Sunrise on Fuji-san

This weekend we decided it was time to experience sunrise on Mount Fuji. The Japanese refer to the mountain as Fuji-san which on first translation appears to mean Mr Fuji however san is an alternative pronouciation for the mountian Kanji, yama. I think I like Mr Fuji best!





To get to Mr Fuji we took the bus from Shinjuku station to Kawaguchi-ko-guchi go-gome which is the fifth station. If we were really hardened walkers we'd have started at the very bottom but this makes it a two day walk which didn't fit with our plans. The bus leaves Shinjuku at 1930 and delivers you to the start of the walk at 2200. We had a bit of a stressful time finding the bus. Shinjuku bus station is large and the booking was made by one of my team at work so we just had a print out of the booking which was mostly in Japanese. After a lot of asking and following of walker looking types we found our way the correct bus stop (no 26 for future reference) and waited whilst 3 buses were loaded with intrepid walkers.






This is both of us getting ready at the start. It was 30 degrees C when we left Tokyo but the 5th station is at 2300m so the temperture was already much lower when we arrived. 1st step was therefore to put more clothes on! We also needed torches for the walk. We weren't very organised so we had Felix's toy headtorch, pink pig rechargeable torch from Neve and a torch that cost 100 JPY from the supermarket. Could we see where we were going? No. Not a problem as I will explain shortly.











Part way up the walk I remembered that I have start of the art bike lamps that can be headmounted so we could have blazed a trial of daylight up the climb.





When we left we figured that our three buses might be the only ones arriving at the 5th Station. How wrong. The road up to the 5th stattion was lined with parked cars and a coach park that must have contained 25-30 coaches. I'd put the estimate of people climbing the mountain this night as 10,000. This is after all peak climbing season, if you avoid July and August I think you can have the mountain to yourself. If you looked up or down the mountain you could see torch lights as far as the eye could see. After about 5 mins I turned my torch off and relied upon the fancy torches of the people that constantly surrounded us on the walk. One thing you soon learn about the Japanes is that if they take up a hobby they will purchase all the correct gear. We were soon surrounded by people dripping in new North Face gear.



Rather arty picture showing snake of lights coming up the path below us. The blue streak at the bottom was a fellow with flashing traffic directing batton strapped to his rucksack. I think he walked all the way up completely un aware that he was tatolly dazzling all the people behind him. Of courde everyone was too polite to point his out to him.





This was no peaceful walk in the dark. We were constantly surrouned by people and sometimes were caught in traffic jams. The Japanese are a nation that enjoys queuing more than the British. A lot of the walk was a little frustrating as the Japanese formed orderely queues patiently waiting behind old dears and people who's level of fitness really wasn't up to climbing a mountian. Julie and I soon became expert at pushing past and exploring the limits of the marked paths. At one point it looked like we might not make the summit before dawn which just wasn't going to be acceptable. This is a photo of the crowds at the summit. They have all night stores that sell souvenirs and food. We contrasted this with Snowdon summit where you probably wouldn't find anyone at night except perhaps the most hardened walkers and you would have no chance of buying a beer, noodles or a souvenir badge commemorating your visit.

Some thing else that left me sniggering each time we saw it was the Japanese using oxygen whilst walking to the summit. In my book oxygen is used by mountaineers to reach the top of Everest and not by tourists walking up a 3,779m peak in the middle of summer. So the air gets a little thinner as you go up but anyone in normal health can cope with this. The mountain stations sold 1500 jpy cylinders of oxygen with a little cup that fitted over your mouth and nose so you could inhale a shot of oxygen when ever you go a little out of breath. The 'whoosh' noise each time they did this was really obvious and left me giggling each time I heard it.

We arrived about 20 mins before dawn so settled down to await sunrise. It was cold, which is why Julie looks a little odd in the picture. The temperature was close to freezing.

















These are the picture we took of the Sunrise. Time is around 4am





































Once we had watched the sun come up we set off to walk around the rim. Fuji is a volcono (no longer active) so has caldera in the centre.

This picture shows the highest point on the rim which is 3779m. Note the snow still around on much of the summit. This is start of August when temps in Tokyo often reach close to 40 degrees C

More sunrise pictures

Obligatory Japanese style photo!

This is the Caldera. The bottom was just full of rocks. No lost world or long forgotten dinosaur colony!

As we were walking around the rim we caught site of other mountains. I think one of these mountains is kumatori-san from which we viewed Fuji-san a few weeks ago.

This had to be the highlight of the route down from the summit. We left by a different route, the Gotemba-guchi track. Part was down the track you exit right and follow the Suna-bashiri trail.

This route follows directly down the fall of the mountain and is deep in sand and scoria. I think in UK we'd call this a scree slope.

Every wondered what would happen if you ran as fast as you can directly down the side of a mountain, well you can find out on this track. The soft sand has just the right texture to absorb your impact and let you launch your next stride. It was amzing you could run as fast as you liked taking massive strides and some how manage to stay upright. If you really went for it you could leap 3-4 m down the the slope each step.

This is action sequence of Julie running past me.

Don't be decieved by the photos, Julie is running full speed down a steep mountain slope. Only thing you had to watch out for was other walkers 'just walking' and the occaisional boulder in the middle of the slope.

The white line on the right of the photos is the edge of the path. The width of the scoria field which extended in both directions as far as we could see.

It took 2.5 hours to descend from the top of the mountain to the carpark at the bottom. A total drop of 2000m.

At the bottom we caught the bus to Gotemba station and from here we could get the train back to our house. All in all, we were walking for about 11 hours - from 10pm until 9am - an exhausting but enjoyable night!