Mount Doom

There is a saying that people say about 富士山 (Fuji-san) Mount Fuji: "A wise man climbs Mt. Fuji once; only a fool climbs it twice." I would have to disagree with this statement-- I believe it should read: "Only a fool climbs Mt. Fuji." Period. This is the story of six fools who decided to try. Look, read, and enjoy!

"Mount Fuji: We Climb It So That You Don't Have To."


We left for Fuji on Wednesday evening. Ryoma from the dormitory kindly set up a car rental for us to drive to there, rather than spending even more money on train or bus tickets. Of course it was a Japanese-size car, meaning that I had no leg room and could not sit up straight without bending my neck sideways. I am no advocate of American behemoth SUV's, but just a couple more inches all around would have been nice. In this photo, from left to right: Ryan, Colin, Ryoma, and Joe. Charles is stuck in the back seat with me.


Yes, I am wearing two layers of white cleaning gloves, thanks for asking. The department store only carries winter gloves in-season, so we had to go with what they had. Also, I am very much obliged to Joe for allowing me to wear his Fairfield University hat.


Engrish again-- but Ryoma is Japanese and he was making fun of it too, so that makes it all okay. Charles is on the left.

Between this picture and the next is a period of suffering lasting several hours, for which I have no photographs-- this is because we were climbing Fuji in the dead of night, with the goal of reaching the summit to see the sunrise. By only the light of our narrow flashlight beams, we toiled for hours up winding gravel paths and steep rock climbs. I naively thought I would get along without a flashlight because everyone else had one, but I ended up having to buy a little cheap one halfway up for ¥1600 ($13). One of my backpack's zippers fell apart, and we had to tie elastic bands around the whole thing to hold it together. Ryoma had bought canisters of oxygen to fight off altitude sickness but everybody felt it anyway. Exhaustion led to frustration, and then to bickering. Finally a dim light began to appear in the east.


Joe, Ryan, and Colin sat here on uncomfortable, pointy rocks next to a torii gate very near the summit, just as the sun started to rise. That is, the sun came above the horizon but remained completely covered by clouds the entire time we were there. I tried to use flash for this picture, but the ever-present drizzle-fog made it white and fuzzy. I suppose you could say we were walking through the clouds, but at the time it felt and looked like the grayest kind of misty precipitation-- the kind that makes you want to go back inside right away and get in bed. Except we were ten to twelve hours away from our beds.


When the sky took short breaks from being completely overcast, I did get some pretty pictures. For this one, we appear to be between two layers of clouds.


A look back at the summit, and the torii gate where we had rested. The top of the mountain only got direct sunlight once we had left. D'oh!


A cloud creeps its way up the mountainside, threatening to engulf a trail station (on the right). You never realize how fast clouds move until you're standing right next to them.


The sky! The sky! The great blue sky and the peach-colored clouds! This view was unfortunately short-lived, as the clouds closed back up again rather quickly, and the mountain resumed its usual greyness.


Our best guess on this group of white-clad climbers was that they were Shinto religious pilgrims on their way to the shrine at the summit. The path down is different from the path up, so we never passed by them directly.


Beside the paths, there were areas still covered with snow, or at least mud-ice. I am not certain how this is the case; it is above freezing even at the summit, and it was fog-drizzling the whole time, which you might think would wash the snow away. But Mount Fuji never had to make sense.


On the way up, there were a dozen or so stations where you could rest and buy overpriced supplies or food. On the way down, there were only two. This one was the most colorful, with Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags out front (wrong mountain?). We talked to a store employee here for a little while; he was so pleased we knew Japanese he came out of the station to chat with us.


Joe ominously points the way down the mountain. The path down was in some ways worse than the path up. By this point the fog-mist had become so thick that I could not use my glasses any more-- so, not only were my legs too tired to walk properly, I couldn't even see very much of where we were going.


The zig-zag gravel path down lasted a few dozen turns; then we had to climb back up again to get to the station where we had started. Whoever first set out these paths should be brought out for public questioning, and the whole thing should be revised. After we finally got back to the car, we went to an onsen where we boiled ourselves for a little while, got lunch at a strange Chinese place, then drove back to the dormitory. I slept from 4pm Wednesday straight through to 7am Thursday, with only a short break for dinner around 8pm. My legs are still sore.

So in summary: Hooray for my first real depressing blog post!

To balance the mood, here is a note on a completely different topic. In less than 12 hours, I will be at Kinokuniya bookstore purchasing my pre-ordered copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! All of you in the US have my pity; I will get the book at British midnight, while you will all have to wait until midnight at your local times. I have managed to remain pretty much unspoiled, despite the leak of the entire book to BitTorrent and the New York Times' unfortunate decision to print an early review. I will not be writing anything else about the book in this blog, so don't worry about me ruining it for you. In the words of J.K. Rowling: "In a very short time you will know EVERYTHING!"