Japan Trip 2012, Day 4 - Mount Fuji (Summit)

Before we start, the picture album for the summiting (and descent):
http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/247

When we checked into Mount Fuji Hotel, they asked us what our plans were for the following day. Normally what people do, is climb during the day/afternoon, then rest at a mountain hut, then get up at night and walk to the summit to see the sunrise from there. Alternatively, some people just do the climb at night and bypass the mountain hut altogether, but the point is that the hotel staff does wake people up depending on their plans.

Our original plans were to rest for around 5 to 6 hours at the mountain hut, arriving at 20:00 or so, leaving at 2:00, and getting to the summit at around 4:00. As you can imagine if you've read my last post, those plans got blown in like the Kool-Aid Man through a wall. (Oh no.) So our plans changed to this: Sleep until 4:00 to catch the sunrise at 4:30, watch the sunrise, then go back to sleep for as long as we're allowed. We finally managed to go to sleep at 23:50 or so, meaning we'd get 4 hours of rest before the sunrise.

The staff was kind enough to wake us up at 4:00, and we spent a while just waiting for the sun to rise. I snapped a couple of pictures of the sun rising, but what was really impressive was when the sun broke the clouds at 4:35. As the sun peeked out of the clouds, instead of a sphere of bright hurt-your-eyes, you could what I can only describe as see rays of light firing forth from the center of the sun - a spectacle which I'm sure inspired the traditional Japanese flag. When the sun broke, the side of the mountain was painted red, turning the brown dirt into something a little more brick-colored. It was pretty amazing.

Most people had a breakfast at this point and continued climbing. We went straight back to sleep - checkout was at 8:00, so after we were done taking pictures and chatting with other climbers (there were many English speakers there), we went back into the mountain hut and got even more rest. They didn't actually bother to wake us up like they did before, probably because there was really nothing to miss afterwards as far as Mount Fuji sights go, so we... just happened to wake up at 7:50 while our alarms slept in, and went down for a beef bowl breakfast.

We started the climb to the summit afterwards at around 8:50, but I think at this point our ailing friend started really feeling the effects of the previous night (though he woke up feeling generally okay). We urged him on to 8.5th Station since that would mean he'd still be with us, and let him rest there. While he relaxed at the station with... I think some hot chocolate, me and the one remaining friend left to power on to the summit, the path of which is made of absolute crap. It starts out a simple, yet slightly steep dirt path, then changes to a path that's barely carved out of the rock. Sure when you get there, there's a few spots where someone laid some wooden beams to act as a small stairway. But be prepared to step up a bunch of rocks that just happen to form a haphazard staircase. You might need to use your hands a few times. At the end of this path, is a torii flanked by two stone lions. This is the entrance to Summit Station, where the ground finally levels out, not that most people care by this point.

When we reached Summit Station, it was closed... I guess because climbing season had not yet began in full swing, so none of the huts or shops were open. There were a few people around, with a fair number of foreigners, most of them resting at the area where the last set of stairs ended (understandably). We took a bit of rest at a shrine that was there (also closed), which I'm thinking was one of the shrines to Konohana no Sakuya-hime, the deity that is said to keep Mount Fuji from erupting.

Most people here were content to look around, snap some pictures, and start descending... but maybe it's not a well publicized fact that the real summit isn't actually at a station at all. At the top of Mount Fuji is a crater (no surprise), and around the crater there's a trail. The highest point on the mountain is on that trail, and not at a waystation where you can stop and rest. Walking the trail is called O-hachimeguri, and thankfully, you're on straight paths with shallow slopes for the most part, and it's not a very hard trip to make. However, the path does lead you right against the edge of the mountain, so if there's heavy winds, it might be a bad idea to walk it. If there's snow... well, part of this path was closed because of that, but luckily it was the part we didn't need to get to the real summit.

Walking along the summit we eventually got to the Gotemba Trail's summit station, which was a bit more than halfway to Kengamine. I think there's a post office here where you can mail postcards and such from the highest post office in Japan, but like everything else at the summit, it was closed... Just like another shrine to Konohana no Sakuya-hime which seemed to be run by the same people as the one we saw before. This one looked more grandiose, as was probably the main shrine on the mountain. The signposts at these shrines marked both as (Fuji-san Chouten) Sengen Taisha Oku-no-Miya. Past this was the only difficult part of the path to the summit... which is to say, the only steep part of the path. The path up to the automated weather station at Mount Fuji's peak is pretty much all that's past this point.

... And yet, while we were going up it, we ran across (and overtook) some guy who decided to carry his bike all the way up the mountain. He probably wanted to bike down the slopes of the mountain on the way down, since I hear parts of it (maybe on the Fujinomiya Trail?) are just one big slope and you can just balance the bike and you'll pick up speed. Either way, quite the accomplishment on his part, and the celebratory picture I took at the highest point in all Japan just happened to have it in the picture. With us at said highest point in Japan though, were only around ten people. Maybe not even. O-hachimeguri isn't really popular despite being required to actually summit, I guess.

We summited at 11:50, a total of three hours since we departed Main 8th Station. Having started the previous day at around 15:00 and climbing until 22:40, our entire ascent took 10 hours and 40 minutes, with a total of nine hours and twenty minutes resting at a hut.

Further pictures of the day can be found at my public photo album:
http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/247