I'm still in shock that my camera survived.
Here is a before shot I took with my iPod.
And after
And before I go on, I KNOW I didn't prepare well. Trust me! So if anyone decides to bring this up with me, prepare for a swat upside your head and a long set of choice colorful words next time we meet.
I had laid out plenty of clothing layers, and some waterproof coats for Liz and I. We also had some apples, granola bars, raisins, and dried bananas. I even packed mini cushion so we wouldn't have to sit on rocks at the top. I EVEN sealed everything in plastic bags before I put them in my pack. I didn't care about having to lug all that up the mountain, because I knew it would be worth it if it was as cold as I'd read. When Liz arrived, and we started talking about Fuji, and she related her experiences on machu pichu. Her experiences there led her to not wanting to bring some of the extra clothing layers. I packed them in my bag anyway. I thought it was better to be over prepared. I was sooooo under prepared ha ha ha. I'd checked the weather, and our planned climbing night was the only night that week scheduled to rain. Also a note about 98% humidity. But it was the only night during her stay that would have worked.
We got off the Shinkansen half an hour after the last bus to the mountain had left. So we took a taxi. The ride was gorgeous, though I felt bad for Liz, because she was exhausted. She slept on the ride up. The ride through the forest was beautiful, and the taxi driver and I had some fun conversations. We drove through some fog too, which was pretty thick!
When we arrived at the Fujinomiya fifth station, it was windy, and around seven pm. As soon as we got out, Liz and I both looked at each other and laughed as we took out some of the extra layers we had. As we took out the headlights Liz had brought, we discovered that one of them was out of battery. Oh well. We checked out the shop at the bottom before starting our climb. I kinda wished we could see more of the view, but it was very cloudy. There was a moment where it was clear, and the mood seemed incredibly close. I think I may have gotten a shot or two, but it probably won't compare to the real thing.
The distance to the sixth station was surprisingly short. There were many people there, and we passed the bathrooms with our noses plugged. As we started making our way up the hill, the winds were minimal, though we were walking through a cloud at one point. Liz and I laughed at each other about the 98%humidity thing.
Each station had a Huuuuge orange light beaming down the mountain, so climbers knew how close they were. Climbing through the cloud made every bit of visible light a bit hazy. So at one point while we were climbing, I'd looked up and saw the next station's light, high above us. A scene from return of the king started playing in my head, when Sam sees the doors to mount doom while climbing. I swear everytime I'd look up and see those hazy orange station lights, all it looked like to me was mount freakin doom. I loved it!
On our way to the seventh station, we started noticing a few things we should have prepared more for. We had assumed that each station would be open and have water. Well as I have learned over the past six months.... nowhere in japan...not even damn fuji, is open after eight pm, unless it's karaoke or ramen. I'm sure there are more businesses open past eight in busy cities and such, but alas, not on Fuji. We had about half a cup of water on us. Luckily we had our snacks, and we weren't dying of thirst or anything. The temperature wasn't bad at all. I hadn't even started using my gloves yet. We talked about so many things on that climb, including my goal to always find or learn something good from every situation.
Around the eighth station, it started to rain. And the wind came back. When climbing fuji you are supposed to stop and rest at each station, to get used to the altitude changes. We weren't tired at all, because we had been making stops and sitting and chatting a bunch in between stations anyway. We still stopped at each station and tried to find a small space to hide from the wind, amid the throng of other climbers. We weren't cold while hiking, honestly we were fine, even in the rain. The moments that started to suck were when we had to stop at the stations, where there was never room to hide from the wind. At each station we would huddle up and use each other for heat and/or pillows. I was verrrry glad that our technology was sealed tightly in plastic.
Since we already made other stops, we didn't stay long. Plus staying still was when we'd start feeling the cold. After the eighth station, I tragically was starting to discover that my coat was not as waterproof as I had thought. But I never took it off, because it trapped my body heat. But like I said, we weren't cold while hiking, and we spent the whole hike playing the glad game. Gold star to whoever knows what the glad game is from. We were laughing and having fun the whole climb!
