日曜日, 7月 09, 2006
So... yesterday/today was the worst day of my life.
You may think this is some sort of exauguration, but I assure you that it is not.
The reason: I climbed Mt Fuji.
So the day (7/8) began around 11am when I woke up and packed my backpack for Fuji. I took:
My Japan guidebook- it had Fuji info and phone numbers and travel info
Camera
Cell phone
iPod
wallet
passport
Long-sleeved shirt
Hoodie
Winter Jacket
Scarf
Hat
Extra socks-because I couldn't find the gloves I thought I brought to Japan
Rain Poncho
Umbrella
Plastic Bags (3)
Tissues
Then I went and bought:
Flashlight
Extra Batteries
apple bread, melon bread, jam and margarine sandwich
1 L bottle of water (2)
(at the mountain I bought gloves)
So, I took the tokyo metro to Shinjuku station and arrived at about 2:30pm. I got lost for a bit and by 3:30 found my way to the place where they sold bus tickets to Fuji (and places near it) and bought a ticket on the 4:50 bus to the 5th station on Mt Fuji.
At this point, let me explain how Mt. Fuji works.
There are 10 stations on Fuji, while some incredibly crazy people start at the bottom, most people start at the 5th. The mountain is divided into 10 parts, which are labled as stations. The 10th being at the peak and an unoffical station- most people say there are 9 but dealing with fractions in 9ths is stupid. So, Mt Fuji is 3776m high. The 5th station is located at 2100m, or at least the one I went to. I took the Kawaguchiko-guchi Route, which is the most popular one because it's the easiest to get to.
Anyway, there are mountain huts located along the path from the 7th station to the summit and they have places to sleep for like 50 bucks a night without meals or 70 bucks a night with meals and food and drinks at crazy prices.
Most people hike up at night and get to the top for the sunrise and just hope it isn't too cloudy or rainy so they can see it. That's what I did.
So, my bus left at 4:50 and I got to Fuji around 7 or so. The bus there was 26 but it was totally worth the convienence.
Anyway, here's the mountains in the area around Fuji as seen out my bus window.
And here's the setting sun.
On the bus there were continual updates on the moniter about how far we were from certiain places and what stop was next. I cna only assume people stop at some of these places sometimes but the bus I was on was a direct one to the 5th station so they just let me know where things were. Here's the notice that we were coming up the the 5th station.
Oh, I forgot to mention that my bus was incredibly stupid. It was thomas the tank engine-themed. I can only assume that it's meant to remind us of the little engine that could and to keep going... but probably not...
Here's a picture of the rest of mt. fuji from the 5th station. There's part of a store and hotel-where i bought some gloves for 2 bucks... i was considering buying a headlamp but it was 20 bucks and batteries were like 15 so it just wasn't worth it. Anyway, you can see the moon and the sky-which at that point was cloudless. notice the snow on fuji.
This is a before shot. Look, i already look like crap but let's pretend that I look excited and ready to climb for the rest of my life. It was a bit chilly outside so i put on my longsleeved shirt and new gloves.
It's a bit darker here, you can see the moon better, I think. Anyway, I didin't start out until 7:30 when the sun set and it was dark. I had until 4:30 for the sunrise and didn't want to be there too early because the top station doesn't open until around 4 and didi'nt want to be freezing outside in 0C weather for an hour or so.
Look! it's a statue. They're eager to climb Mt fuji! (and Mt Fuji is eager to swallow their innocent souls!!!!)
Here's one last picture of Fuji and the moon from the 5th station. See the trees? Well, this is the last place they are on the entire mountain. Upwards, it's just rocks.
Yay! Happy Gloves!
Here's the entrance to the path to the summit. There was a sign. It said "Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here"
Ok, actually it said something about how it's always beautiful... but mine's more accurate. Because usually beautiful things don't make you want to die.
Does it look haunted to you? Apparently about 6 people die on Fuji a year. True... that's about the same number that die in vending machine-related accidents in the US in a year... but still... what's more likely to be haunted? A Giant Active Volcano? good job!
