Sorry I haven’t blogged much. I’ve had a lot on my plate.
As mentioned, I decided to go to Fuji despite being very depressed. I didn’t want to lie in my room and cry. Also, I had promised myself back in April that I would do it in memory of Ali Manir, so I didn’t want to back out of that.
I won’t distinguish between Sunday and Monday for the sake of convenience as I was trekking during this time and so the two days merged together a lot.
Sunday 17th July – Monday 18th July 2011:
After my brief post on Sunday afternoon, I went for lunch with Kyle. I told him what happened and so he asked if I wanted to go for a coffee to cheer up. Considering we had the trek that night, it made more sense to go and eat something more substantial. We went to a noodle place in the end, and I had udon with tempura. I didn’t eat it all because I wasn’t that hungry, but it was good.
I then went back to the apartment to get changed for the trek. I decided that I wanted to write a letter to James since I couldn’t say goodbye properly and was really upset, so I wrote that and put it in my backpack.
We (i.e. Meenal, Kyle, Justin and myself) met at Suitengumae station later in the evening, and got the subway to Shinjuku station. There, we met up with Tiffany and her friend Chika. We then went to collect our tickets and get the bus. I don’t think people realised how late it was at this point, as there was no sense of urgency and the bus was due to leave in under 5 minutes. Nevertheless, we managed to get our tickets, and get the bus on time.
The bus journey was long. In actual fact, it wasn’t that long (2 hours) but it felt long, because I was unable to sleep and knew I had a massive walk ahead of me.
When we arrived at the 5th station, we got off the bus and into the cool mountain air. I loved the weather, as it was much more like English autumn, and for the first time since I’ve been in Tokyo, I felt like I could breathe properly. It was around 13 degrees celcius there.
We acclimated, and then began the ascent.
The walk was hard. Much harder than I’d anticipated actually. It was around 11pm when we started, and so we were walking purely by moonlight and the crappy torches that were in our hotel rooms. The pace was also much too fast. I have climbed several mountains before, and although I don’t claim to be an expert by a long shot, I have some idea what I’m doing. Meenal and I were lagging behind, and despite repeatedly asking for the guys at the front to slow down, we were pretty much ignored. That was a frustrating start to the evening.
We reached the 6th station in half the expected time. By this point, the views of the city below were stunning though, and so we were still in good spirits. Unfortunately, my camera wouldn’t take decent photos of the view.
We carried on (still, much too fast) up the mountain. Because of the speed, we ended up taking at least 10 minute breaks, every time we made a zig-zag up the hill. This caused us to waste a lot of time being unnecessarily stationary, and I was a bit concerned about it because it’s not good on your heart to keep stopping and starting.
This went on for several hours, until we reached the 8.3 station. By now, my legs and lungs were in agony. There was a lovely elderly local man who we kept crossing on the path who was sat at the station. He must have been at least 75 years old; possibly older than that. I couldn’t understand what he was saying to me, but when he saw how much my legs were hurting, he sat down on the floor in front of me and started to stretch out the muscles around my knee and ankle. I was a bit shocked at first, but he was harmless enough, and genuinely trying to help. 
It was absolutely freezing here. Even with all my layers on, I was shaking like crazy and had to buy a (ridiculously overpriced) hot chocolate just to warm my hands. Chika lent me a pair of socks to wear as gloves as i hadn’t brought any with me.
We decided to wait at this station for sunrise, as a lot of time had passed already and we wouldn’t make the summit in time. A lot of other walkers seemed to have had the same idea and it got quite busy.
The sunrise was really beautiful. My camera didn’t do it justice. Once again, I’m wishing that I brought my nice camera that grandad bought me, but I was too worried about it getting damaged.
As per, there are more photos on my facebook.
We began the next ascent soon after sunrise, and fortunately, it started getting warmer. We got to station 8.4, but then had another very long rest. Meenal and I decided to go on ahead but at a slower pace while the others rested. It was light by this point, and the mountain was full of climbers so it wasn’t particularly risky or dangerous. We kept climbing, and made really good progress.
