Fuji-san Summit

This weekend Taylor and I hiked Mount Fuji! We are thankful for our friends who took care of the boys so we could go together.

We have been wanting to hike this for a while and decided to risk it even though the forecast was predicting some rain. The rain didn’t look too bad and the wind and temperature were still in a safe zone so why not. We just made sure we rented some rain gear before we left 😉

The plan was to start at 5th Station, hike to 8th station and stay at a mountain hut overnight, leave very early in the morning to get to the summit by sunrise, then hike down the descending trail. We started looking at reserving a hut a few weeks after they opened reservations for the season, so most were already completely booked on the weekends, but we did manage to snag some spots at Taishi-kan hut. This is the first hut you get to at 8th station, but only about halfway to the summit so we still had quite a ways to go to the summit in the morning.

We drove up and it was so cloudy we couldn’t even see the mountain…so funny because when it’s clear, you literally cannot miss it. We drove to the parking lot and took their bus up to 5th Station (2300m above sea level) where Yoshida trail begins. We were originally going to spend some time at 5th station to acclimate to the altitude a little before hiking but we ran into some traffic on our drive which put us behind schedule. I didn’t want to miss the dinner time window at our hut so we started our hike right away (around 1 pm). Thankfully neither of us had issues with altitude sickness through the trip.

The beginning of the hike was kind of like walking up a steep hill and then we got to more rocky terrain where it was more like stepping up rock stairs. Between 7th and 8th station it was really slow going because the trail was pretty crowded and you really couldn’t pass people on a lot of it. You had to just go at the pace of the crowd. Weather was misty and drizzly but not windy.

A popular thing people do on their way up is get a Fuji stick and get it stamped at different spots on your way up. Each year the stamps change so some people are able to go multiple times and fill up their stick. We started with just one stamp from Yokosuka MWR.

Here we are posing with our stick as we get new stamps.

It took us about 4.5 hours to get to our hut at 3100m altitude. It was nice to be able to stop and get some dry clothes on and we put on our cozier jackets as it was starting to get chilly. The hut gave us a sleeping bag and pillow and provided dinner and breakfast. We each had a little pod to sleep in, kind of like an open capsule hotel. Each pod had a shelf we could put our gear and boots on. In sync with the rest of Japan, you don’t wear shoes inside. They gave us a bag to put our boots, so the hut was very clean. For dinner they gave us some rice and curry, fish (super tasty!), sausage, little desserts, and green tea. It was pretty good and warmed us up. At dinner, they also gave us a little to go bag for breakfast which had a donut type pastry (delightful), some sort of rice meal (which we ended up not eating), and water. The bathrooms were right outside the hut and made for a quick run in the cold if you needed to go. They did provide some crocs to slip on so you didn’t have to go through the hassle of putting on your dirty boots each time.

After dinner we took a restroom break and it had briefly stopped raining and you could see some cloud separation.

The trail to the summit is estimated a 3 hour hike from our hut, so our plan was to wake up at 12:30 am to reach summit by sunrise (at 4:40 am). After dinner we tried sleeping even though it was only 6 pm…not our usual bedtime. Taylor was slightly more successful than me and got a around 4 hours. I was struggling to sleep. Maybe got 2 hours. I was too busy listening to the rain and wind outside…Around 8 pm I got up to use the restroom (after I heard less rain coming down). To my surprise, outside the hut there were people huddled along the wall and some taking shelter in the restroom even. They seemed miserable! I’m assuming they were still making their way up to their huts or trying to do an overnight hike and they got stuck in the bad rain. You can only go inside the huts if you made a reservations so people just get stuck out there. Thankful we didn’t get caught in that! When I checked the weather it said very little rain for our second part of the hike so we decided to continue with our original schedule. We got our stuff ready and headed out the hut around 1:15 am.

Initially, the weather didn’t seem too bad, it was dark and a little misty, but not awful and we felt warm with all our layers. It was pretty dark and the only lights were from the huts, but we had headlamps. When we started we could see some of the city lights way at the bottom of the mountain so that was pretty cool (probably the clearest weather we had all trip). As we went up the wind began picking up and there was a little more rain mixed with the mist. I started to get really cold the higher we got. When we stopped for breaks I felt like my muscles were going to start cramping if I didn’t keep moving. Taylor was unbothered by everything of course. The drizzle and mist made it hard to see even with the headlamps so we were being pretty careful with our steps. We don’t have many pictures of this part of our hike because we had our gloves on which made it difficult to get our phones out to take pictures.

The last stretch was challenging for me and it felt like it went on forever. I was chanting in my head like Dory from Finding Nemo…just keep swimming, just keep swimming…Taylor kept telling me we were almost there even though he really had no idea, we couldn’t see anything lol. It helped though, now I know why saying that works for the kids! Taylor really liked this part of the hike and wasn’t bothered by the weather. He liked doing it at night and there was barely anyone on the trail with us so we didn’t get stuck behind people.

We passed some really cool looking torii gates and some shi shi dog statues. You couldn’t see them until you were right up next to them because of the mist and dark. After about 2 hours and 45 minutes we finally reached the top! 3776 m, yay! There was a restaurant open at the top that we quickly went into to get out of the rain and brutal wind. We spent way too much money on cup of noodles (900 yen each! about $6.50 with the current conversion rate though) and some coffee. We had to order something to be able to stay in there and I needed something warm…worth it!

We stayed in there for a little bit and left to see the sunrise…it was…glorious cold.

You couldn’t see anything! It was super windy and the mist was so thick. Taylor was also bummed because for some weather related reason they were unable to give the summit stamp for our Fuji stick. All the way up and no summit stamp…womp, womp!

After we took these pictures we went back into the restaurant and I got some overly priced hot miso soup. It was actually really delicious though. After I felt slightly warmer, so we braved the wind and found the descending trail and began our trek down…4 hours of down.

As we descended the weather started getting better and we saw some cool cloud formations.

Finally we made it back to 5th Station.

Despite the weather, it was a really cool experience and I’m glad we did it! Maaaaaaybe we will do it again someday…only if there is 0% chance of rain 😉

BRB, Out to Japan – Jackie