Entries this day: Climbing_Mt_Fuji_part_2 Descending_Mt_Fuji

Climbing Mt Fuji part 2

2:36am JST Tuesday 13 July 2004

We woke up around 2:30, and I, for one, did *not* want to go back out into that horrible wind. It sounded like it could blow us off the mountain after it froze us to ice cubes.

I strugglingly got out of bed, with cold aching joints. Completely dark so I fumbled about for my flashlight and used my hand to cover most of its glow as I got my gear together and put my layers of clothing on.

One thing was missing, though. My walking staff. Well, not missing; I had really no idea where it had been moved, and therefore no idea where to look.

I was really too cold to care though. Too cold and too tired. Sumidasan and Miyuki had gone outside; I headed out, as ready as I could muster to engage the mountain again.

- - - -

It was *foggy*. Five feet of visibility. I couldn't tell where the trail began. I had no idea where Sumida and Miyuki had gone. I assume they had headed up the mountain. Fuck. No time to waste; gotta catch them.

I walked in the foggy darkness, which wasn't as cold as I had imagined, but was windier than imagineable and somehow still ridiculously foggy. How can so much wind not blow away the fog? This fog is stronger than wind.

- - - -

Slow count: one foot, two foot. One foot, two foot. No stop. One foot, two foot. One foot, two foot. No stop. One foot, one foot, one foot, two foot. one. two. one. two. one. two. Huge Wind: Walk Stop. crouch. Stay on mountain. Breathe. Breath. Wind finish. Walk more. One foot, two foot. One foot, two foot.

Follow the rope. Thank the rope. One foot, two foot. Thank the rope maker. One foot, two foot. One foot, two foot. Thank you, rope.

Rope end. Turn. Find next rope. One foot. two foot. One foot, two foot. Rope. Up up up.

walk

walk

walk

Stay on mountain.

- - - -

Progressed continued in this manner of non-thinking meditative state of just walking without stopping until the wind forced me to focus only on balance. Without the option of sitting down though; it would be too hard to get up. Just focus on walking, knowing the top will come soon.

At one point, I did rest. I turned around and tried to see how far I had come. I didn't see the glow of the cabin, but it was really foggy so I didn't know if I had come a long way or not. Then, wait: I saw the lights of some climbers. I wondered if it was Sumida and Miyuki. I shined and flashed my flashlight down at them to see if I could attract their attention. I saw three lights; three hikers. Hmm; not them. I turned back and pressed forward. Can't let these three hikers catch me.

- - - -

They did catch me, though. And it was Sumida and Miyuki. I hadn't remembered that Sumida had two flashlights. One on a headband and one carried. "Rob?" Sumida called. "はい" I answered back. I waited.

They arrived.

"ごめねさい" [I'm sorry]

"We were in the restroom."

Augh; what a dummy I had been. Didn't even think of that option. Of course they wouldn't leave without me. How tired must my brain be?

We trudged forward, with me leading the way, somehow newly energized enough to walk.

One foot, two foot. One foots, two feets. One feet, two foots. One foots, two foots. Stop walk. Stay on mountain. One foot, two foots. One foo, two foos. Rope end. Find next rope.

"はい。" I called back, meaning, [I've found the next rope.]

A couple rope ends later, I didn't find the next rope.

I walked where I thought the trail would be, but still couldn't find the rope.

The wind had gotten even stronger; Sumida began to walk away from where I thought the trail should be. Like he was walking down the mountain to re-discover the trail. We decided to stop; it was too dangerous to walk in the wind; we were slipping and didn't know where to go.

I was happy to stop. I had janette's quilt, and had found a comfy pile of rocks to sleep on. I had to be *really* careful to make sure the quilt didn't blow away. Losing the quilt was *not* an option.

After a while, I felt it my civic duty to tell Sumida that the fog wasn't going to lift until after sunrise. If we waited until fogrise, we would be waiting until sunrise, first.

I got up, gripping janette's quilt and headed carefully down unstable rocks to where Sumida and Miyuki had stopped. I had left my backpack (more importantly, my computer) where I had found the comfy rocks.

He agreed with my assessment. The sun would rise before the fog. Fair enough. I had done my civic duty and curled back up to go to sleep. The rocks were not as comfortable.