After less than an hour, we were at station 9, and we then managed to make the summit with only one minor rest point. The final stretch was like a never ending queue. There were so many people, and it was really unpleasant. It had started to get very dry and dusty from the sun too, so the remaining walk was hell. I really didn’t enjoy it at all.
I was also quite tearful by this point. Grief, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and dehydration left me in a pretty rotten state. I felt sorry for Meenal because she had to put up with me and I wasn’t talking much.
We finally got to the summit, and I felt so proud. There were a lot of points on the way up when I really felt like my legs wouldn’t take me any further.
I went to the shrine, said a long prayer by the alter, and made a donation. I then took the letter I had written to James and tied it to the post. I was pretty tearful, and ran into Meenal when I came back out again.
We went to the hut at the top, and rested for a while. I tried to have a brief nap, and Meenal ate some noodles. We didn’t stay long – maybe 30 minutes – as it was absolutely freezing up there. Justin arrived soon after, and we all started the descent together. On the way back down, we ran into the other guys as they headed up. One of them (I won’t mention names) actually looked pretty damn pissed off that we beat them to the top. But never mind. The way they were walking was dangerous.
On the way down, it was horribly dusty. The descent was almost as hard as the ascent because of the slippy surface, dusty air, and aching, cramping legs. I didn’ feel like I could make it down, and kept wanting to rest, but we needed to make sure we were back in time for a bus.
It then started to rain. A lot. We knew a typhoon was due over the next week, so I got a little scared. I had my phone and wallet in my bag, and although they were wrapped in a plastic bag, I was a bit worried about damage so we moved as quickly as we could to the next station. Unfortunately, this meant that we took a wrong turn. We ended up at a hut that was significantly off the route. One of the men who worked there spoke amazing English, and was luckily able to guide us about the best way to go. We could either climb back the way we had came by 2 stations (which would take at least 2 hours, perhaps more with our exhaustion) or we could contiue on the path that we were on towards a different bus stop. We decided on the latter. We hadn’t paid for tickets for the other bus anyway, so it made little difference to us.
We started down what seemed like a never ending dusty path. The earth was loose and the gradient was steep. We estimated that we would be at the station in an hour and a half. It took almost double that.
I found that the best way to get down was essentially to ski with my feet. It was really hard work, and my hips were knackered. I went on ahead of Meenal because I was exhausted and wanted to get back, and also, I kept getting very tearful and I didn’t really want her to see it. The road went on and on. Eventually I came to a wooded area, and thought that I had nearly arrived, but then it went back to the dusty track and I had to wade through it all again.
We arrived at the bus stop by 1.30pm. It was such a long day. We sat in a cafe and waited for the bus. I had my first full-sugar Coke in about 7 years. After walking solidly for 15 hours, who wants diet?
We had to catch two buses to get home. It was a bit of a nightmare actually. The first one was fine, but we missed the second bus by around 20 seconds, and had to wait another half an hour for the next one. It then arrived late, and we were almost kicked off the bus because some silly woman couldn’t read her ticket properly and got onto the wrong bus. The bus itself was hot, had no air con, and there was a baby crying the whole way. I had a terrible headache from dehydration, heat, and the pressure as we descended. Not a good combination. The traffic was awful too, and so we didn’t get back to Shinjuku until around 7pm. I texted Kyle to let them know that we were on another bus, but he misunderstood my text, and they hung around anyway. We did let them know though, so I maintain that was not our fault.
I got back to the apartment, had a long soak in the bath, and then went to bed. It was a massively difficult day, both physically and emotionally. Although I did not enjoy myself at all, I am glad that I went. I feel like in a weird way, it allowed me to pay tribute to James by sending him a letter, since I can’t attend the funeral. It also gave me an amazing opportunity to see the sun rise from a beautiful place.
However, it is something I never wish to repeat. Ever.
[Right… this post covered two days and so was pretty long. I’ll cover the next two in a new post.]
pseudopsience 