For fall break Ashley, John Paul, and I planned on climbing Mt. Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan. However, except for July and August, the tourist season, the mountain is supposed to be closed. Starting in October snow usually falls on Mt. Fuji and it can become very dangerous to climb, so most people told us not to go. Before I left I reassured my host family that if the weather was bad or if anything else went wrong we would immediately turn back. We borrowed hiking backpacks from the center along with a tent and a burner for heating up food. We left on Saturday on local trains headed towards Shizuoka.

When we got to Shizuoka, of course we hadn't planned ahead, that is we didn't even know how to get to the base of Mt. Fuji. The information booth was already closed and so eventually we asked at the JR ticket office. According to them, Fuji station was the closest to Mt. Fuji. However, we later found out that Fuji-nomiya Station is actually closer. We went to Fuji station and ate dinner and then bought supplies (including flashlights!) at a local super market. Since there aren't any buses to Fuji except during the tourist season, we decided to walk. But since it was already dark and we couldn't see Mt. Fuji, we had to ask for directions. We walked for around an hour before we began to get discouraged. For one thing, we were still in an urban area, and we couldn't tell how close or how far away Fuji was.

I recommended that we try to hitchhike. I know that most Japanese people look down on hitchhikers, but for a foreigner, hitchhiking is supposed to be very easy, since a lot of Japanese people like to practice English with native speakers. We walked for about another half an hour, putting our thumbs up every time a car passed us, until finally a really nice Japanese girl picked us up. We barely fit in her car with our huge backpacks. She of course wanted to speak English with us and that was why she had picked us up. JP was very slow to pick up on this, however, and kept trying to use his Japanese. She told us that she had passed us once, not sure if we are hitchhiking or not (apparently there isn't any gesture for hitchhiking in Japan), but she circled us and decided to stop the next time she saw us. She offered to take us to the station closest to Mt. Fuji (Fuji-nomiya) and we of course said ok. But when we got there, she offered to take us to the half way point (the fifth station, there are 10 stations in all)-this is the point where most roads up the mountain end and where most Japanese people take a bus up to during tourist season. We at first refused, not wanting to be a burden on her, but she assured us that it was alright and she seemed to be having a good time talking to us, so we agreed. The drive to the halfway point took over an hour and a half (it probably would have taken more than 7-8 hours if we had walked) and so we were very grateful.

We arrived at the halfway point around midnight. It was very dark and we could see the twinkling lights of the city far below us. Surprisingly, even up here, we weren't alone. There were several cars parked in the big parking lot and we saw several groups of people walking around using the light of their cell phone screens to see. We set up our tent in a small clear area beside the path headed upwards. We didn't get much sleep though, because as early as 6 in the morning people were walking around our tent talking. We got up quickly, and put away the tent. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the perfect weather for climbing. We bought the traditional Mt. Fuji walking sticks at the fifth station store that was open because of the nice weather. We ate a small snack and then got ready to climb.

As we began climbing, we quickly realized that we would never make it with these 20 pound backpacks on. We made it to the sixth station, which also happened to be open. I talked to the storekeeper and asked him if we could leave our packs there while we made the ascent. He agreed but told us to be back by 5 pm. He said it took 8 hours to make the climb up and down and it was by then 9 am, so we agreed. We kept climbing and reached what we thought was the seventh station. We stopped there and fixed some ramen with the burner we brought from the center. By this point there was already snow in some places on the trail. We brought water with us, but we started eating snow to conserve the small amount of water we had.

In ancient times leaders of Japan would climb mountains so that they could look over their country and appreciate its beauty. This ritual became known as kunimi, or surveying the land. Here on the side of Mt. Fuji we could see the land stretching out beneath us all the way to ocean, and I began to fully appreciate kunimi. Because I knew Meera (my literature teacher) would be disappointed if I didn't, I "quickly" composed a waka (a 31 syllable Japanese poem). Obviously it isn't very good, but here it is:
Oh great Yamato,
From the sea to the mountains To the clouds above,
We have beheld your beauty.
Planes rise from Tokyo below.
(it is hard to see in the picture, but we can all the way to the ocean)



Upwards in the distance we saw a torii (a gateway at the entrance to a Shinto shrine). Knowing that there was a shrine at the top of the mountain, we thought we were almost to the top. We continued climbing and reached what we thought was the ninth station (right before the top!). But we soon found out that we were only at the eighth station. Apparently where we had eaten our ramen was only the sixth and a half station, so we had miscounted. It was still another two-hour climb to the top. The torii that we had seen from further below was in an isolated spot on the side of the mountain where you couldn't walk through it.

Disappointed, but nevertheless still eager to reach the top we continued climbing. After a little more than two hours we reached the top and walked through the actual torii at the top. We of course collapsed on a bench and rested. Then we walked around and saw the huge crater at the top and took pictures of us standing triumphantly at the top with only clouds below us. We ate poptarts and drank pocari sweat to celebrate.

By this time it was already 3:30 in the afternoon and we had told the storekeeper at the sixth station we would be back by 5. We began to climb down quickly. It was a lot easier going down-we didn't need to take breaks to catch our breath-but we also had to be careful not to fall. As we climbed down it started to get dark and by the seventh station we had to start using our flashlights. The climb down in the dark was a lot slower and we hung on to the ropes on the sides of the trails to keep from sliding down in the dark. A little before we reached the sixth station we heard someone coming down the mountain behind us. We waited for the person to catch up to us and asked him to join us since he didn't have any flashlight. We finally reached the sixth station and we were relieved to find that the storekeeper had waited up for us. We gratefully bought some drinks and small presents from his store to thank him.

We then got our packs and made our way down to the fifth station. The person that climbed down with us had come with his friends, but while his friends turned back at the eighth station, he decided to go on to the top. We wanted to ask them for a ride down to the bottom, but as their car was already full we had to say goodbye. We then decided to camp again at the fifth station for the night and then try to catch a ride down in the morning. Even though it was only eight when we finished setting up the tent, we were exhausted and decided to go to bed. That night there was a rainstorm. No water got in the tent, but Ashley and I were cold and miserable most of the night as we listened to the wind whip the cover of our tent around and fearing that we might be blown over. Somehow, JP slept through the entire storm.

The next morning we got up and ate a small breakfast of the rest of our supplies. We packed up the tent and started walking down along the road hoping to catch a ride with someone. After a half an hour of failure, we decided to made a sign that said "お連れ下さい" that is "please take us with you." Soon a nice old lady, who had driven up to the fifth station by herself to see the view, picked us up. She drove us most of the way to Fuji-nomiya station. She dropped us off at a bus stop, but since the bus wouldn't get there for thirty minutes we decided to walk the rest of the way.

On a side note, all the way up the mountain until about the ninth and a half station, my cell phone had reception. We all sent emails to other people in Japan telling them where we were on the mountain. But on the morning after our climb, JP borrowed my cell phone to email his parents about the climb. When we arrived at Fuji-nomiya station, JP got an email back from his dad. His dad thought it was great that we had climbed Fuji, but more importantly he offered to let us use his points for the Hilton Hotel in Tokyo. We of course agreed. JP called home and his dad set up a two-night stay in the Hilton for us. We took the local trains to Tokyo station and then switched to the Maranouchi line to Shinjuku (a section of Tokyo) where the Hilton was located. After three days without a shower and with the dust of Fuji still on our clothes, we walked into the Hilton with smiles on all of our faces. From our room on the 25th floor we could see the city of Tokyo spread out below us...