Views of Mt Fuji

When I lived in Japan in 1987, I saw various views of Mt Fuji every day (when it wasn't cloudy or smoggy).  From Kofu, you just see the tip of Mt Fuji, which is an active volcano (which last errupted in 1707-1708) and is 3776.24m high.  However, I didn't really get to see it from this beautiful angle when I lived in Japan (although I did climb to the summit when I lived in Kofu), so it was wonderful to be able to share seeing it this way with some of my Japanese and my Australian family.  Here are some of the many photos we (mainly S) took of the beautiful Mt Fuji.

The saying is "A wise man climbs Mt Fuji once, a foolish man does it twice".  Some people train for months to climb Mt Fuji - my preparation was not as useful.  I was sitting at a Rotary meeting one afternoon & my fellow exchange student who was about to return to the USA lamented that he had not had the chance to climb Fuji-san whilst he was in Japan.  The Rotarian we were sitting next to then said "well, then lets climb it tonight".  We drove to my house, I changed out of my school uniform and into jeans, a t-shirt, a jumper and sneakers and we drove to the 5th station of Fuji, and started out climb.  We had no water and no torch, and we were climbing in the dark.  We walked alongside other people with torches (it was only later that I discovered that people die climbing Mt Fuji every year).  All the way up there are "stations" where you can buy food, water and sleep squashed in liked sardines.  We climbed to the 2nd highest station by about 1am, then got up very early (in the dark) and climbed the last section (I had a few exchange student friends who had gotten sick at this point when they attempted to climb, due to the altitude).  We climbed up just in time to watch the sun rise over the ocean - it was beautiful, and I sight I did not record with a photograph (having not taken my camera), but the image is in my mind and heart forever.  The light arriving on the mountain is called 御来光 goraikō and is definitely worth being there to witness.

 One thing that surprised me the most was how many gaijin (foreigners) there were on the summit (I hadn't seen many gaijin for many months - although there are lots of gaijin in Kofu now).  It was there that fellow climbers were telling me that they had trained for months in order to climb to the summit.

The trip back down the mountain (thankfully in the daylight) was a LOT faster - as I needed to go to the loo, & so ran most of the way down, assisted by gravity, and loose volcanic rock that slides when you step on it.

In 2013 Mt Fuji was added to the World Heritage List - and I'm not surprised, as apart from being incredibly beautiful, it has a special place in the heart of all Japanese people.  Uluru in Australia is slowly becoming like this - being seen as the spiritual centre of Australia.

I'm truly glad I had the opportunity to climb Mt Fuji, but I will be wise, and not climb it again.