Word spread quickly throughout the Japanese office that I was crazy. I heard from folks back in my Oregon office that I’d been spotted carrying a “very large” backpack (it was a day pack), and running the streets in the mornings before work. I got the impression that Japanese aren’t very into exercise. Then again, maybe I’ve just got a skewed perspective now from living in Portland. Afterall, I thought the Japanese looked silly using umbrellas.
Mt Fuji is a ridiculously popular mountain, with over 300,000 climbers a year. And they’re all packed the 2 month “official climbing season” of July and August. Though the trail is completely non-technical, Fuji’s 12,388′ elevation makes it a very challenging climb for those not acclimated or in good fitness, and weather can make for dangerous conditions. Understandably, authorities wish to minimize accidents and deaths on the mountain by confining climbers to the summer months when all the snow has melted and there is less chance for accidents. The Japanese are very good rule followers. Though technically legal, it’s really hard to find information of climbing “off-season” and logistically a nightmare. In the summer there are mountain huts you can sleep at along the trail, and most people do the hike as an overnight (which I find mind boggling), but camping is forbidden any time of year. There are also lots of buses running from towns around the mountain for various trail heads in the summer, and only limited runs in shoulder seasons.
Regardless, unless weather shut me out, I was determined to get there. The best option I could find was to take the train to the town of Gotemba on Friday night and stay in a hotel. Saturday morning I took a bus to the Subashiri trailhead, arriving at 8:30am. The last bus off the mountain left at 4:00pm. So, I had a 7.5 hour window to climb 6000′. Good thing I’m in shape!
Clouds obscured the mountain most of the day (typical in summer), but no storms were in the forecast. I found the hike easy, and it was blessedly uncrowded (relatively). I took an ice axe and microspikes, but needed neither – there was still a lot of snow, but it was all soft.
And since it was June 21, the summer solstice (aka “Hike Naked Day” in the world of thru-hikers), I really had no choice but to streak the peak. I made it back to the bus with over an hour to spare.
Back in Tokyo, I had one last tourist activity to fit in, the famous Tsukiji fish market and tuna auctions. The problem is they only allow 120 tourists per day in to watch to avoid overcrowding and interfering with actual operations, so you have to get there early – like 4am early. The real problem is that I was staying 11km away and the trains don’t run from midnight to 5am. I had decided I would just leave at 1:00am the night before my flight home and walk there. Despite everyone assuring me Tokyo was very safe, my coworker who’d been helping me make all my travel arrangements was horrified that I would walk. Instead, she helped arrange for me to check another tourist box off my list – staying in a capsule hotel! It wreaked of stale cigarettes, and while I’m happy to have had the experience, I will probably never stay at one again. The tuna auction itself was a spectacle and quite fun. That’s all for this trip!