Allright, so it's dark out by this point but the moon was really bright. The patch that looks foggy on the left is from the moonlight and this is looking up the mountain. the shiny things towards the bottom left are metal thigns that keep the rocks from filling in the path. the lights are mountain huts.
The moon and the mountain.
Yay! here I am really really pale on the path. It's pretty flat at this one point and god knows why. behind me is the moon. Yeah, so I'd only been walking for maybe an hour at this point so I was in good spirits.
Here is the moon setting over fuji. You can see the general shape of the mountian from the hut lights. They still look really far away and that's because they were.
Anyway, When I began the climb, I met these two american guys, Mike and Lance. They were really nice and Lance had climbed Fuji a few years before so I tagged along with them. I was with them part of the time and then I'd stop to rest and keep going only to find them resting a little ahead. It was good to have people to talk to and especially people who knew what the pace should be.
so... here's a great picture. Don't throw a stone. They were everywhere, along with the "caution: falling rocks" signs. It made me wonder....
Here is a mountain hut at the 7th station. Outside the door, you can sort of see a box with some stick um.. sticking out of it. These were fuji walking sticks. You could buy one at the bottom and it could have a flag of either the us, japan, or the old "rising sun" japanese flag. they also had bells. they were between 12 and 20 bucks and at each station you could pay about 2 bucks to get the hut's symbol burned into the stick. I didn't want another thing to deal with on the climb but apparently a walking stick makes things easier. I woulnd't know.
Here I am at one of tori-gates along the path. They were there when the station would have a shrine inside.
At one of the 7th station huts, there was a very pixely picture on the door with a rough outline of how long it would take to get to the top and where mountain huts were along the way. It said that from that point it was about 200 minutes and it took me a bit longer than that... probably an extra hour.
also, at the bottom right are some cans of oxygen. Apparently they have about 2 minutes worth of oxygen with little nose and mouth covers so you can breath in the air up high.
Oh, this is important. Because Fuji is so high, the air is much thinner and there is less oxygen... I heard somethign like 2/3 the amount or something like that. Anywho, it was very hard to breathe and not just because you were climbing a mountain.
There are people that come to fuji and climb in guided groups. The groups have leaders that start go before and after them with big glowing sticks that the people who direct traffic use to let the group know where they are. here's one of their packs. Later, you can see a picture of a bunch of groups in climbing the mountain.
so far, the mountain hadn't been too steep, more of a hike than a climb, really. But from around the 7th station on, it was very rocky and steep. At points like this, you couldn't tell which part was the "path" except for the fact that there were chains and poles marking the way. this was at least a 60degree incline. at points later it was almost vertical.
Here are some climbers who had just made it up a very rocky portion. I sat down to attempt to breathe again and decided to take a pic of some authentic travelers. I was surprised that the guy without the hat spoke some english because he seemed surprised and then said "did you shoot me?" ah, good times...
Along the trail many paths converged and diverged fromeachother and some were meant only as a means of descneding. I was glad that I was with Mike and Lance because they knew where they were headed. Here was a marker incase you didn't know where you were going...
Ah, so those groups I was talking about. Here, looking down the mountain, you can see the shape of the path because of the zigzag of the lights of the groups back to back. The brigh lights are mountain huts.
Yay! I'd made it to the 8th station! only 600m up to go! (is that a smile? no.. i'm pretty sure it's a grimace... howesan... you know how to pronounce that?!)
Yeah... it was pretty windy. Infact my face is really windburned. I know it wasn't sunburned because by the time the sun was out I had my scarf over my face and my hat and hood covered my head. But my face was unprotected during the climb up when it was really windy. My face doesn't hurt tooo much anymore but it was just like a really bad sunburn for abotu 24 hours.
i went up another 150m. yay. yet... there are so many more....
