Japan: Day 7 — Mt. Fuji ...

Out of the heat of Tokyo!

Mt. Fuji day! I left the guest house just after 6am as I wanted to be on the 6:40am bus to the Fuji Subaru Line 5th station. (2,305m) The weather forecast was showing rain at noon and my goal was to reach the hut (at 3,100m) before it started. There was a clear view of the volcano while I was waiting for the bus and I could hardly contain my excitement! The bus ticket was ¥2,100 for a two-way ticket, valid for two days.

The ride up was beautiful and took one hour. When we reached the 5^th station, I was surprised how busy the area was. I had a look around before hitting the trails. The first kilometer was a long path that had a slight incline and a slight decline. After that, it was straight up without any breaks in the path. There were endless steep switchbacks on volcanic ash. The ground was loose which made the inclines tougher.

The steep switchbacks

The sun came out briefly during my climb and it got super hot super quick. The entire trail is in the sun so I was thankful for the cloud cover though I couldn't see anything down below but gray.

The tough switchbacks turned into boulders at which point the hike became a rock scramble. The rocks were sharp and not easy to navigate around.

The steep and sharp rocky scramble

From the 2,900m mark to the 3,100m mark, I struggled. I was exhausted but making excellent time for my goal. It took me forty minutes to climb the 200m and during the last 100m, I started feeling nauseous and dizzy. It had also started raining at this point but only lightly. So much for beating the rain!

I reached my hut, Taishi-kan, just before noon and was the first to check in. The hut was nice as were the people who worked there. I got the first bunk on the floor against a wall, which is what I wanted. I was allowed to have two spaces to give me more space and he put a divider across for privacy. I used one sleeping bag for sleeping and one as a pillow. They did offer pillows but they weren’t terribly comfortable. The hut for the night was ¥8,500. The price included a simple but hot dinner and some breakfast to go. They did ask that you pay ¥100 each time you use the bathroom which I felt should’ve been included in the price of the bed. Note: the bathrooms were ¥200/use (honor system) the whole way up.

The sleeping room at the Taishi-kan hut (3,100m)

After an introduction of the hut and the rules, I took a rest while I had the place to myself. I fell asleep until the next guests arrived. At that point, I got up and wrote some postcards and then went to have a look outside. The skies had cleared a bit and there were some views of the mountain trails below. I was feeling tired and a bit weird at that point and I assumed it was the lack of oxygen. A lot of people were sucking on cans of oxygen and I wondered if I should’ve purchased a can before the hike.

The view before dinner (actual colors on Mt. Fuji)

I continued to rest until I got the call for dinner around 4:30pm. It was a simple dinner with rice, Japanese curry, a small piece of fish and two extremely small portions of some kind of pickled vegetables. I don’t know what they were. There was also a very small cake for dessert and a jelly type thing. There wasn’t a lot of food given but for me, it was enough. For the three big men sitting next to me, they looked like they were just getting started. We were given our breakfast for the following morning which consisted of sweet potato bread and some kind of chicken and rice in a bag. The men at the table next to me ate their breakfasts. Dinner obviously wasn’t enough.

After dinner, I looked outside and it was pouring rain. There were a ton of hikers out there waiting it out. People hike Fuji at all hours of the day and night. It was quite cold outside and I was thankful to be spending the night in a (somewhat) warm hut.

It took me awhile to fall asleep and when I woke up around 10pm, I had a high fever and was feeling nauseous with a headache. Oh no. Here we go again. My second high mountain hike and my second time experiencing altitude sickness. Ugh.