Fujisan

The World Cup is finished and Germany and USA came up short, the US men coming up considerably shorter than the Germans. For the third straight cup I’ve had to deal with games being on in the middle of the night and this time I have had to work at eight every morning. In between the games the last month has been monotonous and uneventful with the most noteworthy aspect of work being the assessments for over 150 students that I had to write. The evenings and weekends, with the exception of the nights I stayed up and out watching USA with my compatriots have passed by quickly with my staying home and doing little or nothing. While it may seem that I may have been dying a slow death from boredom the last month there had been a purpose, a goal, a light at the end of the tunnel keeping me going: Summer vacation!

Thanks to some finagling and acquiescence by a kind administration I was able to secure two days off last week (finals week where I have no classes) in order to take a trip to Japan to climb Mt Fuji with my hiking companion from the Suwon days and homegirl Gina. We returned to Korea last night after a fabulous and grueling four day weekend and now I am looking at my last three days of work for over a month. Since I have no classes or responsibilities this week my time in the office will be spent recounting my latest adventures on Fuji and in Tokyo as I look forward to my trip next week to the Philippines.

Last Thursday after waking up in the middle of the night to watch Germany fall to a superior Spanish side I set out early to the airport to fly to Narita airport in Tokyo. The main objective of this trip was to trek to the top of Mt. Fuji, which Gina and I had talked about doing years ago and neither one of us had gotten around to it. Due to some fortuitous timing and planning we were able to finally make this trip come to fruition and we excitedly took flight just after noon and would arrive at 2:30. After clearing immigration and getting the souvenir passport stamp we took a bus to Shinjuku, the area where most of the movie Lost in Translation took place. Immediately apparent was the ease, comfort, convenience, and expense of public transit in Tokyo that would be a theme throughout to weekend. With neither one of us having been to this city before we effortlessly found the bus stop and bought tickets to the fifth station, where our trek would begin. This process from airport to Fuji fifth station would take over four hours with about an hour in between in Shinjuku.
We arrived at the station after dark around nine o’clock. Thanks to some mutual diligent research, which would serve us well throughout the trip, we knew there was a locker at the station and we stowed our belongings, taking with us only what we needed for the trek. It was already cool and apparent it would get much colder as we ascended further up the mountain. I had brought specifically for the trek a two dollar LED flashlight, a five dollar backpack I bought at the market in Seoul, a twenty dollar pair of hiking boots I bought down the street from my school, some jeans, some layers including a Gap thermal and a mountaineering fleece I’ve owned for nearly four years, a thermal vest also purchased at a market in Seoul (three or four years ago), a couple of disposable rain ponchos, water, extra socks, extra underwear (in case of a rare shart or rain or chafing or… I’ve gone WAY too far), and a big ass bag of deluxe premium trail mix I concocted consisting of almonds, walnuts, cashews, craisins, and m&m’s. Gina, on the other hand, was ultimately prepared. Reminding me of the time I spent in Colorado after the Ween show camping with my friend from Chesterfield and company, Brad, last year near Red Rocks, Gina had every cool high-end hiking and trekking accoutrement known to K2, North Face, and every other quality mountaineering/camping/hiking/outdoorsy company you could imagine. One of us was going up roughing it, battling the elements and braving the obstacles. The other was going up in comfort and style, while battling the elements and braving the obstacles.

As it always happens at the beginning of a journey, everyone was in good spirits and walking down (actually, more accurately up) the so far easy and wide path to our version of Mecca. Honestly, that’s what this hike is. We met travelers from all over who were about to trek the very vanilla (another parenthetic, but that is like saying “very mediocre”… how can vanilla be very?) Mt Fuji for the sake of saying they did the trek and witnessed what is, was, and is sure to be the pinnacle of sunrises—the very first sunrise of the east, and further, in the world. With that in mind: That was my mission. I wanted to be on top of the mountain for sunrise and Gina was with me. However, it gets really cold going up the mountain, and it gets steeper. The altitude might mess with some (or most) people and desire wanes. The lack of sleep, cold, cold, cold, and the cold, not to mention the altitude and lack of sleep (it was also cold) might get to someone around two am or so… maybe earlier.