By this point I had already passed the 8.5 station and couldn't see any more lights for the 9th or 10th. There was this gate and the path was really steep and i was cold and tired. It was about 2am and I had no idea how much further I had to go. I didn't think I was going to make it to the summit by dawn at this point and was pretty depressed- on the verge of tears for the last hour and a half of the climb. After I took this pic, where it was too steep to pose and take a pic and too windy and cloudy/foggy anyhow, i put my camera away until i got to the top. I jsut wanted to breathe and make it up there.
The top! By about 3:30 I made it to the top. That means that i took about 8 hours of climbing to reach it. I went inside the hut-which apparently opens at 3 and not 4- and bought the worst cup of coffee known to mankind. It cost 5 bucks and was instant coffee and watery. but it was hot and that's all i cared about because it was below freezing at the summit.
At the top I met up again with Mike (the left) and Lance (on the right). At around 4 we stood outside next to the wall so we could get a good spot to see the sunrise (at 4:33). It was reallly cold and I was breathing hard eventhough I hadn't been climbing for the past half hour becaus the air was so thin.
around 4:15 or 4:20 the sun started to rise. The next 30 or so pictures are of the sunrise.
This one has the sunrise on top and as you go down below the cloud layer on the mountain you can see the lights of the mountain huts below.
Here's me and the sunrise. But i cheated a bit. I had one where I used didn't use the flash and i came out all dark and then I had one where I used the flash and the sunrise looked gross and not the right color... so i cut me out of the foreground of the one with the flash and added that layer to a better sunrise pic. the two that didnt' look good are below.
The sun finally rose and here's the Japanese flag at the station. at the top. At about this point it started raining.
Here's a tour group leaving right after sunrise
A tori at the top
It looks like hell. Looking down the mountian you can see the endless rocky terain and the clouds. I walked around the crator at the top and stopped at one point because there was a post office there and wrote some postcards that I had bought at the 5th station below. But... when I got to the post office, it said it opened for the first time that season on the 10th, one day later!
Here's more of the mountain.
more mountain
me and the crater behind me. If only it wasn't so foggy.
Here's the tori at a shrine at the top near the post-office. I'm in my super-cool poncho because it was raining.
Here's a map of the crater/summit
You know the Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come? You know how Hell is really grey and depressing. Well, when you’re in a cloud and all you can see is volcanic rock around you and it’s just red and black and foggy and cold- you feel like you’re in that hell. Actually, at one point before sunrise when I was climbing (probably around 2 or so) there was no color at all. It was so foggy that my flashlight only lit up an area about a foot in front of my face at the most. But everything was grey. It was pretty depressing. Anyway, This is looking through the fog into the crater. The actual hole-part is more to the right, past the ridge of snow, but that’s pretty much what everything at the top looked like when it was cloudy.
Here is a view of the crater.
The rocks all over the ground...
Here's a tori at the beginning of the descent. I was still in a good mood at this point but I have to say that there was no 9th station. Coming up I expected one and it wasn't there so for a while I had no idea where I was. Coming down, I didn't expect it so it wasn't so bad- just a really long timeuntil the 8th station.
Here is a view down the mountain. Every once in a while the wind would blow the clouds away and you could see the green waaaay below.
Sometimes the wind would blow the clouds away for a bit and you could look down on the peaks of other mountains nearby. But, because of the clouds, they looked like floating islands in the sky. That was pretty awesome.
Here was a random piece of rock that was not red. no idea why. I'm not a geologist.
The sun against the mountain... You can see some other climbers coming down a different path here. theirs doens't seem sto have anything vertical...
Looking down the mountain....
Apparently there were signs that said enouraging things like just a little bit more.. btu when I was climbing there were people all against the wall so i couldn't see them.
