Wet Fuji

Location:
Japan

climbing mount fuji

By Cameron L. Martindell/offyonder.com

“Whew! What a climb!” Natalie exclaimed in her cute Southern Australian accent with the distinct tone of accomplishment and elation in her voice.

Nat and I had just walked under the Torii, a Shinto Gate, at over 3,700m that welcomed us to the summit of Mt. Fuji, Japan. Looking back down the path we had just ascended, the Torii was silhouetted against the first bars of the celestial dawn stretching its way across the horizon with the Moon and Venus speckling the still dark upper dome of the sky.

We started our ascent at 10pm the night before to be sure to reach the summit by sunrise. At 10:02pm, it started to rain, hard. The torrent pounded on our rain gear and covered packs. An hour or so into the climb, the rain abated to a moderate drizzle, then alternated between a light and heavy mist.

The climbing wasn’t hard, just persistent. The perfectly conical shape of Fuji-san was apparent even on its slopes, in the dark, in the rain. At times the footing was loose, and had to be treated like snow, kicking the loose volcanic cinders until a suitable foothold was created, then doing the same with the opposite foot.

The nice thing about the rain was it scared most of the Japanese climbers off the trail and into the huts for shelter. Once the rain let up and we got higher to some of the cabins where people had climbed to earlier yesterday, people started emerging after what sounded like a poor attempt at sleep and the trail quickly became thick with climbers of all sorts. Most of them were in climbing tour groups wearing little white hats and gloves, following their guide with a little flag to distinguish them from the other guides, who had different colored little flags in their packs. Natalie and I got stuck in the slow line walking up the trail like animals being herded from one corral to another. Conveniently, they rested often and that gave Nat and I a chance to get past and back on the open trail.

When we arrived at a hut at around 3,400m we were told we only had about an hour to go before we reached the summit. Not knowing what shelter would be available on the top, we decided to accept the invitation to rest in this hut out of the cold driving wind before our final push. We were now above the clouds, so the rain and drizzle had yielded to a very fine occasional mist as higher altitude clouds blew by the mountain leaving some moisture on our rain jackets and pants that had almost dried since the deluge at the start of our climb. The high mountain air was cool, dry, and thin so it swept most of the moisture off of our clothes pretty quickly. Not to mention drying out our mouths making us thirsty.

We took this chance to grab a snack, refill our water, and get our packs off for about an hour. The tour groups had fallen way behind us. Only as we were heading out had the first of them made it to this point and were sitting on the benches outside taking another rest. Patrons of the hut we rested in were just getting up and getting going as well. Nat and I decided to get started ahead of them and risk what extra time we might have exposed on the summit before the sun broke over the horizon and started to warm things back up.

About half an hour after we left, the celestial dawn started to chase away the darkness on the horizon of the eastern sky and we knew we had timed it just right.

Further Information

Other helpful information: It's helpful to have a car, but not imposible to do on public transportation.

Must see/do at this place: Get to the top.

You should avoid here: Going down the wrong side of the mountain (if you have a car parked).