Tori Gate and Climbers on Mount Fuji 2005-08-21

I'm including this picture to show the crowds climbing up Mount Fuji. This is the very top of the climb, but what you see is a representative section of trail. From about the 8th Station to the top the trail was packed with climbers, exactly as you can see here. Imagine a line 4 or 5 people wide slowly filing into a movie theater (that happens to be at the top of a mountain) and you have a picture of the final two hours before the summit.

Climbing Mount Fuji 2005 - Part Four: From the 8th Station to the Top

You may also want to read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of this series.

I left off just above the 8th Station. Our group was becoming ragged, and I started to wonder if we'd all make it to the top. About that time, the Japanese woman in our group stopped and puked. You would hardly have known it. She leaned against a rock, fished a bag out of a pocket, and completed the whole process without a hint of puke in sight. So don't let the image of puke enter your thinking at all. Thousands of people climb Mount Fuji each year without puking...

At that point I thought she would check out for sure, but she gamely pressed forward. My two friends from Nepal were also still in tow as we continued.

I should point out to important facts for future climbers. First, the Subashiri Trail joins the Kawaguchiko Trail at the 8th Station. The result is that suddenly the trail because PACKED with hikers. Many of them are traveling in groups. You can tell because the group leaders are all exhorting them with megaphones. From the 8th Station up to the top we passed people holding flashlights designed for directing traffic (the kind with long, orange shafts at the end). These people were about as useful as the people directing traffic at most local malls in Japan. There is only one trail and one direction to go, and they resolutely pointed us that way. Second, for the daring, it's worth knowing that a separte trail is used to descend from Mount Fuji. This wide trail veers over and adjoins the ascending trail briefly at the 8th Station. I'm pretty sure I saw one busload of people leave the main ascending trail and head up the "down trail." Here in Japan, to cimb UP the DOWN trail (even if it's empty) seems almost unthinkable. I thought about it, but I didn't want to risk a sudden change of plan. But next time I may have to go for it. You'll understand why by the end of the next paragraph.

As I said, the trail became quite crowded after the 8th Station. We had three hours before sunrise and a short distance remaining, but I started to wonder if we'd make it. Our progress was literally stop and go. In fact, after an hour I concluded that the chances of being on top for sunrise were slim at best. I started comforting myself that I had been on top for sunrise previously. (On that occassion I also didn't think I would make it on time due to the crowd.) Creeping along I resisted the temptation to "widen" the trail. That is, it's always possible to walk so far to the side of the trail that you can simply pass everyone. The biggest reason not to try this is because if you slip on a rock and start it rolling downhill you might kill someone coming up from below. No kidding. Anyway, last time I used that strategy (minus the killing), but this time I didn't feel it was worth it. BUT one group of people pushed up through the crowd doing anything and everything to advance quickly. One young man pushed by me brushing his backpack against my face, while others from his group cut back and forth to the far left and right sides of the trail. They were...the Americans. They could have been "the Canadians" or "the French," but I think I recognize my own compatriots. If one or two Americans had pushed their way up the hill they would have been balanced out by a few Japanese doing the same thing. But it was a whole busload. Ah, well. I sympathized with their urgency, though, and I admit to doing a bit of the same here and there, especially when it started looking like we might make it to the top before the show started.

Just before the 9th Station I looked back and spotted all the members of our group strung out starting just behind me. For the past hour we had all been swallowed up in the crowd, so I was surprised to see everyone so close by. That was my last glimpse of the two Nepalis climbing with us until we met at the bottom hours later. I didn't see my Iranian friend and the Japanese woman for quite a while either.

Personally, at that point I felt completely fresh. We were moving so slowly that I couldn't imagine feeling tired. Once or twice I got light-headed but managed to shake it off by telling myself that I had no business being affected by any altitude below 13,000 feet. I don't know if my brief dizzyness was psychological, but that strategy worked perfectly.

I think I've said everything that needs to be said about the climb up. At about 4:40am I arrived at the summit -- about 5 minutes before sunrise. The Subashiri/Kawaguchiko trails end at a set of stairs with stone lions set on either side, followed by a Tori Gate. All the trails end by passing through Tori gates. They say the climb up Mount Fuji historically began as a religious (Shinto) pilgrimage, and there is a functioning Shinto Shrine among the cluster buildings at the top.

Personally, I imagine that the first people who made their way to the top of Mount Fuji hundreds of years ago did it for the same reason that people all over the world scale any discernable mountain peak today -- because it was there.

Next: Descending from Mount Fuji