Climbing Mt. Fuji (the 1st day of two days)

Mt. Fuji (in spring, from Wikipedia Commons)

I have wanted to climb Mt. Fuji for a long time. The journey was as follows:
14:30 departure from the bus station in front of JR Shin-Fuji station (Shinkansen Line) Fare: 3000yen for return
16:30 arrived at the 5th station ("the 5th" means you're halfway up the mountain. ) of Fujinomiya-guchi climbing road.
17:30 arrived at the new 7th station's lodge. dinner, sleep.
3:50 left the lodge
7:30 arrived at the top. After staying there for a hour, left the top.
12:10 arrived at the 5th station. Lunch.
13:30 a bus left the 5th station
15:15 arrived at the bus station in front of JR Shin-Fuji station


In details:

At the bus station in front of JR Shin-Fuji station. My equipments were as follows: in my backpack, there were mainly warm/rain clothing, head light and emergency food, etc. My mother-in-law rented the stock for me just before my departure. I realized that the stock is very useful for climbing Mt. Fuji not long after I started to climb. The bus went to the 5th station from here. It took two hours. Most passengers on the bus were foreigners. The first difference of Mt. Fuji: There are many foreigners comparing to the other mountains in Japan. I saw foreigners and heard foreign languages frequently during the climb.

16:30 There are some start points to the top. I chose the Fujinomiya-guchi start point because it is near my parents-in-law's home. Anyway, there was a dense fog like in the above picture. I begun to climb and I thought I would feel sad if such a dense fog stayed till the top. My clothing: a long-sleeve shirt, t-shirts, cotton-pants.

The second difference of Mt. Fuji: the surface is covered with tiny pebbles, their landslidable condition makes walking difficult. If you have a stock, you will find it easy to walk the ground. Wood stocks are available at lodges for 1,000 yen. They are so so but stocks for mountain climbing are better because stocks are able to change their length but wood stocks cannot.

The climbing road.

I could see a piece of the blue sky. I wished it would remain the same all the way to the top. But I couldn't see below because of the dense fog.

17:30, I arrived at the new-7th station lodge. It looked the newest among the lodges of the Fujinomiya-guchi road. (I don't if this is true, it is merely my impression.) Staying fee is 7000 yen including dinner and breakfast. I ate curry rice for dinner, but it was not enough, I ordered another dish. All menu prices are almost twice of normal, for example, the price of the curry rice is 1000 yen.

These are the beds at the lodge. One big top cover is used for eight people. No sheets, people cannot take a shower, mattresses are thin. There is almost no sound proofing, I heard the noise of midnight departures. So you should know in advance that you cannot sleep well. I also could sleep only two hours, but there are no lights near the beds, so I couldn't read something to kill the boring time.
These are no complains about the lodge. Equipments at the lodges are all the same, we should take them for granted. In other words, Mt Fuji is the most equipped mountain compared to other Japanese mountains over 3000 meters (This is the third difference of Mt. Fuji). Anyway, this lodges staff was kind, so I was satisfied with it.

I advise that you take a rest room break during your stay. All the rest rooms on Mt. Fuji, which make non-smell fertilizer, are pay toilets. You have to pay 200 yen for use, but while you are staying, it is free.

Next: the 2nd day of two days

[more]