Mount Fuji Climb: The True Account of my 11 Hour Overnight Hike up the Tallest Mountain in Japan

At 2am last Saturday night...

I sat wet and shivering in 20 degree weather at the summit of an active volcano and the tallest mountain in Japan. I'd spent a few hundred dollars on hiking equipment and a guide and seven hours climbing through the fog and rain, in order to get to that point. The icy rain had soaked through my wool gloves and my hands were numb and swollen. The wind was so strong, my fellow hikers and I had to huddle together behind a bolder, just to insure we didn't get blown off the side of the mountain.

And at that point, I found myself thinking: What am I doing here? This is insane!

And it was. But we had been warned.

Ten Hours Earlier...

Our bus from Tokyo had pulled up to the fifth station of Mount Fuji and parked itself in a giant cloud of mist. You could barely make out the trees and cars around you and the majestic cone shaped face of Fujisan, made famous in paintings and postcards the world over, was no where to be seen.

"If I were you, I wouldn't hike it," were our guide's exact words. "You're going to be miserable if you go up there." It was like a line right out of a horror movie, uttered a few scenes before the innocent hikers meet their untimely deaths. It was cliche, that it was tough to take seriously. Plus, as we all studied the sky, we could see patches of blue peeking through. That had to be a good sign, right?

The 40 of us took a vote and it was unanimous. We had all set aside a weekend, paid good money and had traveled three hours to get there. We were going to take our chances and hope that the weather cleared so that we'd be able to get that million dollar shot of a 'Fuji sunrise'. Because really, that's the only reason anyone bothers hiking Mount Fuji at all. The views at sunrise are supposedly breath-taking and on a clear morning, you can even see the urban skyline of Tokyo rising from the distance.

As our guides passed out energy drinks, headlamps and canisters of oxygen, they gave us the lowdown on what we'd expect. This wasn't going to be a 'Japanese-style' climb. We weren't going to be inching our way up in a long winding line. There would be roughly two groups; a fast group and a slow one. Each of us had a band of florescent red masking tape wrapped around our ankles, so that if we got lost, we would be able to spot each other in the dark. We were each assigned a buddy, but ultimately, if we lost our way, it'd be our responsibility to find our way back down. If we didn't arrive back at the fifth station by the scheduled meeting time the next morning, the bus would leave without us. There would be no search and rescue party.

"If you fall down and get hurt, just make sure that your right leg can be seen. Because if I see a leg with the red tape, I'll stop and help you," was roughly what our guide instructed us.

He said it as a joke, but he was serious. The mountain would be crowded with people. So much so, that at points along the narrow trail, we'd probably have to push and shove are way past people.

I was worried. The one and only time I'd hiked for seven hours continuously, was on an 8th grade class field trip, where I'd suffered from exhaustion and heat stroke and had thrown up on my sneakers. I was also worried about the high altitudes. The peak of Mt. Fuji stands at 3,776 meters (almost 12,000 feet). When I was in the Indian Himalayas last summer, I'd gotten a bad case of altitude sickness and had to go to the hospital. Although I'd been at a considerably higher altitude, the experience had made me swear off high altitudes and mountains in general. I had felt dizzy, disoriented, short of breath and at one point, I had been able to feel my arms and legs.

The Ascent...

The climb started off downhill and even though it was lightly drizzling, we were all in high spirits. We were all marching merrily along as one giant group and some people were even singing. This contrasted sharply with the hikers who passed us on the trail coming back down. We all noted their mud-splattered clothing, dripping wet hair and pained expressions as they marched silently and resolutely down. They looked miserable. But we were still optimistic.

There's a ranger station of sorts at the sixth station. And that was where we were each given a green paper map, highlighting the various trails that criss-crossed up down the face of the mountain.

"So, let's say you're hiking up the mountain alone and you fall and break your ankle. Will the rangers come rescue you?" I inquired.

The guide solemnly shook his head 'no', which made me wonder why the ranger station existed to begin with.

The next few hours, we made our way up the long volcanic ash trail, stopping at each station to catch our breath and breath from our oxygen canisters. I treated mine like a baby treats his bottle; I kept it within easy reach and sucked on it every 10 minutes or so. It wasn't that I necessarily needed it, and perhaps it's effects were only psychological, but every time I breathed in the pure H2, I felt it running through my veins, pumping energy into my exhausted muscles.

