Mt. Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776.24 m. As a national symbol of Japan, it has an influence on Japanese culture from the old times. Japanese call it ‘sacred Mt. Fuji’, what reflects how special it is for them. View of Mt. Fuji became the theme of paintings, poems and various art works. Probably, for the foreigners, this charactristic view is one of the most recognisable symbole of Japan. Over 300,000 people climb on Mt. Fuji every year. Because of weather conditions, routes are open for tourists from July to August. Guide is not required, but I bought the tour packet through the travel agency and I was really content with their service. We had gathered around in Shinjuku (Tokyo) and came by bus to the Fuji Subaru Line 5th Station, where is the start point of the popular ‘Yoshida route’.

Preparation

Services of travel agency provide accommodation in a shelter, transport , guide and 2 meals during the hiking, but there are few things more, that you have to care about, by yourselves. Further you go, it’s colder and more windy. Because of weather conditions, thermal, warm clothes, gloves and hat are absolutely essential. If you don’t want to get soaked, prepare a waterproof jacket and trousers. I recommend you taking hiking sticks as well, that make the climbing much easier, because you can always lean on them. Moreover, they help you to keep balance on the stone route. If you’re planning to climb at night or late evening, don’t forget to take a headlamp. However, the most important are comfortable hiking shoes with a thick sole.
Except of shoes and clothes, you should prepare your favourite and nutritional snacks. Don’t forget to complement your calorie loss, because during physical effort, your strength is getting low and you can easily fill sick. Food and drinks are sold in shelters on the route, but prices are twice more higher than in a normal shop. Are you ready? Let’s go then!

The first day

In the early morning, I came by bus from Yokohama to the Shinjuku in Tokyo with the part of a group. In the Shinjuku, we met the others and transfered a bus, which took us to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji. Before we got there, we stopped near the rent shop, because some people needed to rent hiking equipment. As a foreigner, I didn’t have necessary clothes, shoes and accessories, so I had no choice but to rent everything. In Polnd, renting hiking equipment is not as popular, as in Japan, where this system works very well.

In the 5th station of Mt. Fuji, we had enough time to change the clothes and place unnecessary luggage inside the coin locker. Before the departure, our guide set some rules to care of our safety. Elder and physically weak people were transfered to the beggining of the group to adjust tempo to everyone. We were walking too slowly for me, but when you walk with a group, you have to accept some inconveniences right?
Route was full of stones and rocks. The higher we climbed, the steeper it was and it was very easy to slip or collapse. Although it became more dangersous, advices of the guide were very helpful for avoiding any accidents. He explained us how to use hiking sticks and how to walk depend on type of route. We were taking short breaks very often, what enable us to endure whole day of climbing. We were taking one longer break per hour, and then we were stopping in shelters set along the route. Then we had time for eating snacks, taking photos, using toilet and rest.
People climb mountains to watch beautiful lanscapes from the tops. In case of my trip, lanscape became more beautiful with every hour of hiking. View of Kawaguchi Lake and Saiko Lake had been chaging depends on time of the day, and place of watching. In the evening sky was colored with redness of sunset, what completely changed the view of lakes. After 7 hours of climbing, we finally got into the mountain shelter. Although I felt extremely cold and tired, I was really satisfied and happy.
I was very hungry and I ate up whole received meal. The shelter was full of tourists and it was really difficult to assign people to beds. I had to sleep near unknown person, because I came on the tour alone. Thanks to the fact that I slept near the girl from USA, I made a new friend and had a companion during the next day of the tour!

The next day

It was very close from the shelter to the top of Mt. Fuji, but if we wanted to manage to watch the sunrise from the top, we had to depart as early as at night. Climbing the mountain at 3 a.m. was the most difficult part of the tour for me. I was sleepy and tired after the previous day. Moreover, icy blast of wind cut me to the bone. I couldn’t even walk faster to get warm, because route was too crowded and we had to walk slowly and stop many times. After two houres, we finally got to the top. When I saw an adorable view of sunrise, suddenly forgot about cold and exhaustion. It was really worh climbing and enduring two tiring days. Fortunately, there was no rain or fog, so we could watch amazing rising sky in the clear sky. After taking a lot of photos, we started to come down the mountain.
For me, going down was much more difficult than going up. Leg position is uncomfortable during going down and knee start to hurt quickly. Besides, we try to arrive at the station as fast as we can, so we didn’t take a long breaks. We got there at 10 a.m., but I seemed like it’s evening becuse of early waking up. Except of costs connected with climbing, tour price included visit in the onsen and wine degustation. It was well-deserved rest and relax after two tiring days of hiking.

Summary

I’m really happy that I managed to tackle the challenge of climbing the highest mountain in Japan. Because of regular physical exercises, it wasn’t as difficult for me, but I’m sure, that for the elder people it was a great achievement. If you are planning tour on the Mt. Fuji, I recommend you going with a guide or person experienced in a hiking. If you don’t speak Japanese, remember to chose services of guide, who speaks English. In my group, there were some Americans and Chinese who were a litlle bit lost, beacuse the guide was speaking mostly in Japanese. What do you think? Would you like to try climbing the Mt. Fuji?

Weronika Golubska

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* This article was written by a trainee from overseas. Please note that there might be spelling and grammar mistakes.