Mt.Fuji

I remember that Matthew's barber, Mr.Sakamoto, talked about climbing Mt.Fuji every 2 years with his friends on the very beginning of August. That gave Matthew an idea to climb Mt.Fuji before the 2010 hiking season is over. I thought he completely forgot about it, but.....

On 8/27, he came back home at 7pm and said "I wanna climb Mt.Fuji tomorrow". "Ah....excuse me??"

I made as many calls as possible until 8 pm to make bus seat reservations to go to Mt.Fuji 5th station where is the starting point for hikers, but no dice...... I thought he would give up. But Matthew said that we could take trains and taxi to the 5th station. OK the plan is still on!

As usual, I worked from midnight to 9 am, Saturday, then, we wen to Shinjuku to buy hiking supplies and hiking shoes. To make sure how crazy this idea was, I asked the guy who helped us find our hiking shoes, "We go to Mt.Fuji tonight in these shoes. What do you think about that?". He simply said...."D, D, Dangerous!!!"

We came back to our place and started packing. My mom emailed me to tell me that we were crazy. Thanks mom. But no one could stop Matthew.

I thought this would be the last picture of me smiling.

After 2 hour train ride, we came to Lake Kawaguchi station at 7pm. From this station, we could find local buses to take us to the 5th station. Actually I saw a couple who carried a baby in their backpack and it made me realize that this hiking won't be that hard. I knew I would have millions of blisters because of these new shoes, but it would be doable.

Arriving at the 5th station, we saw hundreds of ppl. Seriously hundreds of them. This also calmed me down more. "We would never get lost", "Someone would help Matthew find and pull me if I drop off of trails" etc. Get the flashlights in hands, put more clothes, tie our shoes and we were ready to go.

Mt.Fuji is Japan's highest mountain (3,776m/12,388ft) and is an active volcano. 300,000 ppl climb Mt.Fuji every year and 30-40% of hikers are foreigners (This is a very surprising number).  It is the highest mountain in my country and the Japanese ppl are precautious so that my mom, my sister, my friends, they all scared me before climbing. But Matthew was telling me that, in the US, ppl in Colorado live and do marathon at higher elevation. So I should not have worried about anything. Now, I can say he was absolutely right. (Matthew, I said/announced "you are right" to the public!)

Anyway, back to the Mt.Fuji introduction.....Ehem, the Japanese ppl love to see the sunrise from the summit. They even say that there is no sense in climbing Mt.Fuji without seeing the sunrise. Which is why, everyone starts climbing after 8pm  or even later from the 5th station (2,306m) to the summit at the sunrising time.

The hike started very easily. It was just like a recreational hiking course at the Starved Rock State Park in IL. But it got steeper and steeper and we needed to use both hands to pull up ourselves. No way to enjoy the view that spreads beautiflly below us. Well, there was no way to see actually because it was a night-hike!

When we came between the 8th and the 9th station, we decided to take a nap at the mountain hut. Reason No.1 --- We didn's sleep at all. Reason No.2 --- the traffic. Traffic? Yes, traffic! It was the last day of the official season and we literally stood at one place to move forward for 10 mins. Everyone takes a break around mountain huts so that you need to wait to get back on the trail  for 10 mins.

$60 per person at the hut. (By the way, a cup noodle was $7 up there.) Bye bye my money....I love you so much, please come back again!

The guy at the hut said we could sleep until 8 am (7 hour sleep, yay!), so I put myself in a sleeping bag and was moving around to find the most confortable position. When I was ready to say good-night to Matthew, he was already in his dream.

And after 3 hours, the hut guy started yelling so loud to let us know that the sunrise would be set in 10 mins. That was an amazing moment. The Japanese ppl woke up like soldiers for a battle. Very quickly and seriously. You can feel that serious/intense air around you. Matthew asked me what the guy said. "The sunrise in 10 mins. I dont care, I wanna sleep", said I. But Matthew said,  "Wake up, Sae. You need to see it."

When I came out of the hut, among the Japanese having their own cellphones in hands to take a picture of the sunrise,  I saw Matthew holding his Nikon camera toward the sunrise. It was .................. funny! What was I doing at that moment? I asked Matthew to give me 200 yen. I knew that there was no one in the bathroom. "I don't need to stand in a line!"

Matthew was happy. He took great pictures. And I was happy too. The bathroom was all mine.

After the great view of the sunrise, we started climbing up again. In the dark night, we would never know but the mountain top was covered with red cinders and rocks and its steep surface had no trees or plants. Mr.Rock-Collector secretly put a few of rocks in his pocket when we took breaks, even though it was illegal.

 On that day, it was a gorgeous day and we could see the great panorama view without any clouds. On the previous night, we saw some fireworks beneath us but it was so weird because they all looked like firing on the ground. But we knew it because we were so high! We also heard some explosion sound from somewhere at the top. We couldn't figure out what that was for a while but knew that it was thunder from the clouds beneath us. It was so cool.

Yes, you see the American flag. Mt.Fuji is owned by the US :-P

When we came to the 9th station, we decided to go down. We worried about Matthew's kee. We didn't make it to the summit, but it was a great accomplishment for us.  

Now, I am wondering....what else does Matthew want to accomplish in Japan before going back to the US??