First, I will preface this by saying I don't think I want to hike Fuji anymore after this. It was an arduous journey with no decent pay-off at the end. I don't necessarily regret my decision, since it was still an interesting experience, I just wouldn't do it again.

The day before the hike, my hiking buddy Nabil and I stayed at this simple but comfy inn in Kawaguchiko called the Fujizakura after taking the bus from Shinjuku. We picked Fujizakura because it is close to the train and bus station, but that side of town is really boring. Still much nicer than South-East Asian villages I guess, but the small shops and businesses dotted along the main road are all spaced out so we had to walk about 800 metres to the nearest viable food option for dinner, a tempura shop next to the train and bus station. Honestly this tempura shop is probably the best place to eat this side of town if you can't afford the more expensive restaurants. And it's next to the train station! Little did I know this place would save our lives the following day...

Good ol' Fujizakura

Shots of our fav Kawaguchiko eating spot

The tempura master in his element

Good tempura, paired with beer, is like a matchmake in heaven

Ooh, I should probably mention about the Takegawa udon in the picture above, which is supposed to be a local speciality. I prefer the standard broth with Sanuki udon to be honest, but then again I didn't go to a proper udon restaurant in Kawaguchiko (there's quite a few around), pretty sure this tempura place ain't got any strength when it comes to udon, so I'll reserve my judgement till the day I visit a proper Takegawa udon restaurant. Anyway we slept early after watching some tennis on Japanese TV (I think Naomi Osaka was playing? Gosh my memory sucks). Woke up the next day and took a late morning bus from the train and bus station (which was really crowded, hiking season I guess) to Fuji-Subaru 5th Station where we had a proper lunch before starting our hike.

The 5th Station was swarming with tourists too. Mostly tourists who did not intend to hike, judging from their attire. If you ask me, I really doubt there's any point in coming to the 5th Station if you don't want to hike, because this place is just a couple of souvenir shops and a shrine... unless there's some amazing scenic area I don't know about. The weather was quite erratic IIRC, when we first arrived it was kinda misty with a slight drizzle, slightly chilly, and then after that the sun came out and burned all the mists to nothing, but then the mist and drizzle came back again and so on...

A photo I managed to snap when the mist disappeared

Gotta thank the gods for keeping me safe during this hike

Obligatory commemorative photo

After lunch we finally started our hike up. No fear at all about getting lost here, there are sufficient trail markers and hordes of people to follow. We weren't in any rush because we booked our rooms at Toyokan, which is only about half way up Fuji, about 3-4 hours away from the 5th Station. Even though that meant we had to hike at least another 4 hours to get to the summit from Toyokan, the reason for Toyokan rather than a hut closer to the summit was because after looking through tonnes of Fuji mountain huts photos and comments, it became pretty clear that Toyokan definitely had the best rooms. Fuji mountain huts in general are known for being expensive, dingy and spartan, so we were pretty happy to be able to get a booking at the best place Fuji could offer.

There's nothing spectacular on the way up, it's just rocks and more rocks really. And it was drizzling sporadically, but nothing too extreme. Reached Toyokan way before sunset, the friendly hostess briefed us on the house rules in perfect English and we had an early dinner of hamburger (Japanese style, no bread) and rice before heading off to our beds, uhh I mean sleeping bags, around 7 pm, because we had to wake up around midnight to continue if we wanted to catch the sunrise. Yup on Mount Fuji even money can only get you a sleeping bad in a small claustrophobia-inducing partitioned area in a room shared by 20-30 others.

I didn't sleep very well. Honestly I don't think I have ever slept at 7 pm before in my life (jetlag situations aside). A comfy mattress with feather pillows would have definitely helped, but ain't no one bringing those up to Fuji, so we had to contend ourselves with the sleeping bags. I wanted to make good use of my 10,000 yen though, and I knew I needed some rest if I wanted to hike another 4 hours to the top and then another 4-5 hours for the descend. so I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my brain to shutdown. Guessed it did work because I woke up a few hours later. So after a few sessions of fitful sleeping and waking, it was finally time for us to wake up for good and start hiking in the dark to the summit to catch the sunrise.

