An adventure with gap adventures finally

We arrived in Kowaguchiko as our final destination before returning to Tokyo. We were lucky enough to be staying there for 2 nights. We arrived to find a huge luxury ryokan. The lobby looked like a hotel but the floors were fairly traditional, there were places that you could not wear shoes, they had amazing indoor and outdoor onsens and tatami mat rooms. The rooms were also huge! Apparently we were to get even nicer rooms but since there was a school group that had taken over the entire 5th floor.

Lets not forget the whole reason why were in this mountain town. Mt Fuji...

You want Mt. Fuji, you get Mt Fuji! We opened our curtans and bam! the window (the entire wall on one side) framed the amazingly symetrical mountain/volcano. The sky was on the grey side so the snow covering about a third of it from the peak made it blend right into the sky seemlessly. I'm sure the clouds helped to make that effect possible as well.

We had a very traditional Japanese dinner all together at our ryokan sitting on the floor and went out (across the street) for karaoke and some drinks. This was all in prep for the following day were we would be on the mountain. Here's the deal. When climbing to the peak is possible for regular non experienced climbers a bus carries you to the 5th station, you sleep there and then early in the morning, the group charges up to the top for sunrise and a glorious view. We were a little early or rather, summer is a little bit late and there was still snow at the top of the mountain so summiting wasn't possible. What a bummer. What we were permited to do was take the bus to the 5th station in the morning and hike down the same day. Our tour leader has a thing for hiking and she liked to go up rather than down so she offered another option. We could start at the bottom at the shrine where all climbers would start back in the day hoping for a safe journey and climb. Then we would hike to the first station about 2 and a half hours away. This path to the first station is said to have a lot of overgrowth and would be one of the most tranquil untouched parts of the mountain. As an added bonus, those wishing to be adventurous could hike the rest of the way up the mountain to station 5 and take the bus back down. I knew right away what I wanted to do. I wanted to climb the mountain, that's the whole reason we were here right. I felt really up to the challenge. Josh and Lauren were planning to go upward to station 1 and if they felt good still they would go right up to the top. A few others decided to take this path as well. In the morning we arrived at the shrine ready for the hike with rice snacks and sushi rolls and rice triangles and water purchased from the local supermarket. It was Joanie, Thomas from Switzerland, Phillipe from Quebec, Sean from England, Josh and Lauren from Denver, Mil our tour leader and myself.

Let's just say we rocked the whole way up to the first station. We had a crazy fast pace that got us there within an hour and a half or just under 2 hours. Something crazy. Each marker we reached we had come in under time given for each portion. Josh and Lauren decided not to continue as Lauren was feeling sick. They would wait for the downhill team to meet them and climb down with them. It was for the most part a walk up to that point, the grade was not steep but there were a few stones but none were too large. We all stopped for lunch and felt a whole lot better and decided to proceed to station 5. The catch was that we had to catch the last bus down which would arrive within 2 and a half hours of when we departed station 1. If we kept the same timing we had been going with we wouldn't have a problem at all making that time.

We set off, Joanie decided after a minute or two to turn back concerned that she couldn't keep her energy up high enough to proceed at the pace for the grade of the walk. She turned back and I decided to continue only because I knew she'd be fine (Josh and Lauren were probably in earshot) and I was determined to make it to station 5 with the others. I think it was shortly after station 2 we saw a tiny patch of snow. It was so cute. The trail was great and we were making fantastic time again, shaving time off each checkpoint. The stations were old shacks that had long been run down and boarded up. We proceeded at our pace almost being able to taste the beer we would consume that night when arriving back at the bottom victorious. One thing that was peculiar was that we had not seen the downhill team. Perhaps we were making such good time that we would see them any moment and sit and have a snack together. Unfortunately this was not the case.

It wasn't long until we saw a little more snow, slightly larger patches. Nothing really to be concerned about. We even made a few snow balls and tossed them around while continuing on. The sky was grey but no rain had been falling and conditions were dry and at a comfortable hiking temperature. I got by with just a t-shirt, cardigan, jeans, a one layer nylon shell, socks and skateshoes.

Then.. we hit snow. I think it was shortly after the third station, maybe a little before. It was in large enough patches that we had to walk on the snow. The snow gradually got thicker until we basically hit winter and were walking IN snow instead of ON it. Yeah...

At this point the goal was the bus, we had to keep up our time. We proceeded as best we could and reached station 4 in good spirits. We didn't even stop to catch out breath, we were straight off. After some tricky conditions we reached station 5 and were elated. Little did we know this was the old station 5. It had come much too soon after station 4 and we knew it must have been too good to be true. We kept walking and within half hour we were near another building. The only thing was that we could see it and a road nearby but it took quite a while and a lot more energy to get there as we had been hiking for a good number of hours by this time. Mil rushed on ahead to see if she could some how get to the bus and hold it for us. We all continued  and finally got to the road. We could see the road was covered in snow without a tire track in sight. This was not good. We continued on once were relayed the message. We were quite spaced out at this point so we were yelling back and forth. The view from this snowy road was great. It was clear toward the way we needed to walk so this was good. We were all spent for the most part and didn't want to walk in any more snow and we figured the road would remain clear the whole way to the bus. Unfortunately we still had quite a bit of a hike to go including traversing along a steep incline across the mountain to the station 5 and bus stop. The snow was probably more than waist deep but we only sunk down about to our knees with the worst of the steps and mid calf for the majority of the steps. We were high enough that we could see the clouds rolling up the mountain. There wasn't too much to stop us from sliding down the mountain and completely missing the bus as it would mean more than a half an hour hike straight up which would be more than tricky in skateshoes or even hiking shoes. Snow had gone into my shoes for a while now and my feet were a block of ice with ice water doing some extra cooling. We could finally see station 5, shops and a place that definitely looked like there was civilization and a bus stop. We hurried as best we can and along the way saw a few climbers coming down from a little higher up on the mountain. They had winter gear, helmets, ropes between the two of them and cramp ons with winter boots, gloves and I think I might have seen an ice pick. They must have thought we were nuts. We were finally approaching the buildings and continued as fast as we could. There were a few people walking in the snow and taking photos obviously fresh off of the bus or car to the top. We heard Mil in the distance instructing us to run as the bus was here and she had held the bus. Amazing as we thought by now we might have missed it. We all ran as fast as we could with dead legs and respitory systems that had had a work out and our blocks of ice that were our feet. We parely made it and we were not only bowing and saying thankyous out the wazoo but Mil even got on her knees for a full bow. The bus was leaving 5 minutes late! Just for us! This is unheard of in Japan. The locals on the bus didn't seem to mind they were leaving a little last as they were sure to have figured out what we had just gone through.

The bus ride down must have been a half hour or longer. Crazy eh? We saw the downhill team at the bus stop waiting for the bus to the Ryokan. They had taken the bus up but after walking 50 yards or so they decided not to make there way down as conditions were too dangerous.

I'm so happy that I made it and that we went through what we did and I'm also so happy we didn't have to spend the night up there or hitch hike down the mountain. The other team was amazed that we had actually climbed it but um.. we had pictures!

Anyway, I'm freezing and should get under the covers here in our Ryokan. I'll tell of todays events tomorrow and post a bunch of great photos at that point as well.. Or do my best to try.

Love you all.

Justin from Tokyo