Climbing Up the Mount Fuji

I learnt something from climbing up the Mount Fuji: DO NOT CLIMB UP THE MOUNTAIN WHEN A STORM IS NEARBY!!!!!!

Mount Fuji is Japanese highest mountain, which is 3,776m above the sea level. Actually I did climb up this mountain last summer as well, and felt this mountain is very easy one. This time, however, it was way more difficult than any other mountains I have ever climbed.

Alison and I went climbing up the Mountain on the 11^th and 12^th of August, 2010. We kind of knew a typhoon was at Japan Sea at that time, and we thought it wasn’t such a big problem because Japan Sea is far away from the Mount Fuji. Actually, however, the weather was truly horrible because of the typhoon... We could have died seriously... On the half way to the top, a guy from one of the mountain lodges said to us that “this wind is too strong to continue going up. All the tours have been canceled. This is that serious situation,” but still a lot of people keep going up without listening to him at all. We were, at least, considering his advice and,,, our conclusion was “keep going!” At this time, the wind was already so much strong and sometimes we cannot just stand still. To make the situation worse, rain had started. Sometimes we needed to grab a rock so that we wouldn't be flown off. However, this was nothing compare with the situation on the top.

We got the top at 4 am. As soon as we got there, we felt a little bit of excitement, and it changed to fear in a second. The excitement was from this strong wind, which we had never experienced, but it was too strong to enjoy… So, excitement had changed to fear immediately.

On the top the wind was so strong that I, literally, flown off several meters several times. The temperature was super low (6 degrees Celsius in summer!) and because of the rain we were all wet so that we felt we might be frozen to death (this horrible wind has also worked on it)!!! In order to survive, we took out all the single cloths from our back-pack, and wore all of them (of course they were including even short sleeve T-shorts!!!). Can you imagine this? Taking out cloths from a bag is such a hard work in this strong wind with our not-well-working hands because of the coldness....><

We were suffering for about 1 hour from 4 a.m. on the top until the sun comes up (otherwise it was too dark to go down the mountain), then this little mountain lodge on the top opened the door, so all of us rushed into the lodge and ate something worm to find "We survived!!" This feeling didn't continue so long though.

Suddenly, a young man working at this lodge said to us that "This is just a breeze as a storm on the mountain. The longer you wait here, the stronger and stronger the wind would be! So if you want to go down the mountain today, start moving immediately!!"

So we start going down in this horrible wind and rain... That was literally a NEAR DEATH experience. There was a crowd at the starting point of the way back and we wondered why. We just wanted to go back as soon as possible! So, we tried going through this crowd and found that there was a reason for this: the wind was sooooooo strong that they COULD NOT move forward. The wind was this much strong. If you can’t imagine how much it was, you can think that this wind was like a kind of experimental wind which was made of a special facility like this (YouTube video).

And also at one point, a lot of fist-size rocks flow from a cliff at as almost the same height as our head :P

I think that was the most dangerous situation in this little adventure. To try avoiding these rocks, I was walking with watching the cliff, but Alison to me said that “don’t face the cliff! What if a rock hit into your face? It would be better to get hit with them on the side of your head without realizing it.” Haha, maybe you're right!

We are alright now, so I can laugh about this experience but what if something bad would have happened...><

This story is a very good one to tell for my grandchildren when I get old.