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).

Bus Route to Fuji

As we roll away from Tokyo, the skyscrapers gave way to hills and valleys. Laura napped quietly as I stared out the window of the bus and snapped pictures of the passing landscape.

Town near Mt. Fuji

Roadside view heading up Mt. Fuji

Our bus took us up to the Kawaguchiko 5th Station on Mt Fuji. The 5th Station is 2300m up the mountain and is the usual starting point for the climb up Fuji. From there, it is another 1,476 vertical meters to the top. The 5th Station was not what we were expecting. The place was quite built up with several large store/restaurants around the main square. One person on the bus remarked, “This isn’t the 5th Station. This is DisneyLand.”

Each store sold plain wood walking sticks with additional flags and bells tied to them. Laura and I both bought a stick and removed the flag and bells. (Most people end up removing the bells for their own sanity) The sticks serve dual purposes, the first is to help climb up the mountain. Second, the stick can be used as a souvenir. At each hut along the mountain, you can get a stamp burned into the wood to show that you were there. Each station charges 200 yen ($2) for the stamp which can add up if you get a stamp from all 25 huts on the mountain.

Before heading up the mountain, Laura and I had a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant. From the window of the restaurant, we could periodically see Mt. Fuji when it wasn’t obscured by clouds.

View from restaurant on 5th Station

Around 12:15 we started our hike up the mountain. On the bus ride we had made friends with 3 Americans who were also climbing up the mountain. We decided that at least for the first part of the climb, we would all stay together.

Fuji Trailhead

From left to right: Laura, Me, Brian, John, and Philip

Fuji Critical Information Sign (English on bottom)

All around the mountain, there was a thick fog. At some patches, visibility was less than 50 meters. The first part of the climb was actually downhill. We were concerned that we might be on the wrong trail and had to ask a person going the other way where he was coming from.

Heading towards the 6th Station

At the start, John and I fell into pace next to each other and started powering up the trail. However, our cadence was quickly outpacing the group. After being called out on it, we slowed it down to a more reasonable rate. After 15 minutes, the trail started heading back up again. We continued through the fog up to the 6th Station which probably was at the same height as the 5th Station. The fog is in full force, but it isn’t stopping a class of 1st graders.

Fuji 1st graders at 6th Station

After the 6th Station, Laura and I decided to break off from the group and continue at our own pace. From the 6th to the 7th Stations, most of the trail is a zigzagging packed earth earth. We took our time going up the trail and took breaks after each zag.

Laura taking a break

Not too far up the path, we heard the boom of thunder. Shortly after, it started pouring down rain. Luckily Laura and I had brought heavy duty ponchos.

Poncho Time

Roughly 100 vertical meters from the first station 7 (there are half a dozen of them), the trail turns into rocks.

Rock path to 7th Station

After a short climb, we arrive at the 7th station. The rain is still coming down so we buy a candy bar from the hut and take some pictures. In the picture, I am pointing at the thermometer that reads 10 C (50 F). The candy bar cost us 300 yen ($3) and we didn’t realize that we were being fleeced until we climbed another 20 meters and found out the next hut was selling the bar for 200 yen ($2).

Fuji 7th Station

Chocolate Bar

So far the climb hasn’t been too bad. Both Laura and I have a mild headache, but nothing really to stop us from climbing. We had learned to move slowly up the mountain. It is important to ascend using a series of shorter steps rather than trying to clear 6+ inches of height with a step. If you moved too fast, you could feel yourself going lightheaded.

Golden Temple

Waterfall near Golden Temple

Golden Temple Picture of Inside

The Monkey Park (aka Iwatayama Park) is home to 170 snow monkeys. To get to the park, we have to hike to the top of hill in the forest. Before heading out there, Carolyn kept on reading the warnings to us.

• Don’t look the monkeys in the eyes
• Don’t feed the monkeys
• Don’t bend over (Carolyn keep wondering what would happen)

By the time we reached the park, a thorough sense of monkey paranoia had set in. Following the path up, we came across a monkey sitting in the middle of the path. Carolyn cautioned us to not look at him. We decided to take an alternative path. As we started down the alternate path, the monkey walked over to block that route. Having run out of options, we waited for some Japanese tourists to walk past the monkey to see if it was safe. After the monkey let them by unmolested, we decided to take our chances walking past the monkey being careful not to look at him.

