Fuji - English version by my friend!

Juste pour vous dire que je suis vivante (bien que j'ai perdu ma bataille contre le Mont Fuji). En attendant ma version des faits, voilà celle de mon pote Dave, raconté de manière rigolote!

On Friday night an American, an Englishman and a French girl set out to get the night bus from Sendai to Tokyo. They were on a mission to climb, over the night of the summer solstace, the three-thousand seven-hundred and seventy-six meters required to get to the top of Japan’s most iconic natural wonder, Mt. Fuji.

Watching the sunrise from the highest point in Japan, said to be a border between Earth and Heaven, is regarded by some, the greatest experience Japan has to offer.

With half an hour’s sleep in total, our heroic trio arrived at a small town North West of the mountain early Saturday afternoon. Their plan was to take the bus to the fifth base (of nine) of Fuji at 2300 meters, and then set off from there at around 10p.m. ready to watch the sunrise at four in the morning. They looked up to where the mountain should be, but a thick layer of white cloud smeared it from view.


They enquired about transport to the 5th base at the tourist information office. The lady there was not overly positive about their aims.
“Mt. Fuji is not in climbing season at the moment. You cannot climb Mt. Fuji tonight.”
“But it’s only eleven days until climbing season opens… surely it wont make much difference?” suggested the American.
“There is still seven or eight meters of snow on the mountain and it is rainy season at the moment. The conditions are very bad and, because it’s not climbing season, there is no mountain rescue at the moment either. I highly recommend you don’t climb Mt. Fuji.”
The three took a serious moment to consider the options.
“Well, I didn’t come all this way to not climb Mt. Fuji, I say we just go for it and see if we can make it.” concluded the rather dashing, rugged and brave Englishman.

With it being before climbing season, there were only a couple of busses a day running to 5th base, and unfortunately, they missed them. They mulled over to the taxi rank, where a gang of drivers gathered together enjoying their cigarette break.
“How much to fifth base?” Asked the French girl.
The drivers briefly discussed it between them, clearly it not being a journey they regularly make.
“12000 yen”
“Umm… that’s expensive…” said the Englishman
The three mountaineers checked the map. “We could go from here… it’s just before 1st base” The American pointed at the map. It was about three hours walk, and a 1300 meter ascent to fifth base from there… But there was plenty of time, and they were tough, so what was an extra 1300 meters?

The taxi driver waved them off at a small car park in the middle of the woods. “Be careful, there are bears!” and with that he drove off, taking the last link with civilisation with him.

The three climbers quickly scoffed their convenience store bento lunchboxes… sticky white rice, battered chicken, spaghetti and a few dried red pickles. 1000 calories the box informed them. They would need more than that for the challenge that lay ahead.

As they finished, a jolly Japanese man came trekking down the mountain path.
“How was it?” they asked him. “Was there snow?”
“I’ve just come from 5th base. There’s snow from the 6th base so I didn’t climb past there.”
Undeterred by this news, the three set off anyway.


About 100 meters into the woods there was a large grey tori gate with a statue of a solemn praying macaque monkey stood either side. They said a quick prayer to Kuni-Toko-Tachi, the shinto god that lives in Mt.Fuji. First base went by quite quickly, as did second, the Englishman was already higher than anywhere in his home country. As they approached third base the sun set, but by then they were already surrounded by mist and the woods were thick around them so they were unable to see it.

The American and Englishman put on their daft looking head torches and led the way, passing third and fourth base and eventually rising above the mist.
“Look we can see stars!” said the French girl, who wasn’t blinded by torchlight. The, by then, hot and very sweaty trio decided to take a 10 minute rest in a clearing to cool off and share some food and water, and to gaze at the stars. The torchlight lit up a thick cloud of steam whirling off the three bodies, wet from the mist and sweat, the accompanying deadly silent woods gave it a very eerie atmosphere.

They moved on and passed a shrine, saying another prayer and after what seemed like ages, they eventually arrived at a hut with lights and a generator. This was the 5th base, marking 2300 meters above sea level, and whilst 1st-4th base were essentially abandoned sheds, 5th base though small is actually a proper building. There was a lone bored looking Japanese caretaker inside there watching television. The climbers didn’t ask, but it would have cost 5000 yen each to stay there for even an hour so they didn’t bother. At 9:00pm they were a couple of hours ahead of schedule though so, knackered, they took half an hour’s shut-eye on the benches outside.

They woke up COLD at 10pm and wrapped up warm, setting off along the steep rocky slope. The fifth base also marks where the woods thin out and the bare rock face of Fuji begin. They quickly got hot from the exercise and had to take off most of what they had just wrapped themselves up with.

