Vikingess Voyages: Sightseeing in Japan: Climbing Mt. Fuji!

Climbing Mt. Fuji was one of the things that had always been high on my list, simply because it is the biggest mountain (or in reality, vulcano,) in Japan, and the role it plays in the country. Mount Fuji is regarded a sacred mountain for the Japanese, and it has been depicted a vaste number of times, for instance through famous ukiyo-e (浮世絵) pictures.

Browse places to stay around Mt. Fuji on Agoda.com. Free cancellation.

With perhaps a tiny bit of exaggeration one can say that all Japanese strive to climb Mt. Fuji at least once in their lifetime. We also wanted to give it a try, so Yuma invited a colleague and her boyfriend and his friend, and we booked a trip with the Willer Express. This company is well-known for their night busses, and as they had a good Fuji-package for only about 11.000 yen we decided to go with them. The plan was to start early Monday morning, climb until around 7 pm and then sleep until 1 am in one of the mountain cottages.

Our hiking team ready for Fuji-san!

Nice weather, with almost not a single cloud in sight..

五合目

But already when we arrived at the fifth station (五合目) we realized that things might not go as smooth as we had hoped. The sky was getting darker, and the wind was pretty strong too.

View from the fifth station

...And just as we were about to start walking... Of course.. It started to rain, and we had to bring out our indeed fancy raincoats.

(Not so) fancy raincoats

And from there it only got worse.. It was raining, then it cleared up for a couple of minutes just enough for us to get a glimpse of the nice view, and then it started raining again.

Good mood, despite bad weather

The que crawling up Mt. Fuji

...And not to mention the never-ending line of people! This must be the first time I've actually had to stand in line in order to climb a mountain. OMG.

It does look a bit pretty with all the colorful raincoats though..

Genki! I suppose..

And although I don't really have any pictures of it, the weather got really bad. We were all soaked to the skin when we arrived in the cottage we were supposed to sleep in, at least an hour later than scheduled.

Japanese flags in the cottage where we stayed the night

The place we had to sleep at wasn't exactly spaceous

Simple curry tastes really good after hours of walking

The plan was for us to get up at 1 am and continue our trip towards the peak. But when we woke up, we were told by the guide that the trip had been postponed to 3 am because the weather still wasn't getting better. And then, finally, at 3 am the guide said that they had given up and that we would start descending the mountain at 5 am.

Bad weather at Mt. Fuji

So eventually we never reached the top of the mountain, even after all the hardship we had gone through the previous day. Zannen! Not to mention that as we arrived at the fifth station again the weather had cleared up, and the sky was again nice and blue.. It was both a hard and funny trip at the same time, but next time I prefer a mountain where I don't have to que up to climb.