Halfway up Mount Fuji

  Mount Fuji- 7th station, Japan
Friday, July 28, 2006

A two hour bus journey got us to station 5 of Mount Fuji, which is as far as the road goes- after this, we're on our own! We'd already bought ourselves some cheap walking sticks, (having found the free bamboo sticks available on Mount Yufu invaluable) and were all ready to go. We were very fortunate indeed with the weather- by it's very nature Fuji is normally under a permenant cloud of drizzle- it was dry and relatively cloud-free for the entirety of today's climb.

Walking to station 6 was fairly easy- the slow incline and gravel-laid track didn't present much of a problem, and we were there in around 25 minutes. Getting to station 7 was much harder though. The trail got steeper, and was no longer a surfaced path. The whole route was full of shale and gravel balanced on top of smooth rocks- very slippery. Al and I had agreed to 'buddy' each other up, and we were both glad we'd avoided the rain, it looks like the whole route could just wash away!

The desolate landscape was a little daunting too. In strong contrast to Yufu's green grass and woodland paths, this is all volcanic rock as far as the eye can see, with only the occasional scrublike bush to provide any greenery- even these petered out after a while. To be honest the whole thing is worryingly reminiscent of Lord of the Rings' Mount Doom. Scary!

(New) Station 7 is our home for this evening, so we dumped out packs, swapped our now rather grey and ash-covered walking boots for the ubiquitous one-size-fits-none slippers, and explored the rather limited confines of the wooden building. Because we're staying here, we're allowed to stay inside the building itself, and use the toilets as much as we like. For folk just passing through, there are a couple of benches outside that they can rest on, a small fridge of extortionately priced drinks, and the privilege of a toilet can be theirs for a mere 200yen...

Most of our party settled down to pass the afternoon playing cards, and one of the three permanent station staff kindly gave us some green tea, which was a rather welcome addition to our table of sweets and unhealthy mountain snack foods. It turned out that the packet of biltong / beef jerky I'd bought a couple of days ago was in fact dried fish- not unpleasant, but a little unexpected!

The weather, which had been so kind to us so far, turned cloudy, and within half an hour the fog was so dense that it was hard to see much beyond the station compound. With cloud by now creeping in through the door (weird!), the sound of walkers passing by the station was also pretty muffled- so it came as something of a surprise when the peace was suddenly shattered by the arrival of a HUGE party of 13 to 16 year old schoolgirls totally nearly ninety, plus teaching staff.

The girls were very excited to find they were sharing with westerners, and took a particular shine to Alec. It was very amusing to watch as they actually queued up to have their photo taken with him- whilst he blushed for Britain. Even after that, they kept staring at him for the rest of the evening, some of the bravest girls even attempting some English with him before being hit by a bout of shyness. It looks like Al is Big In Japan...

At risk of sounding patronising when I don't mean to, I was incredibly impressed by the standard of behaviour by the school group throughout our time with them. Whilst they were clearly enjoying themselves, they were careful not to get in anyone else's way, and were very courteous both to us and each other- it was very clear that they were proud of their school and wanted to leave everyone with a good impression. A far cry from my own memories of school trips!

Communal space is at something of a premium, so the school party retreated to their 100-person dorm whilst we ate dinner - possibly the most expensive bowl of noodles I'll ever eat, but then we are halfway up a mountain - and settled down for bed; at 8pm!

Even this was a slightly strange experience. Ever slept in a 14-person bunk bed before? We have...

Possibly even more surreal was the sound that lulled us to sleep. Many people choose to climb Fuji at night, to be sure of being at the top for sunrise. So not only did we have the sounds of dozens of oxygen-deprived climbers toiling up the mountain and bumping into each other in the dark, but we also heard their walking stick 'safety bells' (the ones we'd been strictly instructed to remove from our own, for fear of driving ourselves steadily more crazy with every step). The net effect was weirdly reminiscent of Christmas...