"Good luck!"
the clouds attacking the mountain
I was ok going down for about the first two hours. But by about 9 (I started down around 7) I was pretty much in agonizing pain. Let me tell you that over 3000meters up a mountain is not the place to learn that you have knee problems. I think there’s something terribly wrong with both of my patellar tendons because every time I took a step down, right below my knees would hurt and about every step of they way my knees would lock up and then give out(or whatever the opposite of lock up is that implies that you didn’t do it on purpose). So yeah… that happened for about 4 hours. Going up, I didn’t mind the near-vertical climbs or rocky slopes but going down I slipped on loose rocks too many times to count and rolled my ankle once. I fell a few times but surprisingly I didn’t cut the skin on my hands.
By the time I got the down to about 2800m I was on the verge of tears and stayed that way for the last 600 or so meters. These two Japanese guys (I’d say they were around 60 or so years old) helped me get down the last part of the mountain because I could barely walk. They seemed really experienced at climbing Fuji and I can only assume they worked at one of the higher mountain huts because they knew the people at the lower ones. Yeah, so at one point one of the guys held my arm as we descended a really rocky portion because my knees kept giving out. I pretty much wanted to die for quite a while.
At the 5th Station I stopped, and caught the bus back to Tokyo.
I’ve been back for about 24 hours now and I’m still in lots of pain. I
have to say that Ibuprofen is my new best friend. I don’t have class
until Thursday so I’m going to attempt not to move too much until then.
...
So, yeah. That was Mt. Fuji and the worst day of my life. But think about it… I mean, whatever else I do, it can’t be much worse than that, right. So, thing’s can only improve.
...
A note:
I didn't end up using the iPod or phone.. aparently only au gets signal on fuji. I only drank one of the 2 liter bottles, but i'm sure that if i'd only brought one i'd have wanted the other. I ate all three bready-things and wasn't hungry when I came down.
I used my extra batteries going up and didn't end up needing my extra socks.
At the top I "stole" some fuji rocks because they looked cool and spongy and were pretty light.
Oh, and I can't go down stairs now, or any thing inclining downwards. I still hurt so much but I don't want to cry now because I had a good night's sleep and some food. But... man, i still hurt so much. I can't sit indian style, it hurts to bend my knees and my left calf is really terrible too. these will be a fun few days.
[fin.]
You may think this is some sort of exauguration, but I assure you that it is not.
The reason: I climbed Mt Fuji.
So the day (7/8) began around 11am when I woke up and packed my backpack for Fuji. I took:
My Japan guidebook- it had Fuji info and phone numbers and travel info
Camera
Cell phone
iPod
wallet
passport
Long-sleeved shirt
Hoodie
Winter Jacket
Scarf
Hat
Extra socks-because I couldn't find the gloves I thought I brought to Japan
Rain Poncho
Umbrella
Plastic Bags (3)
Tissues
Then I went and bought:
Flashlight
Extra Batteries
apple bread, melon bread, jam and margarine sandwich
1 L bottle of water (2)
(at the mountain I bought gloves)
So, I took the tokyo metro to Shinjuku station and arrived at about 2:30pm. I got lost for a bit and by 3:30 found my way to the place where they sold bus tickets to Fuji (and places near it) and bought a ticket on the 4:50 bus to the 5th station on Mt Fuji.
At this point, let me explain how Mt. Fuji works.
There are 10 stations on Fuji, while some incredibly crazy people start at the bottom, most people start at the 5th. The mountain is divided into 10 parts, which are labled as stations. The 10th being at the peak and an unoffical station- most people say there are 9 but dealing with fractions in 9ths is stupid. So, Mt Fuji is 3776m high. The 5th station is located at 2100m, or at least the one I went to. I took the Kawaguchiko-guchi Route, which is the most popular one because it's the easiest to get to.
Anyway, there are mountain huts located along the path from the 7th station to the summit and they have places to sleep for like 50 bucks a night without meals or 70 bucks a night with meals and food and drinks at crazy prices.
Most people hike up at night and get to the top for the sunrise and just hope it isn't too cloudy or rainy so they can see it. That's what I did.
So, my bus left at 4:50 and I got to Fuji around 7 or so. The bus there was 26 but it was totally worth the convienence.
Anyway, here's the mountains in the area around Fuji as seen out my bus window.
