare clothes and everything in my back pack was completely drenched. They didn’t have much left, but I was able to get a black jumpsuit and some new socks as well as a small towel to dry off with. I didn’t sleep for the 2 ½ hours that we were there for because I couldn’t stop shivering, but finally by 6am, the shivering slightly subsided. The whole night before I didn’t stop for bathroom breaks, but by morning I couldn’t hold it any more. There was a bathroom at the hut where we stayed and I can’t even begin to tell you how absolutely disgusting it was. There were stalls, but similar to India and China – just a hole in the ground. I could have dealt with that, but the stench was something else…a smell that I hope no one ever has to encounter in their lifetime and one that almost made me throw-up. I got out of there as fast as I could, but I couldn’t get rid of the smell for sometime – no matter how many wet wipes and cleansing clothes I used.

Saturday - August 4, 2007
In the morning Shannon and I thought we could continue our journey to the top, but the wind said otherwise. It was so foggy, you couldn’t see 10 ft in front of you and then I almost got blown off the mountain and we decided against going any further. On top of that, all my clothes were still wet from the night before, so all I had to wear was my jumpsuit that I bought at the hut - definitely not enough to keep me warm. I was able to get one stamp at that hut before heading back down. , but I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointed I am that we didn’t make it to the top. I had such expectations of making it to the top to see the sunrise…but Mother Nature had other plans for us. I’m really amazed that we made it as far as we did with the weather conditions we had to deal with, but wish that maybe we had gone another night (or even the next day) so we could have reached the top and I would have my stamps. I already know one person who’s going to tease me about not making it, but when it came down to it, my health was obviously more important and I knew I had pushed myself as far as I could go.
As we worked our way back down the mountain, the fog was still there, but the wind helped push some of it away…and by the time we got back down to the 6th station, the weather was almost perfect. I turned around and looked back up the mountain – almost tempted to trek back up so I could get my stamps and see the top, but my body wasn’t having it. - the huts between the 6th and 7th stations...

- group pic at the 6th station

I was tired and sore all over and just wanted to take a hot bath and sleep in my hotel room. We came across a few adventurers who pushed themselves to make it to the top for the sunrise and they told us that there was nothing to see…literally. The fog was so dense that they couldn’t see the sunrise and the weather was still horrible. They were actually quite disappointed, as they couldn’t even get a “stamp” – not a real one anyways. They could only get an ink stamp. But at least they could claim that they made it to the top.

- back down at the 5th station (starting point)

- Fuji-san, I'll be back.

This entry just gives you a taste of what I went thru, but it was definitely an adventure and an experience. Maybe one day (when there’s no typhoon in the area) I’ll venture back up the mountain to reach the summit and get my stamps. For now, all I have is this story.
We caught our 12pm bus back at the 5th station and I reached my hotel by 2:30pm. By 4:30 I decided it was time for a nap, which turned out to last until 9am Sunday morning. And here I am in my hotel room, finally catching up on some rest. My co-workers are out exploring the city, but I knew that there’s always next weekend. We’re staying in Tokyo and have 4 days to explore, go out, shop, etc… One thing I’ve learned is that I need some balance in my life. I can’t do everything and need to know when to take some time out to reflect and recouperate. With all the traveling that I’ll be doing over the next year, I could get seriously burnt out if I try to do everything. For now, I’ll just enjoy the things that I get to do and write about my experiences.