Pittsburgh and Beyond 2023

As a perfectly conical backdrop to Tokyo, a city with 14 million people, it is little wonder that Mt. Fuji is trumpeted as the most climbed mountain in the world. The official climbing season only runs two months out of the year, July and August – months where the iconic snow cap that typically crowns the top of the mountain is noticeably small or missing. The mountain is dotted with a number of rest stations and swarms of people, with some of them hiking at night to reach the summit at sunrise.

There’s a saying we ran into that goes: a wise man climbs Mt. Fuji once, but only fools do it twice. I don’t know how true that expression is for others (we spotted several hikers with their aged Mt. Fuji sticks, decorated with stamps commemorating their multiple ascents). But certainly my first attempt was certainly foolhardy from the get-go. I didn’t anticipate struggling so much with the elevation, and T also said it was a very difficult hike.

Getting to the trailhead was a bit time-consuming. We left Tokyo at 6am to catch the first train from Shinjuku to Shinagawa Station. There we took a Shinkansen bullet train south to Mishima station, about 75 miles away. From there we took a local bus for two hours that climbed the base of the mountain to Fujinomiya 5th station, which was on the south end of the mountain. We started the hike at around 11:30 am. We both think this was an unnecessarily stressful and tricky start of the day, and would recommend others to book a tour bus or some other means of transportation that would save you an hour or two of transit time.

The hike itself was beautiful, exciting, and at times, a slog. We picked the 2nd most traversed trail, the shortest by total length, and it went like straight up the mountain. When we were making reservations for mountain huts in April, it was difficult to navigate most of the sites and confirm that certain mountain huts were accepting guests. The mountain hut at the summit and the end of Fujinomiya trail seemed like a good idea at the time, so that’s one of the reasons why we picked that trail.

There were so many hikers (it’s estimated about 4000 people climb Mt. Fuji a day) of all ages. Most of the hikers were Japanese and we exchanged greetings and apologies when we passed by (Konichiwa! Sumimasen!). Women, children, the elderly, were all decked out in fancy technical hiking clothing, bucket hats, weekend backpacks, and hiking poles. 99% of people had trekking poles and it seemed like a very good idea. We passed by father-son/mother-daughter pairs, families, what looked like an elementary school class trip, making their way steadily down to the buses. In contrast, I had a drawstring bag with clothes, water, a backup battery, and onigiri. I also carried my camera because I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. T had a larger backpack with clothes, lot of water, and his charger. We had no poles, and hiking boots on, but dang did they feel heavy.

The view was amazing, but sometimes albeit boring. The switchbacks were tight, and it was basically the same view of the valleys and the cloud-cover for hours, like a giant staircase.

The hike took us 6 hours mainly because I struggled with the elevation. We went from sea level to 8000ft to 12000 ft in one day! At times, I exclaimed AiYah! and Hai! with every step and reluctantly gave T my camera to carry part of the way (love that man). T had an easier time than I did, though the Fujinomiya trail is not easy at all (T at times, expressed his concerns that I wasn’t going to make it). The back of the mountain is covered in volcanic pumice and one misstep could send you tumbling like some of the people we witnessed. T and I have no idea how small children and hella old people could hike up this mountain (they must do it over multiple days?), but we saw plenty of them.

We did see a man hiking barefoot up the mountain, and another one with flipflops, surely putting the adage about fools into practice.

When we finally reached the summit, I had a headache, my watch registered a blood oxygen of around mid 60s, and I felt as though I was going to cry. The mountain hut was pretty cute though! It had everything we needed. Here is a picture of us getting our curry dinner from a man with an “I ❤ Fuji” tee. So amazing. The immense pride and love we felt for one another at the top made the trip worth it.

The sunrise at the top is magnificent.

And getting down the mountain was a good time (only 4.5 hours with plenty of breaks!). We knew we were going to be sore for the next couple of days. It was plenty of justification for our next stop: a fancy Japanese ryokan.