And here's the setting sun.
On the bus there were continual updates on the moniter about how far we were from certiain places and what stop was next. I cna only assume people stop at some of these places sometimes but the bus I was on was a direct one to the 5th station so they just let me know where things were. Here's the notice that we were coming up the the 5th station.
Oh, I forgot to mention that my bus was incredibly stupid. It was thomas the tank engine-themed. I can only assume that it's meant to remind us of the little engine that could and to keep going... but probably not...
Here's a picture of the rest of mt. fuji from the 5th station. There's part of a store and hotel-where i bought some gloves for 2 bucks... i was considering buying a headlamp but it was 20 bucks and batteries were like 15 so it just wasn't worth it. Anyway, you can see the moon and the sky-which at that point was cloudless. notice the snow on fuji.
This is a before shot. Look, i already look like crap but let's pretend that I look excited and ready to climb for the rest of my life. It was a bit chilly outside so i put on my longsleeved shirt and new gloves.
It's a bit darker here, you can see the moon better, I think. Anyway, I didin't start out until 7:30 when the sun set and it was dark. I had until 4:30 for the sunrise and didn't want to be there too early because the top station doesn't open until around 4 and didi'nt want to be freezing outside in 0C weather for an hour or so.
Look! it's a statue. They're eager to climb Mt fuji! (and Mt Fuji is eager to swallow their innocent souls!!!!)
Here's one last picture of Fuji and the moon from the 5th station. See the trees? Well, this is the last place they are on the entire mountain. Upwards, it's just rocks.
Yay! Happy Gloves!
Here's the entrance to the path to the summit. There was a sign. It said "Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here"
Ok, actually it said something about how it's always beautiful... but mine's more accurate. Because usually beautiful things don't make you want to die.
Does it look haunted to you? Apparently about 6 people die on Fuji a year. True... that's about the same number that die in vending machine-related accidents in the US in a year... but still... what's more likely to be haunted? A Giant Active Volcano? good job!
Allright, so it's dark out by this point but the moon was really bright. The patch that looks foggy on the left is from the moonlight and this is looking up the mountain. the shiny things towards the bottom left are metal thigns that keep the rocks from filling in the path. the lights are mountain huts.
The moon and the mountain.
Yay! here I am really really pale on the path. It's pretty flat at this one point and god knows why. behind me is the moon. Yeah, so I'd only been walking for maybe an hour at this point so I was in good spirits.
Here is the moon setting over fuji. You can see the general shape of the mountian from the hut lights. They still look really far away and that's because they were.
Anyway, When I began the climb, I met these two american guys, Mike and Lance. They were really nice and Lance had climbed Fuji a few years before so I tagged along with them. I was with them part of the time and then I'd stop to rest and keep going only to find them resting a little ahead. It was good to have people to talk to and especially people who knew what the pace should be.
so... here's a great picture. Don't throw a stone. They were everywhere, along with the "caution: falling rocks" signs. It made me wonder....
Here is a mountain hut at the 7th station. Outside the door, you can sort of see a box with some stick um.. sticking out of it. These were fuji walking sticks. You could buy one at the bottom and it could have a flag of either the us, japan, or the old "rising sun" japanese flag. they also had bells. they were between 12 and 20 bucks and at each station you could pay about 2 bucks to get the hut's symbol burned into the stick. I didn't want another thing to deal with on the climb but apparently a walking stick makes things easier. I woulnd't know.
Here I am at one of tori-gates along the path. They were there when the station would have a shrine inside.
At one of the 7th station huts, there was a very pixely picture on the door with a rough outline of how long it would take to get to the top and where mountain huts were along the way. It said that from that point it was about 200 minutes and it took me a bit longer than that... probably an extra hour.
also, at the bottom right are some cans of oxygen. Apparently they have about 2 minutes worth of oxygen with little nose and mouth covers so you can breath in the air up high.
Oh, this is important. Because Fuji is so high, the air is much thinner and there is less oxygen... I heard somethign like 2/3 the amount or something like that. Anywho, it was very hard to breathe and not just because you were climbing a mountain.