The stations were were really only small wooden huts that were staffed by people who lived in them throughout the summer months. They sold small bottles of water, Snicker bars, Ramen, hot cocoa and coffee...all which started at 5 dollars and slowly increased in price the further up the mountain we went. But that was nothing compared to the price of staying overnight in one.

For 80 dollars per person, you got a 'hotel room' which was really a only a few inches on a tatami mat, where, (as our guide informed us) you'd get the added bonus of cuddling up between two ageing Japanese men, one on each side.

Even more outrageous still, the price of even stepping foot inside the heated comfort of a hut, even for just a few minutes, was 4o dollars.

I couldn't believe that anyone would pay these outlandish prices, but as it grew dark, we watched as the huts slowly filled up until weary hikers were scrunched up into the corners with barely enough room to sip a cup of tea, let alone comfortably sleep. It was unbelievable.

I lost my Buddy...

It was around this time, that I lost the buddy I'd been assigned at the beginning of the hike. I don't know if it was the rain and foggy darkness or my sheer exhaustion, but it turned out the man in the pink poncho I'd been steadfastly climbing behind for the last 30 minutes, wasn't my buddy from Montreal but some random Japanese woman. To make matters worse, I couldn't remember when I'd last seen him or even what his name was. I just prayed he was somewhere in the throng of hikers behind us and not hurt and alone somewhere.

The 8th Station...

There were numerous huts that called themselves the '8th station' so as a result, our hopes were dashed each time we arrived at an '8th station' to find that we still had a few more to go until the summit. Starting at around eight o'clock, the huts started to refuse to sell us food and water. One hut barred us from even sitting down on their outdoor benches and resting.

Apparently, the big tour companies have a monopoly on all of the stations. They rent the station and all of it's services out for the night, which essentially leaves anyone who hasn't booked through that company, stranded in the rain and cold, without any access to food, water or a toilet. Our guide and the hut owners got in a screaming fight about this. It was the first time I'd heard a Japanese person curse someone out...it was bold and aggressive and completely shocking.

We eventually reached the "Fujisan Hotel", which was really just another wooden shack in disguise, but they let us rest there. We ordered enough food to feed an army and tried to eat as slowly as possible. I ordered a 12 dollar plate of beef curry and was able to make that single child-portioned plate of food last 30 minutes before they kicked us all out of the restaurant.

Midnight...

It was a painful venture back into the cold again. It hadn't stopped raining, and even though we were all dressed in water-proof rain gear, the strong wind whipped the rain against our faces and it dribbled down into the dry clothing underneath. It was so foggy that even with our headlamps, we couldn't see much more than a small patch in front of us. Gone was the steep but relatively smooth volcanic ash trail, and instead there were rocks and boulders that we constantly had to haul ourselves up and over.

And then I lost the group...

Miraculously, up until that point, I'd managed to keep stride with the 'fast group'. The 'slow group' of climbers had long ago fallen hours behind us. Some we had heard, (over the radio) had quit and chosen to hunker down at a hut for the night. But I'd begun to slow down at that point, stopping every minute or so to breath and blink the water out of my eyes. It was then that I noticed that the group had disappeared around a bend somewhere. In fact, it seemed as if everyone had disappeared and for the first time that night, I felt like it was just me and the mountain. I looked down the mountain side and was met only by darkness. I was engulfed in complete silence. It was eerie.

I fought the urge to panic and instead picked up my pace up the mountain. Even though I couldn't see the trail (or the cliffs on either side), I was convinced that if I just kept climbing, I'd run into someone.

The Summit...

I eventually found my group waiting ahead. My relief, though, was short-lived. Someone in the group was feeling sick from the altitude and our guide said that the wind had grown stronger and we'd have to walk in a single-file line now and stick close together. The path was narrow and the wind so strong that when you stood up straight, the gusts would hit you so hard it was tough to keep your footing. We had to hike bent over as close to the ground as possible. This made for a slow and painful climb. I kept thinking about how just the week before, two hikers had met their deaths up there. One had gotten blown off of a cliff and the other had been hit by lightning.

