Climbing Mt. Fuji

I was able to get in a climb of Mt. Fuji on the last week the mountain was open to climbers, end of August, thanks to the invitation from my friend and DLI classmate, LtCol Mike Cady.  This was an event that had certainly been on my bucket list of things to do on my ICT, but I must confess I initially thought that perhaps the experience would be underwhelming.  It was definitely not that at all.  I wrongly thought that it would be a boring, easy, overly commercial and expensive venture.  I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong about everything, except the expensive bit.  I can now wholeheartedly recommend this experience as a must-do for any student of Japan.  It is the real deal and something unique.  There were many climbers on the mountain for our two day ascent (which I can't recommend strongly enough over a one-day hike), and their company reminded me that Fuji-San truly is at the heart of Japan in a very real spiritual sense.  While I have met many Japanese who have never climbed Fuji-San once, there are about 50,000 a year who do, and they receive the benefits which are hard to put in a report like this and best left to the haiku poets, maybe.


Enjoy the pics, I enjoyed taking them, and I would do it again the next season if I could.

Driven one-third of the way up, things look easy so far!

Then pretty quick things start getting more interesting.

I had to buy the climbing stick, and then I committed to getting even firebrand stamp offered, which turned out to be a lot.  Worth it though, got a great souvenir out of it.

Starting to get away from the foliage and into straight moonscape.

Plenty of stations on the ascent broke things up nicely, and we had great weather the first day.

About four or so shrines along the ascent trail, with the largest one being at the summit, this is a smaller one.

Sunrise the next morning, storm was coming in over the night but we had some breaks in it, enough  for some great views of a different kind than what might be available in most books.

Heading down at 0515, still above the clouds.

A money shot.

Good overall image of the long and winding road down.

Done and done, awesome time, look forward to the next!