06 August 2008

Mount Fuji Summit

31 July 2008: Summiting Mount Fuji. The Yabanjin ascended the Fujinomiya trail and descended the Gotemba trail. Today a large group of US Marines from nearby Camp Fuji tackled this fun but challenging climb. The Yabanjin and his buddy Jay Ogawa jumped in with them.
The climb up looked like it was going to be miserable with heavy rain at the house at 0315 but it cleared up as soon as we arrived at the Fujinomiya trail head (Station 5 entrance) at 0545. The sun blazed for most of the ascent but we did get some relief when the clouds rose up and surrounded us. The summit was clear and breezy for my third summit. I choked down some of the worst cup-o-udon I have ever had at the summit mountain hut then headed down towards Gotemba. The trail is always long and boring and this year we were also hindered by some "Pea Soup" quality fog and intermitent heavy rain. After the perfectly straight torture of the 9km of Gotemba trail ash slide, we made it to the 5th station! Not too bad for a couple of old guys!