[travel] Climbing Mt.Fuji

On August 17 and 18, I climbed Mt.Fuji with my girl friend. This was my second experiance to cilmb this great mountain and it was really great.

Mt.Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan and the shape is very beatiful.
Every Japanese love this mountain and almost of all Japanese think to
climb the mountain once a their lives (but there are many people who don't climb it;)).

[August 17 17:00]
We reached to Kawaguchiko 5th station by my car.
There is some free parking areas and souvenir shops. We rested in a shop and had a meal.
There are 9 stations until the summit. the 5th station is the highest station we can go by the cars.

It is 2,305 meters above. So we can overlook the clouds. It's a fine view and we call it "Un-Kai" which means "sea of clouds".



[August 17 19:00]
We started to climb. We wanted to look Goraikou(the sunrise from Mt.Fuji) on the submit. That's the reason why we climbed it at night.
At first, the mountain path was even. So we can enjoy to walk and talk. But after the 6th station, the path became steep with rocks. We can't speak any jokes anymore.
The views were great. Un-Kai became white with the moonlight. And we can look the night view of the city through the breaks in the clouds.

[August 17 23:00]
The air becomes thinner. We had an oxygen cylinder, but its' not effectively.
And it became colder. It's so cold even we wore the ski suit.
Finally, my partner suffered from mountain altitude sickness (It was about 2,900 meters above). Her hands became cold, and she felt nauseated.

We decided to stay at a hut in 7th station. Fortunately, she slept soon.
I thought we need to give up to climb anymore.

[August 18 2:00]
She woke up (I couldn't sleep well). She seemed to regain her health. I asked her to give up to climb, but she said she want to keep to climb until she become sick again.
I wanted to bring her to the summit and look Goraiko together.
So I decided to climb again.

[August 18 4:30]
We reached a hut. The sky became lighter. So we decided to wait Goraiko here.

[August 18 5:00]
Beautiful.....
I might be able to understand why our ancestors felt the existence of their god to the sun.
I took a lot of pictures Goraiko and this is the best. But the real Goraiko was more beautiful and fantastic.



[August 18 6:00]
We started to climb again. There were lots of climbers and the path became thin. We needed to keep in step with them. It was hard for her. So we need to rest soon.



[August 18 12:00]
We reached the 9 station. It's a gate of the shinto shrine. There are some small Shinto shrines on the summit and this is the first gate of the shrine.






[August 18 13:00]
We found the next and final gate! This was the entrance of summit.







[August 18 13:30]
Accomplished a mission!

She said, "The sky is beautiful. The clouds are beautiful. And I'm here. How fantastic !"

We went to the shrine to pray and buy an Omamori(a lucky charm) .
Then took pictures, bought an expensive Juice(5 times high!) and rest there.

I wanted to go Ohachi-meguri (walk around the edge of crater). But it takes one or two hours. We wanted to come back to the 5th station before night. So I gave up it.



We went near the crator. This is a picture of the crator. It's huge and deep.
We couldn't watch the bottom of crator.









This picture is the top of the summit. It is 3,776 meters above.










[August 18 14:30]
Started to climb down Mt.Fuji. The descending path is separated with ascending path. It was a gentle slope. But it was too much long.
I felt it was never ending ...

[August 18 18:00]
We came back to the 6th station. Already, there were climbers who started their climbing. They would climb 7th or 8th stations and stay the huts in an early night.

[August 18 19:00]
We came back to the 5th station, and my car. My legs don't work anymore.

[August 18 23:00]
We came home. We had the bath and sleep soon.


It's a great experiance ... though my girlfriend won't climbing Mt.Fuji anymore ;).

If you're interested in climbing Mt.Fuji, I recommand to prepare everything enough. Especially, you need to take care of your physical condition.