Trail becomes harder
Brian climbing from 1st 7th Station
After the clearing the first 7th Station, we found the trail became much more rocky. You can see in this picture a man with a sugegasa (or paddy hat). His group would become our pace car. When they would catch up with us, we knew it was time to start moving again. As we continued up through the various 7th stations, we kept trying to get our walking sticks branded. However, because of the rain, they refused to do it. As we continued climbing, the trail got rockier and it became harder and harder to kept pace.
Rockier Path
After an hour, the rain let up and the fog lifted so we could get a better view of the mountain.
View from 2nd 7th Station down
Fuji 3rd 7th Station
Fuji 3rd 7th Station
Unmelted Snow
At the third 7th Station, Laura and I stop to eat some beef jerky and trail mix. I scarf down the food, but Laura isn’t eating that much. We set our sights on getting to the fourth 7th Station where there is a Meiji gate. This is the last of the 7th Stations and then onto the 8th. From there we only need to get to station 8.5 where our bed for the night is waiting.
Fuji 4th 7th Station
The climb up the Meiji gate is very slow. Both Laura and I are finding that our headaches are getting a little worse. I find that taking deeper breaths helps clear my head a little bit. We are especially careful about not climbing too fast. In true Fuji fashion, the path to the 8th Station is even more rocky than before.
Fuji Path to 8th Station
Pace group catches up
We are now at an altitude of roughly 3000m and have been hiking for 3 hours. We have slowed down considerable. Our pace group passes us 50 m short of the 8th station. Laura is only able to go 10 feet before needing to rest. She is showing the signs of altitude sickness. However, we must make it to the 8th Station because I really need to pee. Driven onward, we make it to 8th station and I rush into the toilet (not forgetting to make the required donate 200 yen for its use). The 8th station is unoccupied as the main rush of hikers don’t come until July 11th when holiday begins in Japan. There is a not so friendly sign in the bathroom.
$500 charge for sleeping in the 8th Station bathroom
Laura and I have a conference to decide what to do. We are currently at 3100m (10,100 ft). Our bed reservation is for the 8.5 station at 3400m. The peak is another 376m at 3776m above sea level (12388 ft). She is feeling nauseous and her headache is only becoming worse. We decide that we should descend down the mountain and see if we can get to the 5th Station before nightfall. It is 4:45PM and the sun goes down at 7:00PM. But before we can go down, we need to take care of some things. First we get our walking sticks branded to show how high we climbed. Next, I made Laura take one step past the 8th Station so we could claim we passed the 8th Station.
Laura passes the 8th Station
Brian dies on the path to the 8.5 Station
Back down we go
We start heading back down but we aren’t making great time. Laura still can’t go fast and considers whether or not she wants to throw up on the side of the trail. With Laura and the sun in a race to bottom of the mountain, I have plenty of time for photos.
Fuji's shadow
Multiple layers of clouds
It becomes clear that we are not going to make it to the 5th Station before nightfall. We decide that we should at least get something to eat at the 2nd 7th Station. We order some noodle soup and hot chocolate. However, eating even a single noodle makes both Laura and I sick to our stomachs. With all of my mountaineering experience as a flatlander, I advise Laura to try to eat something. As we eat, both our faces look something like this:
Face of altitude sickness
While we are eating, the fire alarm in the hut is chirping every 30 seconds. The employees in the hut are in a deep conversation about what to do. It takes them 20 minutes to decide to replace the battery. Glad that the chirping is over, we decide to spend the night at the 7th station. The one employee who spoke English chats with us a little bit and asks how we are feeling since we have barely touched our meals. She informs us that we have elevation sickness and we should not eat anything until we get below the 5th Station (so much for my advice). Eating draws blood towards the stomach when it really should be carrying oxygen to the brain. The brain retaliates by making you feel sick and possibly throwing up. The woman kindly asks “Would you like to vomit?” and I politely decline with “No thanks”.
She shows us to our bunk which is one of a dozen 6ft by 6ft cubby hole with a padded mat and two down blankets. The bunk would routinely hold 3 to 4 people during the busy season, but we are lucky enough to be the only visitors to the station. Twenty seconds after Laura and I lay down, Laura says “I’m going to throw up” and jumps out of the bed. I wonder if she will make it the 35 feet to the door outside. Three seconds later I hear my answer. She only makes it four feet away from the bed before she loses her dinner. One of the employees leads her outside while the other sets about cleaning up the floor. After getting cleaned up, Laura feels better and is able toe lie down in the bed. The down comforters keep us very warm. It was 9PM when we went to bed and we got up around 6AM the next day. Surprisingly, all through the night people continued to hike up the mountain.
I had a good night’s sleep while Laura slept fitfully. In the morning I woke up with a pain in my left hip. Upon further examination, I discovered that I had left eight 100 yen coins in my left pocket when I went to bed. After saying goodbye, we headed down the mountain to the 5th Station where we could catch a bus. The weather was great on our way down and most of the cloud cover was gone.
Fuji Stations
The descend to the 5th Station only took us 1.5 hours. However, retracing our steps, we were surprised by how high we had gone and how difficult the terrain was. On the way down, we took some picture of the landscape.
Rock Squirrel
View from 6th Station
Trail to 5th Station
We arrived back at the 5th Station at 8AM. We caught the 8:30 bus back to Tokyo and had a delicious lunch at McDonald’s. All in all, the climb up Fuji was fun and challenging. It was a shame we couldn’t make it to the top, but that just means I have reason to come back to Japan (for at least a day).
