I have been wanting to climb Mt Fuji, Japan ever since i was a little girl and my Dad showed me pictures from when he was there! When we got orders to Okinawa i just knew i would need to find my way over to mainland to climb Mt Fuji! I decided i would climb this for my 40th birthday! This way i would have something to look forward to as i hyperventilated into a brown bag as i got closer to the dreaded "four oh"! YIKES!!! I booked a spot for Ed and i on this tour. As it got closer for this trip Ed found out that he wouldn't be able to take leave to go with me. He had been gone for a few months and so when he got back to our island it was just too close to his return date to take time off and go with me. I was bummed cause i was kinda nervous about this climb and i knew he would keep me going and my competitive nature would have focused me on keeping up with him. I also never worry about anything happening when he is with me, i know he can fix just about anything that may go wrong! Sooo, anyways i left for Tokyo bummed that he couldn't go with me but he seemed okay about not being able to take leave and join me. (Like he wasn't even the least bit upset! Hmmm....) My Tokyo trip is on a different blog, this will be just the climb of Mt Fuji, and what a climb it was! I don't know what i was thinking "Fuji at 40"! Like seriously?!!! I should have done Fuji at 30! Ha! Anyways, got to bed at 11:30 pm the night before my Fuji climb. Had to be up at 1:30 am to catch the bus that would take me to the base camp of Fuji. There was a group of 25 of us on this bus making this climb. We got to base camp at 5:30 am. I knew my head was going to begin pounding with lack of sleep and altitude so i had started taking 800 mg motrin at 5 am. I took 800 motrin every 6 hours for the rest of the day. I used the restroom and bought my walking stick. I also decided to buy a floppy hat at the last minute. I hate wearing hats! They make me feel squished. The same feeling i get in a coat and turtle neck! YUCK! Hate that feeling of being squished and suffocating.....but it was looking like it would be pretty sunny and there is no protection so i figured i would endure the squished head feeling. I went thru the gates and began my climb at 5:55 am. This is something that you do at your own pace, so i was on my own for this. AND it meant asking random people who did not speak English to take pictures of me!
Yes, for those of you that know me well, you are very aware that i have no sense of direction and lack in common sense, so it is quite amazing that i found my way up and back down by myself! Pretty amazing I am in one piece and even writing this! I started at a pretty good pace. I really wanted to make it to the top! I was told that i needed to make this certain station by 2 pm otherwise i would need to turn around to make sure i got back to the bus in time. I wasn't sure exactly what station this was.....it wasn't explained very well....so i just kept a good pace to see how far i made it by 2 pm. It was pretty easy to start with, than about 45 minutes into it it became more of a climb. Things got real! My stroll had ended and it was slow dying time. Glad i had gloves to wear. The rocks you pull yourself up are pretty jagged and the steps were higher than my short leg span, so i relied on my walking stick and gloves to get me over the rocks unscratched. The altitude sickness started kicking in a couple hours into climbing. This island chick who lives at sea level was not liking the effects of the altitude change! But i kept cruising along as i wanted to make that elusive station by 2 pm. I would stop at each station and get the markings burned into my walking stick and sit for about 10 minutes and than get going again.
