Climbing Mount Fuji - A Tentative Plan

On August 21st and 22nd, I have been invited to climb Mt. Fuji with two friends from the Tokyo area. Although I use the word friends, they are really just acquaintances. I met them once at a party in May and they invited me to accompany them up the mountain. Knowing that climbing Fuji is one of those experiences that you should do while in Japan, I informed them that I was interested. After climbing the 3776m that is Mt. Fuji, I hope I will be able to call them friends.

From the stories I have heard, Mt. Fuji is not as pristine and tranquil as the pictures taken from afar would lead you to believe. Thousands of people trek up her flanks during the short climbing season and wherever thousands of humans go, you can be assured that a great deal of destruction and mess follows. I have heard stories of human waste fouling the mountainside and upsetting one's olfactory bulbs; countless stands and vending machines selling food, drinks and a myriad of trinkets to aid (or perhaps hinder) the climb. Plus, all the people climbing at the same time creates a human train that proceeds at the pace of its slowest member, no doubt an old man or lady, hobbled by arthritic joints. However, I can be thankful that they have yet to construct some sort of high speed lift that would whisk everyone up the mountain in climate controlled comfort.

Mt. Fuji has great significance to the Japanese. In fact, the characters that represent its name, have changed over the centuries reflecting the culture at that time. The current characters, 富士山, means the mountain of warriors. This name was adopted during the Kamakura shogunate when bushido, the code of the warrior, was developed. Prior to this, the name was less culturally charged, with characters representing it as a mountain that had no equal (不二山） or as a mountain perpetually covered by snow (不尽山）despite being snow free for at least a couple of months in the summer.

There seems to be many different trails to ascend Mount Fuji with varying levels of difficulty. In fact, one of the trails allows you to drive your car to an elevation of 2400m before being forced to climb the remaining 1376m. As I will be with friends, I probably will have little say in what trail I ultimately climb. Although I would prefer a challenging route, the experience of reaching the summit and watching the sunrise will be sufficiently rewarding regardless of the degree of hardship experienced during the climb.