Much to our horror, the monkey decided to follow us up the path. A second monkey heading down the path grunted at us putting us further on edge. At the top of the hill sat a hut enclosed with metal chainlinks. Hanging along the outside of the building were dozens of monkeys. We were ushered into the hut by the attendants. Inside were several tourists feeding the monkeys through holes in the chainlink mesh. After watching a tourist feed a monkey, we decided to give it a try. We each bought a bag of food. We had apples, peanuts, and nuts to feed them.

The monkeys would hang from the sides of the building and stick their hands through the mesh waiting for food. You could either hand them the food or have them take it from the palm of your hand. The older monkeys were more aggressive and would kind of scratch your hand with their nails as they snatched the food from your hand. The younger monkeys tend to be very gentle taking the food. Like a bunch of kids, you had to share the food with everyone. If one monkey felt he wasn’t getting enough food, he would yell to let you know his displeasure. On the other hand, you could keep on giving the same monkey food and he would put it in his mouth and hold out his hand for another piece of food. One monkey was holding three nuts into his cheeks and was waiting for me to give him a fourth.

After feeding the monkeys 6 bags of food, we headed outside to see the monkeys play in a nearby pond. By the pool, there were several monkeys hanging near the edge picking at the plants and eating the odd scraps. Usually the monkeys would always keep at least two paws on solid ground while fishing around in the pool. However, there was the occasional monkey that would get into the pond and swim around. Whenever a swimming monkey would come near the edge, another monkey would come and pull him out. At first, it looked like the monkey on land was trying to drown the swimming monkey, but later we realized that he was pulling him out.

After hanging out in the monkey park for an hour, we headed down the hill to take a bus back to our hotel. Laura and I took the slide shortcut down the hill.

Shortcut down the slide

Tomorrow, we head back to Tokyo.

River near Monkey Park

Warning Sign for Monkeys

Outside Monkey Hut

From inside hut

Brian feeding monkeys

Mother Monkey with baby

Posing with a monkey

View from Monkey Hill. (Our hotel is next to the tower in distance)

The past week has been quite busy. The day after Laura arrived, we toured around the Shibuya for the day. It was over 85 with high humidity. By the end of the day, Laura was sick from not drinking enough water. The next day we headed to Kyoto. Each day we have been leaving the hotel in the morning and not coming back until late at night. Kyoto has be alternating between heat and rain (usually during the same day). We have been averaging close to 12 miles a day walking.

Needless to say, there has not been a lot of time to write. Today we are grabbing a bus pass and heading to several temples that sit in the hills that surround Kyoto.

In the meantime, here are some pictures and videos from Yoyogi Park.

Japanese Westside Story

Showing what a man with ski googles and black face paint can do

I start the toaster and wander into the next room. After a couple of minutes, I hear the toaster pop and I wait another minute for the toaster to cool down enough to flip the toast. I come into the kitchen and it is filling with smoke. The toast is still stuck in the toaster and has turned to jet black. Smoke is streaming out of the toaster. I pull up the toast and starting opening windows.

As I go room to room I discover that the entire house is filled with smoke. As I open windows, I find that the smoke isn’t going out. The rain outside is creating a high pressure zone that prevented the smoke from escaping out. I am forced to go room by room with a towel and fan the smoke out.

Birthday breakfast

Victorian Style Harajuku Girl

Goth Harajuku Girls with Pringles for Lips

After all the build up with the search, we were kind of let down. But, there were still Elvises to find. Hearing music to the left, we head out in search of its source. Coming to the entrance of Yoyogi Park, it quickly becomes apparent that Japan is a very different society than America.

There is not one dancing Elvis. Not even one group of dancing Elvises. There are three separate groups competing for the attention of speechless onlookers.

We didn’t have any really good directions so we had to wander around the area. Eventually, we found a jammed packed street that we thought must be Harajuku Street. However, after trekking all the way through it, we discovered that it was actually Takeshita-dori which is a collection of fashion shops.

Takeshita-dori

Takeshita-dori Kuwaii Fashion

Takeshita-dori Storefront

Takeshita-dori Spoiler Alert

Yoyogi park

Whirlpool as first seen

"Whirlpool" aka Bird Island

View from Tokyo Bay Hilton Room 1120