Vending Machines at 3,776 m (12,388 ft)
My mystery cold/stomach based illness which I picked up in Vietnam finally disappeared last week. After around 2 weeks of inactivity I decided to get the blood pumping again. So starting on Sunday I got back into the fitness regime. Kickboxing for three consecutive days was the baptism of fire, then I followed it by climbing Mount Fuji!
We left Tokyo at 8pm, got to the highest point accessible by car (on this particular route anyway, there are about 5 ways up the mountain) at 10pm, then started climbing at 10:30pm.
Woah, woah, woah Dave I hear you cry in disbelief. 10:30pm?!?. Well yes, that is not a typo, there are only two reasons to climb Mount Fuji...
1. Because its there.
2. For the view, or specifically the view of the sunrise you can get from the top.
Basically the climb itself is not that thrilling, Fuji is a volcano so the landscape is rocky and moon-like at some points, so no animals or nice foliage to look at. The main sight in the area is the mountain itself, which you can't see when you're climbing it. So getting to the top by about 4:30am is the target for most climbers, as is the hope that the weather stays fine and there isn't low cloud. If these all come together you're rewarded with a view over the clouds and a beautiful sunrise.
Apparently it normally takes 6-8 hours to get to the top, plus a lot of people will stop for a nap or a rest in one of the many mountain huts on the way up adding to this estimated time. You can see the sunrise from any point on the hiking course and I think most people see it close to, but not actually at the top of, the mountain due to underestimating how long it will take to climb.
Due to the late start there wasn't really the luxury of stopping, so battling against the occasional dizziness of altitude sickness I sped up the mountain in a mere five and a half hours, giving me 30 minutes to find a nice spot to watch the sunrise and buy an overpriced can of coffee from the vending machine on top.
After seeing the sunrise there's little else to do except buy overpriced food, have a quick nap, look at the crater, send a postcard from the post office at the top of the mountain....then....climb down again! It's a bit faster but even so, after climbing all through the night the last thing you want to do is spend another 3 hours scrambling back down the mountain.
As per usual, there are more photos if you click the title of this post.