(( I had a guess that I had been on the trail. My backpack would tell us later. ))

- - - -

Then, I felt a new civic duty. I had a warm blanket. They must be more freezing than me; I was feeling the cold, but not feeling the wind.

I got up. Walked around to behind Sumida and Miyuki and then sat down in between them, with the blanket spread out over all three of us. The wind pinned it to our backs.

"Thank you."

I felt really good about my decision.

- - - -

- - - -

The sun began to come up. Or the fog began to glow, but somehow things were becoming more visible. We didn't see the sun rise, but just a slow change from blindness to sight.

Sumida declared it time to move on.

I agreed, though I would have more readily agreed with sleeping until someone came to carry us up the hill.

We got up. Got our stuff. My backpack was on the trail.

5:00am JST Tuesday 13 July 2004

We're at the top of Mt Fuji, um, at five AM, we hit the first sign that said we were at the top, but we had to walk up hill a tiny bit more and then back down to.. not the other side, but to a shop nearby that was open. Um, bunch of other cats up here, same time. Japanese and Ameri, well, Japanese and English speaking.

And we are, well, we just took some pictures, and one was video; it was great.

We're here up in the thing, and they wouldn't sell a dude hot water, so we all chipped in from our own noodle bowls. Craziness.

Cats here are from England and Serbia and Japan.

It's fucking cold. I'm friends with Kana now, who just went outside with no shoes! Crazy! It's freeeeezing.. The four kids are asleep. It's funny.

In the no-sleeping group photo above, Kana is on the right (to my left) with white shirt and red sleeves.

I bought another hot ramen and shared it with Kana as thanks for her speaking to me in Japanese. Her boyfriend was asleep on the side of the room with no blanket and wet clothes. It's 5 degrees C in this heated building. He's the one they wouldn't sell hot water to. He had brought his own ramen. What a nightmare. C'mon Japanese systems. Have some love for a fellow human.

Descending Mt Fuji

7:00am

We're leaving this place now. Um, the four kids from Serbia and England have left, and we're going down, too. Kana and her guy are still here. Okay byebye. Kana is from Nagoya.

back down

First, a couple of pictures showing how foggy it was. These are taken after sunrise, after it had cleared up a lot.

Here are Sumida's and Miyuki's coats as we made our way down. This is the average fogification that we had on the way down at first.

(transcribed from tape)

We've been walking for a while, and the temperature is, kindof acceptable now. We're on the way down the mountain now. The wind is blowing really really hard, so it's... I mean we could fucking get blown off the mountain. Sumidasan lost his hat; it just got blown off his head.. including the strap that it was attached to: byebye. I was holding [huge wind noise] I was holding [huge wind noise] I was holding onto Miyuki when she was taking pictures so she wouldn't get blown off the mountain and crush her camera and suck, plus her camera, yeah. Okay.

So, we're heading down the mountain and made it down in one hour to the one point, uh and left the one point, the great house at 9:25. And on the way back down now. The wind is blowing really really hard like I said; it's kinda clearing up now. There's clouds, scattered clouds and uh some pretty nice [wind noise] I'm going to try and maybe get some pictures. Okay bye. We just made it up Mt Fuji and back. Awright.

Here I am after having won the Mr Mt Fuji contest for 2004. There were only two competitors, and Sumidasan didn't know he was in the competition, but here's his pic anyway:

- - - -

These are some random pictures that I took on the way down. They are from around 8 or 9am July 13th. Sumidasan looking out as we were getting started down. Well, we had gotten started and we wanted the bottom to be closer than it seemed.

Here's a partially fogless shot showing the monotony of the terrain.

This image was nearly a lucky shot; it was usually so foggy that we couldn't see the bottom of the mountain, but for brief moments, it would become clear, and once or twice, I got my camera out quickly enough to get a photo. This picture is called "Mt Fuji is taller than this" because we had been climbing down for probably an hour when the pic was taken.

This pic is called "Mt Fuji is this steep" but actually it's a couple degrees steeper; look at the clouds in the background; I imagine they should be horizontal. We climbed down gravel like this for hours. *hours*, mind you. Hours. Not like 10 hours, but like three.