There are people that come to fuji and climb in guided groups. The groups have leaders that start go before and after them with big glowing sticks that the people who direct traffic use to let the group know where they are. here's one of their packs. Later, you can see a picture of a bunch of groups in climbing the mountain.
so far, the mountain hadn't been too steep, more of a hike than a climb, really. But from around the 7th station on, it was very rocky and steep. At points like this, you couldn't tell which part was the "path" except for the fact that there were chains and poles marking the way. this was at least a 60degree incline. at points later it was almost vertical.
Here are some climbers who had just made it up a very rocky portion. I sat down to attempt to breathe again and decided to take a pic of some authentic travelers. I was surprised that the guy without the hat spoke some english because he seemed surprised and then said "did you shoot me?" ah, good times...
Along the trail many paths converged and diverged fromeachother and some were meant only as a means of descneding. I was glad that I was with Mike and Lance because they knew where they were headed. Here was a marker incase you didn't know where you were going...
Ah, so those groups I was talking about. Here, looking down the mountain, you can see the shape of the path because of the zigzag of the lights of the groups back to back. The brigh lights are mountain huts.
Yay! I'd made it to the 8th station! only 600m up to go! (is that a smile? no.. i'm pretty sure it's a grimace... howesan... you know how to pronounce that?!)
Yeah... it was pretty windy. Infact my face is really windburned. I know it wasn't sunburned because by the time the sun was out I had my scarf over my face and my hat and hood covered my head. But my face was unprotected during the climb up when it was really windy. My face doesn't hurt tooo much anymore but it was just like a really bad sunburn for abotu 24 hours.
i went up another 150m. yay. yet... there are so many more....
By this point I had already passed the 8.5 station and couldn't see any more lights for the 9th or 10th. There was this gate and the path was really steep and i was cold and tired. It was about 2am and I had no idea how much further I had to go. I didn't think I was going to make it to the summit by dawn at this point and was pretty depressed- on the verge of tears for the last hour and a half of the climb. After I took this pic, where it was too steep to pose and take a pic and too windy and cloudy/foggy anyhow, i put my camera away until i got to the top. I jsut wanted to breathe and make it up there.
The top! By about 3:30 I made it to the top. That means that i took about 8 hours of climbing to reach it. I went inside the hut-which apparently opens at 3 and not 4- and bought the worst cup of coffee known to mankind. It cost 5 bucks and was instant coffee and watery. but it was hot and that's all i cared about because it was below freezing at the summit.
At the top I met up again with Mike (the left) and Lance (on the right). At around 4 we stood outside next to the wall so we could get a good spot to see the sunrise (at 4:33). It was reallly cold and I was breathing hard eventhough I hadn't been climbing for the past half hour becaus the air was so thin.
around 4:15 or 4:20 the sun started to rise. The next 30 or so pictures are of the sunrise.
This one has the sunrise on top and as you go down below the cloud layer on the mountain you can see the lights of the mountain huts below.
Here's me and the sunrise. But i cheated a bit. I had one where I used didn't use the flash and i came out all dark and then I had one where I used the flash and the sunrise looked gross and not the right color... so i cut me out of the foreground of the one with the flash and added that layer to a better sunrise pic. the two that didnt' look good are below.
The sun finally rose and here's the Japanese flag at the station. at the top. At about this point it started raining.
Here's a tour group leaving right after sunrise
A tori at the top
It looks like hell. Looking down the mountian you can see the endless rocky terain and the clouds. I walked around the crator at the top and stopped at one point because there was a post office there and wrote some postcards that I had bought at the 5th station below. But... when I got to the post office, it said it opened for the first time that season on the 10th, one day later!
Here's more of the mountain.
more mountain
me and the crater behind me. If only it wasn't so foggy.
Here's the tori at a shrine at the top near the post-office. I'm in my super-cool poncho because it was raining.