Ahh, the very beginning

The way up is a lot of this

And this

There's a lot of clouds too I guess

This is what 10,000 yen can get you

This second part of the journey was something of a torture. The path up is steep, especially the part just after Toyokan. The rain was also heavier now compared to during the day, pelting mercilessly at the steady stream of hikers going up towards the summit in the night. Although my Eddie Bauer jacket was good enough to keep my upper body warm and dry, my pants, socks and shoes were not waterproof so I got soaked pretty fast. Hiking in the dark is also a completely different animal from its day counterpart because visibility is so poor that one has to pay extra attention and tread very carefully if one does not want to break his/her neck or go crashing down into the people below. There was definitely no fear of getting lost though, because everyone wants to catch the sunrise so it almost feels more like a moving queue up to the summit, especially nearer to the top. The going was very very slow indeed, but it's not like I could have gone any faster anyway. I was shivering from the cold and wet and exhausted from the physical exertion and lack of sleep. I'm pretty sure Nabil felt the same way too. It got so bad, we gave up on catching the sunrise and decided instead to take a short break at Goraikoukan, the hut closest to the summit. This short break consisted of sipping hot chocolate while shivering violently and pitifully inside the hut. It was still raining and at one point we almost decided to pay another 10,000 yen to screw the entire thing and sleep till our hearts content at Goraikoukan instead. I don't know how and why we pushed on.

We were already too late for the sunrise when we finally reached the summit, and although the rain finally let up, it was still freezing cold up there (I think it was about 5 deg C). Unfortunately, due to the weather, there was no view to be had at all, just loads of mists blocking our view of the valley bellow. So you see, after about 8 hours of hiking in total, getting soaked to the bone and shivering our asses off for the last 4 hours or so, we couldn't even get a good view from the top. Fuji just basically gave us a big "Fuck You" haha. Sadly I took a total of 3 photos on the summit because photo-taking becomes a lesser priority when you're trying not to die from hypothermia.

Thanks for being a champ Nabil! We did it!

I think we basically did only 2 things before starting our descent:
1. Huddle inside a small cafe hut to warm ourselves up. Not very effective because the cafe's huge entrance way was kept open for customers to shuffle in and out. Also, I happily ordered corn sup to warm myself up and received... canned corn sup. In a drinking can, like the type you drink soda from. It tasted absolutely disgusting. Took a sip and then after that I used the can to warm my hands. When there was no more heat left to absorb I chucked it away (sorry).
2. Huddle inside a stinking public toilet to warm ourselves up. It was smelly, it was dirty, but oh we were so reluctant to leave because it was considerably warmer inside. Never in my life would I have imagined that I would choose to hang out in a stinking toilet under any circumstances.

Before coming here, I had plans of sending a postcard from the post office on top of Fuji, walking around... exploring... but I completely forgotten about those plans due to my sufferings. I just wanted to get down from there and huddle up in someplace warm. So after getting my souvenir wooden pole stamped in the shrine (yes there's a shrine), we descended the mountain. Descending was even duller. Imagine just circling round and round the mountain for hours and hours with this being your only view:



I was thinking miserably about how walking round and round like that forever with no end could potentially be some form of eternal damnation. It even started raining again when we were close to the bottom. Still, finally the reddish soil part ended and we found ourselves back on the path that we trekked up the day before, only now we were in the opposite direction. I was so thankful when the buildings of the 5th Station finally came into view.

While it was definitely a memorable experience hiking Fuji, but I think I'll just leave it as a once in a lifetime thing. Some things are better from afar:

From a distance... Fuji is all beauty and grace

Omake: When we finally got back to Kawaguchiko station, we were extremely exhausted and still soaking wet. Although we wanted to check into the swanky hotel we booked and crash into bed immediately, we thought it better to grab a quick bite first. Thanks to the tempura shop from the day before, we didn't have to walk any further. I traipsed water everywhere, made the chair I sat on wet and the tempura doesn't taste that great when you're cold and tired, but I am still extremely grateful for the presence of that little tempura shop. Ah, what would we have done without you?