- - - -

I just competed in my own version of the Mt Fuji Olympics. Uh. Scree sliding for a while, and uh, tons of fun at that. I decided it was the most fun I've ever had with my shoes on, and separately, the most fun I've ever had without water involved. Although maybe I've had more fun at rallies, but the most fun I've had alone without water involved.

Uh, it's windy, still. Like crazy windy; there's grit in my eyes and shit like that, not just because of scree sliding, but uh, cause I also did the Mt Fuji Olympics javelin toss, where I try to throw my Mt Fuji stick as far as I can, but uh. uh oh. I'm sliding by the wind is blowing me down the hill sliding. almost. Um, I got bored of that, so, I just wanna say that's how big Mt Fuji is. It's so fuckin' big I competed in two Olympic events and got bored with both of them and I'm still not down yet, not to the bottom, or not to fifth station. Uh, Mt Fuji is a monster. Uh, hey I see someone else. Uh, Mt Fuji is big and don't you forget it. Alright.

- - - -

Okay it's catch up time. Those cats are way down there. I'm gonna leave the recorder on so we know how long it takes; I don't have any way to measure it, well I do, but whatever, aight. Recorder's on. I'm gonna take a picture; I'll tell you when we start.

Hey there's some trash flying. Stop that.

I'm going to take a picture of it. Of them. Again, I'm going to leave the recorder on; they're way down there and they look like ants or so, actually they look like people the size of ants.

Fuck. for some reason. ran out of tape maybe? I don't know.

- - - -

[panting]

I call this the Fuji Effect, or maybe the Nugen Effect, or the Foojen Effect. The Foojin Effect. Hey, Fooj In Effect. God I'm fuckin' tired.

The Fuji Effect is it takes longer to get down from a certain point to a different certain point, than it did to get up. For the last part of this fuckin' mountain, it's like it keeps on fucking going. It was interesting; the size scale, or the angle scale whatever; I was going down this steep part and then I looked down and saw one part that looked like it was going up, like we had somehow found a trail that went down the mountain too far and had to go back up to get to the foothills or something. But the part that looked like it went up (*) does not in fact go up, well, the direction that we're going now, it goes down, and it is in fact the same hill that we went up yesterday, but this time it's longer... how the fuck is that possible? Fuji! ARRggh.

[[

(*) Okay, "the part that looked like it went up" is visible in the picture above at "Okay, it's catch up time." There's a little white speck near the center of the photo. Sumidasan and Miyuki are visible just to the left of that speck. The trail that they are descending appears to reach a valley and then go back up toward the left. That up-looking portion is actually going down, just not as steeply as the slant from which the picture was taken.

]]

11:20am

This way to the bas station.

We made it back down. It was longer, I tell you, it was longer on the way down. So that means we got down in four hours, but it took us [going] up, like a million hours. But I still claim that it's longer going down, at least at the end. Also I forgot my shoe coverings up at the lodge. D'oh.

- - - -

Sumidasan says the had the lady at the 8th station known we were climbing [this morning at 2am] she would have stopped us cause it was so treacherous. Wua ha.

11:48am JST Tuesday 13 July 2004

We descending the long trail of Mt Fuji in 4 hours, including a break for breakfast at the 8th station. There, it seems, I forgot to put on Hitomi's mom's spats, and, therefore, left them. Fuck. Good thing, though, is that my 1000 yen gloves that Fred and I bought together when he was here, were still within windblown distance of where I had left them yesterday. That's nice.

Things I will do differently if I climb Mt Fuji again:

1. Bring more protein drinks (the squeeze pouch kind that are pretty popular here)

2. Bring a jacket. It was comforting having janette's quilt over my shoulders, but it was nearly blown away once and nearly blew me off the mountain twice. (Okay, not *nearly*, but it definitely acted as a sail.)

3. Bring business cards (or my adventure cards (I need to get some more made)) to pass out at the top of the mountain. We really bonded for complete strangers in 1/2 hour.

4. Bring my computer. I'm glad I did this time. (It would probably be good enough to just bring a voice recorder that could be used with transcription software. (*))

5. Take my staff to the top of the mountain to get it stamped.

In addition to this list, I'm bound by honor to visit again the 8th station house thing if I climb Fuji again.

(*) I'm a bit closer on this; I have contacted the software manufacturer to see if I can use an iPod to transcribe. I can't because it only records at 8MHz, which isn't fast enough for the software.