Close to 11 i was getting pretty tired and decided to sit a little longer at this one stop. I was listening to this group of 19-21 year olds talking about their schedule to make it to the top. Turns out i had passed my 2 pm stop at 10:15! I felt much better knowing that i was on schedule and should make this climb! I put on my ipod and began listening to my tunes. I was also trying to catch up to my group! There were 25 of us and i was the old lady of the group! Everyone was younger, hadn't had kids yet, etc., so i didn't want to be the old lady they were waiting on, so i picked up my pace with renewed energy that had been hiding in my back pocket knowing i had made my 2 pm goal at 10:15 am. At the next stop i asked the only english speaking person i saw how much further to the top. It was getting really hard to breath and everyone was using these O2 cylinders. I guess i should have bought some, but I was told I wouldn't need them...sooo, i ask this European guy how much further. I was at Station 8. He tells me there are three more 8's and than 9 and than the top. Yes, the stations are kinda funky. Beyond funky, like makes zero sense. I think someone was drinking a little toooo much saki while numbering the stations! For example, when you hit station 7, there are like 7 stations that are all 7, same for 8, etc. Really kills ya mentally, or atleast it killed me! I think 8 should come after 7, NOT 7 again and again and again! Groundhog Day just isn't my cup of tea climbing up a mountain in a foreign country by myself! So i start climbing thinking that maybe i won't make it to the top. It is getting really hard to breath. I am also completly soaked in sweat and there is this cold wind blowing along the mountain which still has snow and ice on it. All the AFN commercials are going thru my head of the symptoms of Hypothermia and Heat Exhaustion and i'm clicking off the ones that are pertaining to my body. I'm also ticked 'cause i want to make it to the top but not sure if i can go that many more stations.....sooo, anyways i fell into a groove with this young group of Japanese climbers. I just went at thier pace and when they stopped to breath into the O2 tanks i would stop with them. They knew no english and i just don't know the Japanese phrase for "Can i take a hit off your O2"? Ha! But they liked my blonde hair. I think i was the only blonde on the mountain that day.....so anyways we are climbing basically just one foot in front of the other and hunkering down when the big winds blow. People have actually been blow off the mountain. I had also already seen some casualties. Two taken down on horseback, one on the caterpillar, and one guy who took off half of his face when he went down and slid or whatever he did to take off half of his face. It wasn't pretty. So i have now decided that i don't think i will be able to go any higher and that i will just have to throw in the towel at the next station. As we get closer to the next station there is a Torri to go under with 2 shi shi's. Everyone wants to have their picture taken under this, so i start taking everyones group picture. A nice excuse to just sit on this rock as people hand me thier camera's. After photos, which i didn't get one of me 'cause that was like where i was quitting, i begin the last stretch to get to this next station knowing that i just can't go 4 more to get to the top. I had to make sure i had enough left in me to get myself back DOWN the mountain! Ha! It's not like there is a helicopter standing by to bring me down if I get too tired!!! I get up there and drums are banging, people are singing and dancing and there are all these vendors selling Mt Fuji things. I'm thinking this must be the place where many people quite and so they sell the "almost made it to the top" stuff. I'm just like whatever and head over to the guy burning in the markings on the walking sticks. I ask him how much further to the top. He looks at me and just starts cracking up and says something to his buddy and they are both laughing and tell me in broken english that i am at the top and congratulate me and high five me and they are laughing all the time. I guess they had officially met a blonde air head in real life! I am just like you've got to be kidding me!!! I was at the top! I looked at the clock on their wall and it said 12:05, i had made it in 6 hours and 10 minutes. May found me. She was the first one up in our group and i found out i was the second one up. Amazing! I must not have noticed anyone from our group when i was climbing! I just started cracking up. We took pictures and i had a power bar and another water bottle. Than it was time to use the bathroom, yuck! Everything gets packed up the mountian and down the mountain. You pay to use the bathrooms and they are for everyone, so there will be a guy using a urinal while you are heading to one with a door. They don't flush. The waste is hand packed down at the end of the season. Would not want that job! The mountian is open 45 days in the summer and over 60,000 people climb it during those 45 days! If you feel like doing the math you can guestimate how many were climbing this day! But there are no trash cans, so you bring down whatever you take up. We put on our masks and bandanas and began heading down. It took 3 hours but felt like forever! Just down, down, down thru all these jagged rocks and a very slippery trail! You just continually watched people fall. Surprisingly enough i only fell once. One skinned elbow. It was just full sun up and down. Later in the day the clouds started coming in and it was fun going thru the clouds.