The mountaineers looked out at the half clear view they had. They could see at least three glowing cities that looked as far down as they were away. The half cloudy sky was set to give a truly epic sunrise. Passing another shrine they gave thanks for the good weather.
Past sixth base and all was fine. They had the entire mountain to themselves, the lone trekker climbing down and the caretaker of 5th base were the only other humans they’d seen the entire time since the taxi ride. The thick silence was spooky.
“Shit. Snow.” The Englishman leading the way brought the group to a halt. A thirty degree icy incline lay ahead of them. He tested it out, putting one running shoe on it, only to slide right back down.
“Hmm… The path is covered from here” He said looking up as far as he could see. The lights of 8th base, the next, and last, proper building glowed faintly ahead.
Although the path was filled with snow, it was because it was in a mountain crevasse, there was a bush covered scree slope ridge that was snow free.
They powered on, scrambling up through the bushes and loose rock on all fours.
No longer were the stars or cities visible, and the thick clouds obscuring the view decided to rain. However, they saw a couple of torches leaving 5th base. Somebody else was climbing up the mountain, perhaps an hour behind them… It brought some comfort knowing that perhaps they weren’t completely crazy, or just that they weren’t the only crazy ones.

Eventually the mountain path rose out of the ridge and, dragging themselves up onto it on their bellies, fatigued, they took another 5 minute break. It was midnight and sunrise was four hours away. They were running much faster than the time given in the guidebook though, despite the diversion. It would only take another three hours to get to the top.

In half an hour, back on the normal path and walking through the rain, they arrived at 8th base. There was another lone Japanese man asleep on the floor inside, looking after the building. Instead of waking him up, desperate for somewhere to take an hour’s refuge, they went into the toilets. At 3.1 vertical kilometers above the sea, there were proper, clean and dry, public toilets. It was amazing.
“What, we can’t sleep in the toilets man..” Said the American after the Englishman’s suggestion.
The Englishman had already taken his sopping wet shoes off and sat down in the cubicle on the toilet lid. The American soon switched his mind and sat down on the one next door. Being the only people on the entire mountain, The French girl lay down on her backpack next to the urinals. They opened up their food reserves and gobbled cake and banana chips and decided, as they were an hour ahead of schedule, to take a break.

There are lots of strange places to sleep. On a toilet at 3100 meters certainly falls into this category.

It was 1am and they could hear voices outside. The French girl jumped up, suddenly wide awake. “They’re speaking French!” She said running to the door and opening it up to find three soaking wet and disheveled French men. “Come and rest in here!” The Englishman said, inviting them in to stay. The Frenchmen spoke English fluently and the two trios rested together. The Frenchmen decided to rest there until morning and then climb back down the mountain, as there was a gale and heavy rain falling outside, and snow for much of the last 600 meters. The American, Englishman and Frenchgirl decided to wait for a bit longer and make their decision later. The clouds were too thick to see the sunrise anyway, but maybe they could still make it to the top of the mountain afterwards.

At half past two in the morning a Japanese man came into the toilets and woke them up. “You cannot rest in here! You have to pay 5000 yen if you want to stay in the cabin!” he was pretty stern. The Frenchmen started to try to reason with him and ended up agreeing to pay and stay until morning.
Our trio, unable to afford 5000 yen, but still 2 hours until daylight and with rain thrashing down and snow on the path ahead, started to debate that it might not be possible to get the top, The Englishman arguing that they shouldn’t give up and just go for it, despite the danger and lack of any mountain rescue. The American arguing that they’d be stupid to try it, as the lack of any other climbers on the mountain indicated that the woman in the tourist information centre was correct, and Fuji couldn’t be climbed, at least not with running shoes and no proper mountain climbing experience. The French girl just let them argue it out.

So after climbing over two vertical kilometers, 600 meters short of the top, they gave up.

Cold, wet, tired and absoloutley fucking gutted, they began their descent back down in the pouring rain. They found a non-bush covered scree slope to go down that fortunately wasn’t covered in snow, and it only took them ninety minutes to get down to 5th base at daybreak. The thick grey clouds hid the midsummer’s day sunrise.

Being not climbing season. There was no transport down from 5th base.

It took SIX hours

About TWENTY kilometers

It was PISSING it down with rain

The Englishman, who’d had 2 hours sleep total in the last 48 hours and dehydrated semi hallucinated that he saw car parks with busses in them, and at one point the American and French girl convinced themselves that a tree, was in fact a deer and started shouting at it.

They got to the main road and walked along for another kilometer or so. At the first main junction they got to, a car with a middle aged lady in it came driving along. Waving in desperation they flagged it down.
“Excuse me, do you know where the shrine is where we can get a bus to the town?”
“Hmm… it’s a long way…” she pondered
“there’s just the three of you?” She didn’t seem like she really wanted to do what she did. There wasn’t a square inch of dry on any of three scary foreigners and her car was clean and well kept.

So they bagged a hitchhike to the town. The car was the most incredible thing ever. It was warm and it was dry. Dropping the climbers off in the town, they stumbled into a café, making a wet dirty mess and got a coffee and thick white sliced toast and jam.

Mt. Fuji is an active volcano, and Kuni-Toko-Tachi was kind enough to shoot out many hot springs around it. As soon as it opened at 10a.m, the heroic trio jumped into the bath house and washed and soaked and relaxed in the god’s hot waters.

Fuji, I’m coming back next month. You haven’t beaten me.

Malheureusement moi je ne pense pas avoir le temps d'y retourner...mais bon, je ferai la Mont Blanc en France, ne?!