A really fun aspect of this trek was talking to all of the different travelers in the same boat; i.e. the others who were freezing their asses off walking up the mountain. We met military folk and other American travelers, Malaysians (they were quite erudite in their speech and really nice), Germans, and more Germans, some Germans after that (what was up with all the Germans on this mountain??), Dutch, many other nationalities who should be mentioned but aren’t, and ultimately Japanese. The Japanese saved us, which I’ll explain momentarily. For the first couple or few hours we were constantly overlapping, passing, catching up to, and being passed by groups that would become familiar faces along the way. All along the path there were rest areas with huts where for a fee (a rather hefty one) a person could sleep and get warm. Outside of these huts were benches where the hikers gathered to rest and grab a snack. These huts were so frequent that we would reach a new one every hour. Being so cold we never stayed very long. As long as we kept moving it was bearable.

I had mentioned earlier how desire can wane with the cold, altitude and lack of sleep. Around two am Gina’s desire began to wane and the prospect of calling it quits to stay in one of the warm huts became more and more appealing. Of course, I wanted to keep going as I had a one-track mind and a mission—I wanted to get to the peak by sunrise. There was a risk of getting there too early and having to freeze on the summit while waiting for the sunrise so we wanted to pace ourselves. However, it had been a rough week already for us sleepwise and Gina was fading by the time we got to the ninth station. She was becoming persistent in her desire to crash in a hut and peak the mountain the next day but I was more persistent in my desire to push through and get to the top. I convinced Gina to continue to one more station and if she still wanted to stop we could rest there. As we got on the path something happened that gave us new life and drove us to the summit.

From station to station we kept passing a large group of Japanese hikers that seemed to be going at a snail’s pace yet continually caught up with us. At this station, instead of jumping out ahead of them we decided to trail behind them and we found their method to be perfect. The air was very thin at this point and we were wearing ourselves out by climbing up fast, stopping to catch our breath, and repeating. This large group, led by a very young looking guide, would take ten to twenty slow steps and stop. Then they would take five or ten more steps and stop again. While this seemed slow we had figured out that the guide knew exactly what he was doing and would get us to the top in perfect time. Also, there were so many lights with the group and the person at the end had a lamp strapped to his back, so I was able to put my flashlight away and have use of both hands. It might not seem like much but the ground was very loose and rocky and footing was easy to lose. Since I didn’t have to luxury of Gina’s headlamp and two hiking poles (She is truly a pro) I had to scramble up with flashlight one hand and the other to keep my balance. Getting a second wind, we followed this group all the way up to the very last station, which was a deceptively far 600 meters from the summit. At this station there was a restaurant where we ducked in and had a quick but very satisfying hot chocolate and left the group behind for our ascent to the summit.

It was after 3:30 when we left the last station and the sun was due to arrive in about an hour. At this point I should say that I was really, really tired, but continued to push forward. When the sun finally did arrive we were not quite at the top but were in an even better position to observe the famous sunrise. To be honest, it seemed as if it would be a letdown at first, with so many clouds on the horizon. But when the sun reached over the clouds the sky became absolutely hypnotic in all its colorful splendor. I have known Gina for nearly five years now and have been through thick and thin yet have somehow managed to remain friends. Like the mountain, it wasn’t always easy. Often it was rocky and there were times when I felt like jumping off but it was ultimately rewarding and overall an experience I would never trade. Being at the top of this mountain watching the sunrise with my great friend was truly a gratifying achievement given the sacrifice made and the effort to push through. As I sat there with Gina gazing into the sky after hiking through the night I had one thing going through my mind:

“Shit, now we have to walk all the way back down!”