We ate a lot of dust going down. I will probably have black boogers for awhile! LOL! A beatle landed on my camera strap as i was heading down. I was toooo tired to shoo it away, so i just told her to stay put and not climb up towards my face or into my clothes and she could stay as long as she wanted. I doubt she understood me but she looked up at me with these huge eyes and stayed put while i laid down the ground rules for her. As we got closer to the bottom we began passing the big tour groups coming to climb the mountian. It was hillarious because they are just all decked out in these masive outfits! May and i received alot of ooohhhsss and aaawwwweesss from those tours looking at our sticks that had all the stamps of being to the top. I should have known i was close to the top because my stick was full of markings! I think the altitude took some of my brain cells! We finally made it back to base camp! It felt sooo good to take off my boots! I know i am going to loose my big toe toe nails. I could see where the cuticle was swollen from my nail being shoved back in there for too many hours. UUHHGG! That won't be pretty. May and i had about 4 hours to kill as we waited for everyone to get down the mountian. We found a nice cement wall to lay down on and took a nap. That was the most exhausted i had ever been in my entire life! Wow! You know you are exhausted when you can fall asleep outside on a brick wall! What was i thinking?! Fuji at 40....Ha! Later that night on the bus Ed called me on my cell to ask how it was. I started laughing and said yeah, i can see why you weren't upset about not being able to go and that he probably would have killed me climbing Fuji as that would not have been something he would have wanted to do on leave! He does that kind of stuff for work and climbing a mountain just wouldn't have felt like vacation to him. He was laughing and agreed and said that a vacation is doing nothing but relaxing. I got back to the hotel at 10:30 pm. Huuummm, what will i do at 50? Everest? LOL!
Here is a picture of some of the terrain...no trails whatsoever....
Close to 11 i was getting pretty tired and decided to sit a little longer at this one stop. I was listening to this group of 19-21 year olds talking about their schedule to make it to the top. Turns out i had passed my 2 pm stop at 10:15! I felt much better knowing that i was on schedule and should make this climb! I put on my ipod and began listening to my tunes. I was also trying to catch up to my group! There were 25 of us and i was the old lady of the group! Everyone was younger, hadn't had kids yet, etc., so i didn't want to be the old lady they were waiting on, so i picked up my pace with renewed energy that had been hiding in my back pocket knowing i had made my 2 pm goal at 10:15 am. At the next stop i asked the only english speaking person i saw how much further to the top. It was getting really hard to breath and everyone was using these O2 cylinders. I guess i should have bought some, but I was told I wouldn't need them...sooo, i ask this European guy how much further. I was at Station 8. He tells me there are three more 8's and than 9 and than the top. Yes, the stations are kinda funky. Beyond funky, like makes zero sense. I think someone was drinking a little toooo much saki while numbering the stations! For example, when you hit station 7, there are like 7 stations that are all 7, same for 8, etc. Really kills ya mentally, or atleast it killed me! I think 8 should come after 7, NOT 7 again and again and again! Groundhog Day just isn't my cup of tea climbing up a mountain in a foreign country by myself! So i start climbing thinking that maybe i won't make it to the top. It is getting really hard to breath. I am also completly soaked in sweat and there is this cold wind blowing along the mountain which still has snow and ice on it. All the AFN commercials are going thru my head of the symptoms of Hypothermia and Heat Exhaustion and i'm clicking off the ones that are pertaining to my body. I'm also ticked 'cause i want to make it to the top but not sure if i can go that many more stations.....sooo, anyways i fell into a groove with this young group of Japanese climbers. I just went at thier pace and when they stopped to breath into the O2 tanks i would stop with them. They knew no english and i just don't know the Japanese phrase for "Can i take a hit off your O2"? Ha! But they liked my blonde hair. I think i was the only blonde on the mountain that day.....so anyways we are climbing basically just one foot in front of the other and hunkering down when the big winds blow. People have actually been blow off the mountain. I had also already seen some casualties. Two taken down on horseback, one on the caterpillar, and one guy who took off half of his face when he went down and slid or whatever he did to take off half of his face. It wasn't pretty. So i have