Mount Fuji-San
Summiting Mount Fuji was supposed to be one of the huge achievements of this trip. However, I’ve realized that you can’t expect public transportation and the weather to harmonize with a insanely-abbreviated itinerary.
I woke up around 4:00 AM – residual effects from waking up to go to the fish market the previous day – with heavy rain falling on the little town of Kawaguchiko at the base of Mount Fuji. I was supposed to wake up the frenchman on the top bunk, but horror stories from some hawaiians about freezing in the rain discouraged the thought of taking the first shuttle out to the trailhead to the summit. The weather decided to clear up after 10:00 AM, but by then it was too late to do the 9 hour roundtrip hike to the summit and back before the last shuttle back to town. To give you an idea of how important the shuttle is, it would add another 6-9 hours of hiking that would have to be done at night probably in rain.
One doesn’t realize how high Mount Fuji actually is until you get above the treeline and see miles of clouds blanketing the skies above the rolling hills below. I made it up only 600 vertical feet and Mount Fuji up-close is not the most scenic of hikes, but some of the photos were worth the trip.
I spent the rest of the day figuring out logistics for getting to Kyoto.