Here's a map of the crater/summit
I walked around the crater and went to the true peak where there’s aHere's me at the true peak. Look! a marker!
weather station and then I started my descent.
You know the Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come? You know how Hell is really grey and depressing. Well, when you’re in a cloud and all you can see is volcanic rock around you and it’s just red and black and foggy and cold- you feel like you’re in that hell. Actually, at one point before sunrise when I was climbing (probably around 2 or so) there was no color at all. It was so foggy that my flashlight only lit up an area about a foot in front of my face at the most. But everything was grey. It was pretty depressing. Anyway, This is looking through the fog into the crater. The actual hole-part is more to the right, past the ridge of snow, but that’s pretty much what everything at the top looked like when it was cloudy.
Here is a view of the crater.
The rocks all over the ground...
Here's a tori at the beginning of the descent. I was still in a good mood at this point but I have to say that there was no 9th station. Coming up I expected one and it wasn't there so for a while I had no idea where I was. Coming down, I didn't expect it so it wasn't so bad- just a really long timeuntil the 8th station.
Here is a view down the mountain. Every once in a while the wind would blow the clouds away and you could see the green waaaay below.
Sometimes the wind would blow the clouds away for a bit and you could look down on the peaks of other mountains nearby. But, because of the clouds, they looked like floating islands in the sky. That was pretty awesome.
Here was a random piece of rock that was not red. no idea why. I'm not a geologist.
The sun against the mountain... You can see some other climbers coming down a different path here. theirs doens't seem sto have anything vertical...
Looking down the mountain....
Apparently there were signs that said enouraging things like just a little bit more.. btu when I was climbing there were people all against the wall so i couldn't see them.
"Good luck!"
the clouds attacking the mountain
I was ok going down for about the first two hours. But by about 9 (I started down around 7) I was pretty much in agonizing pain. Let me tell you that over 3000meters up a mountain is not the place to learn that you have knee problems. I think there’s something terribly wrong with both of my patellar tendons because every time I took a step down, right below my knees would hurt and about every step of they way my knees would lock up and then give out(or whatever the opposite of lock up is that implies that you didn’t do it on purpose). So yeah… that happened for about 4 hours. Going up, I didn’t mind the near-vertical climbs or rocky slopes but going down I slipped on loose rocks too many times to count and rolled my ankle once. I fell a few times but surprisingly I didn’t cut the skin on my hands.
By the time I got the down to about 2800m I was on the verge of tears and stayed that way for the last 600 or so meters. These two Japanese guys (I’d say they were around 60 or so years old) helped me get down the last part of the mountain because I could barely walk. They seemed really experienced at climbing Fuji and I can only assume they worked at one of the higher mountain huts because they knew the people at the lower ones. Yeah, so at one point one of the guys held my arm as we descended a really rocky portion because my knees kept giving out. I pretty much wanted to die for quite a while.
At the 5th Station I stopped, and caught the bus back to Tokyo.
I’ve been back for about 24 hours now and I’m still in lots of pain. I
have to say that Ibuprofen is my new best friend. I don’t have class
until Thursday so I’m going to attempt not to move too much until then.
...
So, yeah. That was Mt. Fuji and the worst day of my life. But think about it… I mean, whatever else I do, it can’t be much worse than that, right. So, thing’s can only improve.
...
A note:
I didn't end up using the iPod or phone.. aparently only au gets signal on fuji. I only drank one of the 2 liter bottles, but i'm sure that if i'd only brought one i'd have wanted the other. I ate all three bready-things and wasn't hungry when I came down.
I used my extra batteries going up and didn't end up needing my extra socks.
At the top I "stole" some fuji rocks because they looked cool and spongy and were pretty light.
Oh, and I can't go down stairs now, or any thing inclining downwards. I still hurt so much but I don't want to cry now because I had a good night's sleep and some food. But... man, i still hurt so much. I can't sit indian style, it hurts to bend my knees and my left calf is really terrible too. these will be a fun few days.
[fin.]
