Conquering Mount Doom

Mt Fuji, Japan, August 2004

We’d all heard the horror stories from those brave souls who came before us. The gruelling climb, the horrific queues, the altitude sickness, the biting icy winds, the death risk from falling rocks and the extortionate prices. An ancient Japanese saying reads: “A wise man climbs Fuji-San once, a fool climbs it twice”.

Every single account of Fuji I have read describes the terrible hardship endured, the terrible pain, and the terrible suffering. It seems that there is yet to be a single person who enjoyed the experience and I was lead to believe that perhaps modifying the ancient saying to “Only a fool climbs Fuji-San” might be more appropriate. So, here’s a turn up for the books; against all odds, I actually had fun on Fuji.

After an 8 hour bus trip from Fukui City, the twenty odd group arrived at station 5 of Fuji Mountain. The crew were in high sprits, full of excitement, pumped up and raring to go. A quick stop at the base shop ensured everybody had loaded up on the obligatory snacks, drinks, gloves, hiking sticks (complete with annoying jingly bells), and some even stocked up on oxygen canisters.

By 10pm, we were all set and the groups began to move out. The mass of JETs quickly became fractioned into small climbing parties, and prearranged groups soon became separated in the darkness. I lost my climbing team early on and found myself walking alone for a while, then spotted a couple up ahead and powered on to join them.

Unbeknown to me, I had just sealed my fate; I had inadvertently just joined two super fit female JET athletes, who were training for a half marathon and were taking no prisoners. My plans for a leisurely cruise were put to pot, I was now involved in a mountaineering mission. They were going for a record breaking time and it looked like I was going with them, well let’s be honest, I couldn’t let two girls beat me to the top, could I now?

So, up we went, full speed ahead. Switch back after switch back, no time for breaks, no waiting in lines, our freshly formed trio powered up the paths, scrambled up rock faces, and criss-crossed through the queues of Japanese (equipped with their 60 litre rucksacks and their climbing ski poles), who seemed content to wait in line. We went off road, we went on road, we took back roads, high roads and low roads…anything, as long as we didn’t stop moving.

You can tell how high you are on Fuji not just by the degree of altitude sickness, but by the price of the drinks. They start off at 200Yen, and by the summit, they have risen to 500Yen. By the time we reached roughly the 350Yen mark, the crowds had thinned, and apart from the odd couple huddled in the shadows, we had a free reign of the mountain.

At the 400Yen mark I could feel the air thinning, and as my steps became more laboured, I wondered to myself whether I would be able to hack the pace for much longer. I was feeling a tad light headed, as if I might just suddenly topple backwards and tumble all the way back down Fuji. The glare of resting climbers’ head torches (who had the annoying habit of shining their million watt beams straight into your eyeballs) mixed with the pitch black darkness was inducing strange tracer like hallucinations. My sweat soaked back was rapidly cooling down as the wind began to pick up, but we weren’t stopping now. “Gambatte, gambatte”, I kept on saying to myself, and endured on.

The clear skies revealed the stars in full view above us and the glimmering lights of the city below. After around three hours, we were sure we were making good time and guessed it couldn’t be more than another couple of hours to the top.

We came to what we thought was the next rest station, and the wind was really howling. We agreed it would be a good place to stop for a minute or two, eat a snack and put on gloves. As we sat there contemplating what was yet to be climbed, it dawned on us that there didn’t appear to be much more of the mountain left. In fact, there didn’t appear to be anything left to ascend at all. Could this possibly be it? No, surely not. Slightly perplexed, we accosted a Japanese duo, with Japanese along these lines:

“Top desu ka”.
“Hai, so desu yo!”

They must have misunderstood, surely this can’t be top. By all accounts we should have at least another hour to go. After a further ten minutes of exploring our surroundings, repeating the question and throwing in a bit of sign language, we finally became convinced. We were at the peak, we’d done it, this was it, and all in a total time of 3 hours 34 minutes. Ok, so on the one hand reaching the summit was a bit of an anticlimax, but on the other hand, at that precise moment in time, we were the highest gaijin in Japan.

Now this would have been all fine and dandy, but now we had a slight problem on our hands. We hadn’t expected to reach the summit so early, and were now faced with a 3 hour wait for sunrise. Unfortunately for us, the lodges were all closed so there was no cover; we were cooling down fast since we’d stopped moving and the biting icy wind was whipping over us penetrating our clothing and stealing our precious body warmth.

It would have been a shame to perish from frostbite and hypothermia after such a good climb, so we sought shelter against the back of a small stone building that smelled of urine. The three of us sat tightly huddled together, sharing what little body heat we had left, shuddering intermittently whilst watching the minutes tick away ever so slowly. The only others to be seen were a handful of Japanese lurking in the shadows sleeping under silver space blankets.

It was a moment of silent triumph, it was a moment of bonding and it was a moment of uncontrollable shivering. The team ichi-ban trio were at the top, and even though we were freezing our arses off and wishing we’d brought silver space blankets too, at least it was mutual suffering. At the end of the day, we had done it. Team Ichi-ban Trio:1 Fuji san:0

Approximately half an hour later, the next group of JETs peaked, and like us, had difficulty believing that they were at the top. It didn’t take much to get them to join the huddle and soon there were seven of us shivering. After about an hour and a half of the huddle, just as our core body temperatures were falling below critical levels, the food huts opened, and we piled in for some warmth and the best bowl of miso you’ve ever tasted in your life.

By sunrise, the crowds had built up, and as the first rays of light struck the peak, hundreds of hands reached for cameras and clicked away. By 5am, it was light, and I was freezing and looking forward to getting moving again. After getting my stick branded just to prove I really had made it, we began the descent. As the darkness faded away, we could finally see what we had been walking on; a Martian like landscape of red and ochre earth, rock and rubble, devoid of all life, shrouded in cloud and mist. The descent was fairly uneventful; we snaked down the paths made from deep volcanic pumice, which when added to tired legs was a recipe for wipe outs. I saw several people go down, but thanks to my bell adorned hiking stick I was spared the embarrassment.

Two and a half hours later, back at base camp as the weary climbers rolled in there was a range of emotions on display; tears of joy to finally be off that god forsaken mountain of hell and misery, rage at having to wait in the horrendous queues, bitterness at having been tricked into doing it in the first place, and just quiet satisfaction at having conquered the beast. A couple of injured parties braved the descent without assistance from the Fuji horses, having sustained twisted ankles and wounds from falling rocks. Another unlucky group took a wrong turn on the way down and ended up in another prefecture, costing them a pretty penny in taxi fares. However, one by one we slowly regrouped, swapped climbing stories, ate yaki soba for breakfast and dozed in the warm morning sun.

At around 12 noon all twenty-odd mountaineers had been accounted for, and we boarded the bus. The return journey was considerably more sedate than the outgoing one, with most people enjoying a well earned kip after promising themselves never ever to return to Fuji again.

However, thanks to my small team of fitness freaks (without whom there’s no way I would have been driven on at such a pace) we avoided the crowds and were able to enjoy the mountain itself. Call me a fool, but I would even go as far to say that I might climb Fuji San a second time….but maybe not for a while.