Death by Fuji

Saturday afternoon we headed off to Mount Fuji's 5th Station. Just after 9pm we started the long climb upwards. It was raining and the wind was howling, and apart from the small amount of light coming from our head lamps, it was completely pitch black. While we may look happy in these photos, it doesn't mean it was easy...it was anything but!




This was Josh's 4th time up. I can't imagine why you would want to ever do this more than once...


A few hours after starting, the rain finally stopped, which was such a relief.

A total of 8 hours climbing, and we finally made it to the top at 5.15am - just in time for sunrise. We were literally running up the rocks in the last half hour or so, past slower people, just to make it to the top before the sun came out!


Ben's gloves were literally frozen into this shape - he'd had them hanging on the outside of his bag after they got wet in the rain.

Sunrise.




Yay! 3776 meters above sea level!!

Our elation at reaching the top and seeing the sunrise was not long lived, as we faced the long and difficult walk down...4 hours to be exact.


We got down the bottom of the mountain at 9.30am, but it was a long trip home, involving a bus and numerous trains, and it wasn't until 4pm that we finally crashed on the couch and were able to think about what a crazy 24 hours we'd just had! It was a great experience, but never again!!!!!