While it was a crazy climb, with the wind, dust, and rain, it was surprisingly not physically taxing on our muscles. Had the weather been better, we would have ascended that last bit of freakin fuji. Anywhoooo
The winds had died down, the rain had stopped, and we were at station 9.5. We were pretty dang close to the top. But we had to stop for two reasons. To get used to the altitude, and to talk about the last bit of the climb. We worried about what the temperature might be at the top, and how we would have to keep moving if we didn't want to get sick up there. We worried about how it was only two AM, and the last bit if the climb would Take much less than the three hours we had to kill. We had thought Fuji would take longer to climb! It's really not a hard hike people, it's just the rain and the lowering temperature, especially if you're hiking in the middle of the night in order to see the sun rise.
At this point I was down to one glove, having given the other to Liz because hers were soaked through. I did this once with Tasha one cold windy day in NYC, and it worked pretty well. Liz was offering granola bars a lot, which was really nice of her. We even were able to get a guy in one of the stations to sell us some water. Although we tried to drink a lot, to hydrate and such, we had been practically breathing in water for the past two hours.
We miraculously found a small spot to huddle and retain some warmth. It was under an overhanging roof on a two-foot-tall hut, out of the wind. We sat down and lowered our hoods as we hoped the time would pass quickly.
Here comes the tipping point. About two thirty, I snap awake. I didn't know if Liz had fallen asleep or not, but I got worried about us having sat still for so long. I still felt warm, so I thought things were fine. I nudged Liz and we agreed that we should start getting the blood circulating again. That's when it all went straight to hell ha ha ha. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I had never felt more foolish for having put my friend and I in such a dangerous situation, so badly unprepared.
As we both tried to stand, five bad things happened at once. There was some jagged metal behind me, and it tore open a hole in my coat. Twice. When we got up, Liz turned to me and said she couldn't feel her leg and was having trouble walking. Meanwhile my body started shaking really badly. I was shivering like mad, and I'd only just stood up after being fine a moment ago. We saw a restroom nearby and started heading for it, when wind and rain hit us harder than they had all night. All of this accumulated into me being a cold, nervous mess. I take out my wallet to pay for the restroom, though it took forever due to my shaking so much, but we soon got in the stalls. Or at least I did. I didn't even need to go. I just wanted to stand in my stall, close my eyes, and pretend I wasn't there. This was the point where I felt like a stupid kid stuck in a situation way over her head.
While I'm sure I could have stayed in my stall for a good five minutes, I knew that Liz was still out in the crappy weather. So I got out and Liz got in the stall. I was still indoors though, but only out of pure luck. The bathroom bouncer, as I thought of him, saw how badly prepared we were, and let me wait by Liz's stall until she finished. That was something no one was allowed to do apparently. Plus I looked pretty pathetic, probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so he prob felt bad for me. Sadly, Liz eventually left the stall, and we had to return to what was now a full rainstorm. Our previous crouch spot had water flowing through it, and my clothes were all completely soaked through. Liz had a waterproof windbreaker on, but the buttons kept coming apart, so she was pretty wet too. We had a hard time making the decision, but we were at a point where it had become dangerous to keep going. So, regretful that I hadn't prepared better, and that we hadn't gotten to the top, we started our climb back down.
As we made our way down, we were extremely thankful for our one headlight that remained strong the whole time. The road down was even more dangerous than the way up! It was the first time where it took longer to descend than ascend! But we just kept being thankful that we recognized when things were getting actually dangerous for us up there.
