Hat climbed 3776 m above Japan

The travelling hat has climbed higher than 99% of the Japanese population.

My journey to the top of Japan started in the little city of Fukui. We left town at around 11 am. After driving for about 6 hours, we finally arrived at the Subashiri 5th station at 2000m. It was cold, wet, foggy, and rainy..........YAY lets climb a mountain!!!!!! Not just any mountain, Mt Fuji. There were about 10 people in our group. Myself, my boss, my friend Lesley, and the rest of the group were my students. First we acclimatized for about two hours in the 5th station mountain hut eating hot curry and writing post cards. Equipped with warm clothing, ample water, and a lovely headlight I felt fairly prepared. Then at around 8:45 pm we started our long and treacherous journey to the top. I actually had no idea what I was in for. The rain thankfully subsided as we started, but everything still felt damp.

The fog made the white spots on this picture.
That dollar store walking stick saved my life.
Our whole group at 2000 m.
At 2700 m.
As we were climbing the dampness subsided. We eventually had climbed above the clouds, and then were faced with tons of stars and a perfect bright full moon. From that point I rarely needed my head light because the moon lit our way. It was a beautiful sight to be climbing with the white clouds below us and the stars and moon above us, while on the side of a huge mountain. We stopped every now and then to gain our breath and wait for the group to catch up. There are several stations along the way where climbers can get food or stay the night. We didn't enter any of them, as they are mostly closed at night. The higher we climbed the colder it got. And boy did it get cold. I was freezing!!!!!! The wind was extremely chilly. At one point I stopped because I saw a lovely large rock that I wanted to hide under, away from the howling wind.
About half way through climbing up, I started to feel the effects of the altitude and felt really sick. I felt like I was hungover, but starving, and too tired to eat. I had to keep going though, I couldn't stop, I was making it to the top before sunrise even if I had to puke while doing it (that made Lesley laugh). Eventually Lesley and I realized the time, and came to the conclusion we had to go on ahead without the whole group. At the 8th station all the routes up the mountain meet, and this creates an irritating bottle neck. We plowed through people all cued up to reach the top. There were several large tour groups just not moving. As time was running out, we stepped up our game. We, along with everyone else, were breathing quite heavily trying to get as much oxygen out of the air as possible. Then as we were still climbing, we saw the colours starting to spread across the sky.
Finally making it to the top at 4:25am after climbing for 7 1/2 hours, I was EXHAUSTED. Lesley and I had made it!!!!!!! やた!! We found a lovely front row ledge to sit on and watch the sun come up over the cloudy horizon. It was an amazing sight to behold.

These pictures are no comparison to the actual thing. Being able to look in every direction and see this ocean of clouds being draped in colour by the rising sun. Japan really is the land of the rising sun, or goraiko ごらいこ. It was amazing to think that I was sitting on the top of Japan at 3776m.
After watching the sun slowly rise over the horizon, we decided to walk around the top of the volcano. This was a HUGE mistake. Already exhausted from the climb up, I didn't realize that to walk around the top would be another 2 hours of walking up and down hills. Although it was absolutely beautiful, putting one foot in front of the other became an arduous task. So unnecessary. But after walking around, and finding the true highest point marker, snapping some fake smiling photos, we headed to the post office. That's right, the highest post office in Japan. This is where we mailed some post cards home.

Fuji-san is one big crater of red rocks and dust.

The picture above says it all. Dead tired.
So, by the time I was ready to make the decent down I had already been awake for 24 hours. Going down Fuji was possibly one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, physically and mentally. Basically we had to walk down on sand and small rocks. Sounds nice right? Well it wasn't, it was literally hell. Sometimes we would run down, kind of like mogul skiing, but without the skis. I have videos that one of my students took, but can't upload them on here. And when someone was in front of you, the sand would be blown up into your face. So basically the pictures below are how I looked.

And the whole time all I wanted to do was reach the point when we would be below the clouds..... it took forever for that to happen. All I wanted was to be where the normal people in this country were walking around.

I took the picture below to remind myself of how I was feeling at that exact moment. It was horrible.

It took 5 hours to get down. Every body part was in pain, my legs hated me. When everybody made it down, we drove the bus straight to a nearby onsen. That hot water has never felt so good on my aching muscles. Then we proceeded to drive for 8 hours home, stopping at every rest station just so the drivers would stay awake. I maybe slept an hour on the way home. It was a very tiring journey. We finally arrived home at 1 am.

So what can I say about Fuji? An absolutely amazing experience. Although it was the most difficult physical thing that I have ever accomplished, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Hiking up past the clouds in the middle of the night under a full moon and stars, and watching the graceful sun rise over an ocean of white fluffy clouds is truly a once and a life time experience. And the thing about good and bad experiences, is that one tends to only remember the good parts and block out the bad. Would I climb it again... no, probably never. Once is enough thank you.