now decided that i don't think i will be able to go any higher and that i will just have to throw in the towel at the next station. As we get closer to the next station there is a Torri to go under with 2 shi shi's. Everyone wants to have their picture taken under this, so i start taking everyones group picture. A nice excuse to just sit on this rock as people hand me thier camera's. After photos, which i didn't get one of me 'cause that was like where i was quitting, i begin the last stretch to get to this next station knowing that i just can't go 4 more to get to the top. I had to make sure i had enough left in me to get myself back DOWN the mountain! Ha! It's not like there is a helicopter standing by to bring me down if I get too tired!!! I get up there and drums are banging, people are singing and dancing and there are all these vendors selling Mt Fuji things. I'm thinking this must be the place where many people quite and so they sell the "almost made it to the top" stuff. I'm just like whatever and head over to the guy burning in the markings on the walking sticks. I ask him how much further to the top. He looks at me and just starts cracking up and says something to his buddy and they are both laughing and tell me in broken english that i am at the top and congratulate me and high five me and they are laughing all the time. I guess they had officially met a blonde air head in real life! I am just like you've got to be kidding me!!! I was at the top! I looked at the clock on their wall and it said 12:05, i had made it in 6 hours and 10 minutes. May found me. She was the first one up in our group and i found out i was the second one up. Amazing! I must not have noticed anyone from our group when i was climbing! I just started cracking up. We took pictures and i had a power bar and another water bottle. Than it was time to use the bathroom, yuck! Everything gets packed up the mountian and down the mountain. You pay to use the bathrooms and they are for everyone, so there will be a guy using a urinal while you are heading to one with a door. They don't flush. The waste is hand packed down at the end of the season. Would not want that job! The mountian is open 45 days in the summer and over 60,000 people climb it during those 45 days! If you feel like doing the math you can guestimate how many were climbing this day! But there are no trash cans, so you bring down whatever you take up. We put on our masks and bandanas and began heading down. It took 3 hours but felt like forever! Just down, down, down thru all these jagged rocks and a very slippery trail! You just continually watched people fall. Surprisingly enough i only fell once. One skinned elbow. It was just full sun up and down. Later in the day the clouds started coming in and it was fun going thru the clouds.
We ate a lot of dust going down. I will probably have black boogers for awhile! LOL! A beatle landed on my camera strap as i was heading down. I was toooo tired to shoo it away, so i just told her to stay put and not climb up towards my face or into my clothes and she could stay as long as she wanted. I doubt she understood me but she looked up at me with these huge eyes and stayed put while i laid down the ground rules for her. As we got closer to the bottom we began passing the big tour groups coming to climb the mountian. It was hillarious because they are just all decked out in these masive outfits! May and i received alot of ooohhhsss and aaawwwweesss from those tours looking at our sticks that had all the stamps of being to the top. I should have known i was close to the top because my stick was full of markings! I think the altitude took some of my brain cells! We finally made it back to base camp! It felt sooo good to take off my boots! I know i am going to loose my big toe toe nails. I could see where the cuticle was swollen from my nail being shoved back in there for too many hours. UUHHGG! That won't be pretty. May and i had about 4 hours to kill as we waited for everyone to get down the mountian. We found a nice cement wall to lay down on and took a nap. That was the most exhausted i had ever been in my entire life! Wow! You know you are exhausted when you can fall asleep outside on a brick wall! What was i thinking?! Fuji at 40....Ha! Later that night on the bus Ed called me on my cell to ask how it was. I started laughing and said yeah, i can see why you weren't upset about not being able to go and that he probably would have killed me climbing Fuji as that would not have been something he would have wanted to do on leave! He does that kind of stuff for work and climbing a mountain just wouldn't have felt like vacation to him. He was laughing and agreed and said that a vacation is doing nothing but relaxing. I got back to the hotel at 10:30 pm. Huuummm, what will i do at 50? Everest? LOL!
Here is a picture of some of the terrain...no trails whatsoever....
