Red Fuji

Fuji-San was amazing.

There were 8 of us on the trip, 4 from Shizoka/Gotemba and 4 from Koriyama. We're all a little sore, but quite satisfied and glad we went.

The bus drove us up halfway to station 5, which was just below cloud level-silly me, I thought it was just fog. It seemed just like the outer sunset in the summertime...I was even a little homesick. At around 6:30 we waved goodbye to the vendors at the entrance and headed out on our journey. In about an hour we were in the thicket, climbing straight up the mountain. There weren't many switchbacks, which was a little disappointing to me I have to admit. It's much harder to climb straight up. We found our first station and we all got our walking sticks branded with kanji stamps as we made our way up to the tippy top. With headlamps a-glow we continued on, the red moon rising behind us.

Around the eighth station, the hike started getting cold and a little brutal. We had been walking for 6 hours, the moon was full and bright, lighting our way. Jokes started giggling out of light heads and everyone considered forking out the $70.00 for a few hours of sleep. The stations became more hospitible the higher we climbed and much more tempting to just lie down and sleep next to. Some offered ramen, tea, coffee and benches sheltered from the wind. I was surprised at how cold it really was up there. Honestly, it's really hard to pack for winter when the heat has been keeping you up at night. I left my gloves at home, unable to wrap my head around the thought of needing them. Sure enough, I made do with socks for mittens. Frank sweetly wrapped my wrists with duck tape to keep the warmth inside. We pressed on.

The last stretch was full of people bottlenecking from several different paths. Up until then, we had been leap-frogging positions with only a few other groups of hikers. The line of headlamps dotted the top like a christmas tree. We were climbing at the very top just as the sun started to rise. Many of us just stopped a moment to rest and turned our glances east to watch dawn break. It was really beautiful.

All in all, it took 10 hours for us to climb up and 6 hours down. By then, we were all quite tired. Making simple decisions seemed like a monumental task and we all eventually went our separate ways. The next morning I had a trip back to Utsunomiya to entertain. I bought a copy of the Japan Times to read on the train and was surprised to see a photo of Fuji on the front page taken early the same morning we climbed. Apparently we had climbed a good omen. It's a rare moment that the sun will shine in such a way that Fuji will look red. It's even more rare that anyone should be able to see it because Fuji is usually covered by clouds and haze in the summer time. But there it was, crystal clear. What a great way to complete a trip I'll never forget.