Friday after work I got my train tickets and I bought food and water.  I got home and started packing all my stuff into my borrowed bag. I ended up having to take one of the bottles of water out because the bag was just too heavy for me with my back.  So instead of bringing 4 litres of water, I only brought 2 and a half litres. (which turned out to be enough). 

I left home at 9:30 Saturday morning and had to take 6 trains and a bus to get to Mount Fuji. I met up with Kimberly and her friend Mariko (sensei) on the express train to Tokyo. The three of us met up with another friend, also named Mariko, in Takao and went the rest of the way together. We got to Mount Fuji station and we bought our bus ticket to 5th station. While we were waiting, we went to Moss Burger and got take out to eat on the way up to 5th station of Fuji. When we arrived we bought walking sticks, O2 tablets and a can of O2.  While we were getting ready the clouds cleared a bit and Mount Fuji appeared right in front of us!  It was really neat. We couldn't see it at all when we first got there, and then all of a sudden it was looming right in front of us, with snow! lol  I got a few pictures of it before a wall of cloud came up and covered it all up again and left us standing in a thick fog. At 6:30pm we headed out on our journey!

The walk from the 5th station to the 6th station was easy and had a beautiful view!!  We got there just before sunset and then followed the signs up to the summit :)

The walk from the 6th station to the 7th was more difficult.  The path was steep and there were "stairs". It was quite tiring! We made it to the 7th station and had a 20 minute break. We ate some dinner (energy bars and water) and used the bathroom.  The bathrooms cost 200 yen ($2) and most of them were co-ed. Each bathroom stall had a bag with pads inside and a note saying to use one if we need one.  Some of the toilets had regular flush and some had a water gun that you had to aim in the toilet (a suction toilet like in a train) and the water would cause the "door?" "latch"? to open and everything gets suctioned out the bottom. Some toliets were very nice and other's were ok. 

The path from the 7th station to the first 8th station (there are at least 3 stations that are all 8) was very rocky. We had to pick our way over rocks and boulders.  It was basically rock climbing. I enjoyed that section the most, although it was very tiring and I sometimes had to crawl up because the rock was too high for me to get my foot onto it.  I didn't like that there was no lights so you only had what light you brought with you. I had a light attached to my hat, but I found that there was so much water in the air that it looked like there were tiny bubbles floating all around me. It made seeing the ground difficult, but it was really neat to see. We lost Kimberly at the 8th station.  She barely made it to the 8th station because she got altitude sickness.  Someone up ahead of her was kind enough to help her up the last of the steps to the 8th station. He held onto her hand and pulled her up. I was behind her in case she fell.  She stayed at the station for the night. They charged her 7000 yen ($70) to spend the night in the hut, and she had to leave at 5:30 in the morning.  She said they were really nice though.

We made it to 3,250 m (the official 8th station) a little around 2am. We used the bathroom there because we knew there were no more bathrooms until we got to the top (3,676m).  The stars were so beautiful! It was amazing. There were so many stars and they seemed so bright! I was easily able to make out constalations that I normally have a hard time finding because they aren't as bright back home. I loved it!!
We didn't make it to the very top in time for the sunrise, but we were only about 400m from the top.  We had a good view. It was very cloudy though, so it wasn't an amazing sunrise, but it was still pretty.

The last 200m was very crowded. It was stop and go for the last little bit because there were so many people. The route was part steep hill and part rock climbing. Mariko Sensei got sick just before making it to the top, but she was alright to continue.  We finally got to the summit at 6:30 am, 12 hours after starting out.  We took a rest and had some hot soup and then started back down the mountain at 7am.  

Going down sucked! In some ways it was easier and in some ways it was much harder.  There was no where to rest between stations. On the way up there were lots of places that you could just sit down for a few minutes and cath your breath, but going down there was no where to sit. And it started raining as we were leaving the summit and it rained until we were back down at the 6th station, just an hour away from being done.  It took 5 hours to get back down the mountain. I have blisters on my feet from the descent. I arrived back at the 5th station at noon and we left at 12:30 to go back home.  Kimberly and I took Mariko Sensei to The Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and introduced her to quesadillas and I had potato skins.

I made it home about 8:30pm.  It was a great experience and I'm glad I went, but I'm not sure I want to do it again. lol We'll see how I feel when the time comes.  Today I am very sore. I have burises and blisters and stiff muscles. I'm VERY glad that I have today and tomorrow off. I should be good by Wednesday. :)

There are pictures. I'm not sure how to post them here without them being HUGE! so I posted them on fb. Feel free to friend me, I'm Frell Nik.   Leave me a message telling me where I know you from.

If you don't want to friend me on fb, I've uploaded my album to photo bucket.  Unfortunately, photobucket inverted the photo order, so you'll have to look at the pictures in reverse. Start at the end of the album and work your way back.  Album is called Mount Fuji 2012 :)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v334/frellnik/Facebook/Mount%20Fuji%202012/