東京RUNNING ENGINEER: How To Climb & See Sunrise At Mt.FUJI

Last weekends I climbed to the top of Mt Fuji for the first time. This was a midnight climbing to see sunrise on the top of Mt.Fuji. Mt.Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at 3776 m (how tall!) and registered with Unesco World heritage in 2013. I and five friends joined as a team including one person with experience. We had been in the mountain for 15 hours and finally we achieved the goal. That was the perfect view ever in life!

Mt.Fuji is located around 100 km to the west of Tokyo and it takes 2.5 hours by bus. We moved from Tokyo to the fifth station of Mt. Fuji (the fifth station is the base of climbing Mt.Fuji) by bus and arrived at 3 pm. The weather of Mt.Fuji was great as forecast. My plan was to start climbing at 9 pm, so we had more than 5 hours. we had lunch, chatted, took photos or sleeping. We saw a beautiful sunset and then it got dark and cold soon. After all, we started climbing an hour early (later I knew it was good decision).

The fifth station (before climbing)

The route that I chose is the most popular one called Yoshida trail (吉田ルート). While we climbed even at around the fifth station it was hard to see a few meter away without headlight. It was okay we had three lights. When looked up, wow, what a gorgeous sky, millions of stars were spread. I didn't know the names of the stars...

The eight station

It was fine for a while. We walked 30 minutes and took 10 minutes break regularly as plan. However, we obviously slowed down after the 7th station. Because of thin air, coldness, tiredness, we slowed down like 15 mins walk and 15 mins break.

When we took break, someone was almost sleeping and I woke him up because I was worried about a mountain sickness. At 2 am it was so cold and wore down jacket. While we walked it was okay but when stopped we shook with cold. At the eighth station Nisshin Cup noodles are sole and it was 600 yen there. (Regularly it's 140 yen. You better to carry it in your bag..)

Sunrise started

I expected that we would arrive on the top at 4 am and wait 30 minutes until sunrise. Google says it takes 6 hours 30 minutes. Oh, we took too much break. The sky got slightly bright beyond clouds around at the ninth station! The last station is left but we need to judge if we climb to the top or see the sunrise here. Our team were tired and chose to sit here considering our current pace.

The sky got bright suddenly and the tiny sun came out from cloud. Oh, amazing! We sat there and prepared to take photos. It is breathtakingly beautiful and gorgeous. The perfect view ever! We smiled and shook hands proudly . We took great photos since it was great weather. We were lucky!

Beautiful

After that, we restarted climbing and stood on the top of Mt Fuji since at 8 am. We came back to the fifth station at 11 am. So we finished all-night activity of 15 hours. All climbers slept like babies in the bus.

The next day I came to office dragging my feet... In lunch time I ate cup noodles that I didn't in Mt.Fuji. A real life comes back. We work as usual and sometimes smile remembering great memories.