We stopped to rest every five minutes after that. Ice had begun to freeze onto our jackets. I was tired, dizzy and my muscles hurt in places I didn't know had muscles. My knees hurt. My wrist even hurt, from gripping my hiking stick so tightly.

We now began to stumble across hundreds of Japanese hikers strewn across the path like discarded trash. Some were merely resting, but some looked like they had collapsed and now refused to move. Quite a few were sleeping. Yes, sleeping. They were hunched over each other, wrapped in blankets and clinging onto boulders. They looked almost comfortable. And if it weren't for the rain and the gale-force winds, I believe that many of them could have gotten a good night of uninterrupted sleep out there.

We continued, and then the path got more congested. We'd reached the infamous 'line'. The fact that we were at the height of one of nature's most fantastic creations, and we were all waiting in a line to proceed to the top, didn't even surprise me. We were still in Japan, after all.

When we reached the summit, I barely even acknowledged it. Some people shook hands and high-fived each other. Some people hastily snapped a few photos. I just searched for place where I could sit down, before I fell down out of exhaustion. Apparently, as we soon found out, there weren't many options.

There were a few huts at the top, but none of them were open yet. The wind was blowing from every direction, so it didn't really matter where we sat. There would be no escaping it mother nature.

Everyone crammed around a toilet...

There way nothing to do but wait. As cold as I was, I was grateful I'd worn as many layers as I had. People commented that I looked very 'arctic' in my faux-fur-lined down jacket, but it was a life-saver. I saw a lot of hikers violently shivering up there in sandals and wet towels or scarves wrapped around their heads. A few people carried the broken remains of wind-torn umbrellas.

Probably the most bizarre thing I saw all night, was when I ventured away from where we were huddled to use the restroom. The little cement restroom was jam-packed full of Japanese people, all of them standing squished together in complete silence. A lot of them looked near frozen and many of them were sleeping. It was more crowded in that bathroom than on a subway train during rush-hour. It was insane. No one was waiting in line for the restroom, they were all just in there to get out of the cold.

Here comes the Sun...

Despite everything that pointed to the contrary, up until the sun rose, I still stubbornly clung on to the belief that the sky would clear and that we'd be able to see the sunrise and the spectacular view. Or at the very least, some view other than the vague outlines of boulders. Thanks to the dense fog, that was the sum total of all I'd seen of Mt. Fuji. It just seemed like such a waste to have paid all of that money and struggled all that way, only to have seen the inside of the summit bathroom.

But in the end, there was no actual visible sunrise...rather it just gradually got lighter until we had no choice but to accept that there would be no brilliant photo opportunities this trip. We then headed down, worn-out and defeated.

Here's an awful picture of me standing at the summit. This is one of the few photos I took, because it was raining too hard to risk getting my camera wet.

The Descent...

It took three hours. And those were the longest three hours of my life. Those who think that hiking downhill is easier than hiking uphill, haven't experienced it on no sleep. My back muscles were spasming under the weight of my pack and my knees ached from the strain of keeping myself upright as I slowly trudged down the steep and gravely path. At one point, my buddy (yes, I'd found him again!) and I got separated from the group. There were several descending paths and we'd been warned that the wrong path would lead us down the complete opposite side of the mountain.

We stood at fork in the road and studied the pieces of wet soggy green paper that once our maps. Dazed and numb, we took a wild guess and headed left. Luckily, it was the right decision and we located our group at the bottom, where they were drinking beer in a half-hearted celebration of our survival. Mostly though, everyone was too weary to feel anything but relief.

One Week Later...

I later asked my guide how our climb ranked in comparison with other groups he'd guided. He told me that of the four years he's been leading tours up Mount Fuji, three times it's rained and twice it's been that cold...but never has it rained that long or been that cold all at once. I guess we just got lucky that way.

He did say that our hike was a success, in that most of us made it to the summit and no one was injured or got seriously ill. So I guess there's that, at least.

Our Fuji climb was an adventure and it definitely wasn't mundane or boring. And there's nothing like a near-death experience to make you appreciate being alive.

But I'd still like to see the view...and possible hike around the crater. So I just might give it another shot next summer.

The only question left is...Who's coming with me?

"One who never climbs Mount Fuji is a fool, and one who climbs twice is twice the fool."

- Japanese Proverb