Along the mountain path, you follow little white arrows, along a white rope all the way up. I found it funny that I was the one to bring up the whole "hold to the rod" story during our climb lol. Not only that, I was the one to suggest a prayer might be a good idea too! I kept waiting to see if Liz would suggest one, but after a while I gave up and sarcastically asked her why we hadn't prayed yet. She gave a goodie, and we continued our decent. My second layer of pants was so soaking, that they were falling off. I had to freakin hold my pants up the whole way down. My other hand was busy holding the head lamp, moving it back and forth between where Liz and I were walking. Our waterlogged hoods and hats were covering most of our faces, do we were almost blind up there. It was honestly a crazy fiasco. I had a bittersweet thought about my big camera, because I knew I'd made a hole in that plastic bag, when I'd been looking to replace Liz's wet mitten with my extra tardis socks. I was certain that my camera was dead, soaked through from the rain. But I refused to let anything put this climb in a negative light. I've had that camera for years, and if it was going to putter out, what better place than the slopes of mount doom... Aka fuji.
We did manage to be of help to two climbers at one point though. Both climber's lights had both died, and there they were, trying to descend in the pitch black. We passed them, and felt terrible leaving them in the dark, so I came up with a system. Light my way Down a few steps, turn around to shine the light for Liz, and then shine it for the two climbers. They were japanese, so we got at lot of "sumimasen! Arigatou gozaimasu!!" (Please pardon us, thank you very much) every time we shined the light behind us for them. We all made the trek down all the way to the sixth station together, when the two climbers thanked us again and parted ways.
We reached the bottom at four AM. Everything was still closed, and the first bus wouldn't arrive til eight. Soaked through, with still lots of wind, we wandered around looking for a place wind free. We thought we'd found one right next to the bathrooms, but were mistaken. We continued to wander, drained from the insane experience and lack of sleep, when we found a miracle. A police guy was calling up taxis!!! We made our way over and he had us wait for maybe five minutes. We asked him just in time too, because right after talking to us, a group came over to him for the same thing. I overheard him talking into his radio about needing enough taxis for a group of twenty nine ha ha ha!! We double checked to make sure we'd be allowed a ride in our drenched state, and luckily we were. Out of the wind, I fell asleep on the ride to the station. I found out later that Liz stayed awake because she was nervous that the driver would kidnap us or something. Not an unheard if thought in mAny parts of the world. But I feel pretty safe in japan, even with a all the crazy stabber stories that happen out here.
The taxi was expensive, but we both agreed that it was well worth it. Once we were at the train station again, the only thing we worried about from that point on was how bad we must have smelled, and how sorry we felt for the other passengers nearby lol. For me, the hardest thing about the whole experience was being drenched for eight straight hours. The level of drenched-ness was on par with that initial moment you emerge from a pool that you'd fully submerged in. We'd had raisin fingers and toes for houuuuurrrrss.
That's the end of our fuji fiasco. Many crazy dangerous moments, but we faced everything with positive attitudes, and found laughs in as many situations as possible. We both don't mind that we didn't make it to the summit. We still got to climb fuji. When we got ack to my apartment, we bagged our wet clothes up and left them on the balcony since we had to shower and get to kyoto ASAP.
I was actually a bit bummed when I discovered that my camera, though wet, was still alive and well. Fuji would have been an epic location to retire the ol' clunker.
The entire remainder of the vacation, we kept randomly laughing about how unreal it felt that we had actually climbed fuji. And while my OCD about not having completed it gets to me sometimes, it's not something I'm the least bit bitter about. It's an incredible memory I will never forget. Plus I think we both endured enough hilarious hell to educate us on exactly how to properly prepare for fuji, if it ever comes our way again lol!!
*three quotes I spouted the many a time during the climb:
"Look Mr. Frodo...the doorway!" (Along with some high pitched choir boy ooo-ing)
-Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
"Hold to the rod, the iron rod....."
-The iron rod song in the LDS hymns
"I SAID drrrenched and I MEANT drrrrenched!"
-Anne of Avonlea
HOLY CRAP PANTS!!! I can't believe I haven't read this till nowwwww. UGHHHHH!!!!! This is crazinesssss!!!! I can't wait to see your pictures. Is your camera ok??????
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