Article below taken from The Star dated 9 March 2006. It's about Malaysian who climn Mt Fuji.

myJICA will organize 2nd. Mt. Fuji Climbing in August 2007. Details: info@myjica.net


Saturday December 9, 2006

Climbing Mt Fuji

By LEE YU KIT

IT WAS approaching 4.30am, and we were in a slow shuffle, with people
ahead of and behind us in an interminable line that stretched forwards
and backwards as far as I could see.

Wooden climbing sticks.

I turned to a fellow climber who volunteered: “He says daybreak is only
a few minutes away and we need to hurry if we want to reach the top of
Mount Fuji to see sunrise.”

I looked up and could see the fluttering Japanese flag at the summit, but it seemed far away.

I’ve wanted to climb Mt Fuji ever since I first saw it, and so have
thousands and thousands of other people. Mt Fuji is an iconic volcano,
instantly recognisable as a symbol of Japan, perfect in its symmetry.

Vegetation is sparse on the mountain so one must savour sights like this.

To the Japanese who revere it, climbing Mt Fuji is a pilgrimage of
sorts. And then there are those people like me, who just to want to
climb it anyway.

The first person to climb Mt Fuji was, fittingly enough, a monk,
supposedly in the 7th century. There is a Japanese saying that a fool
is one who does not once climb Mt Fuji during his lifetime and a fool
is also one who climbs it more than once.

The reason for this becomes evident up close. Beautiful and majestic
from a distance, Mt Fuji is decidedly mundane up close, and comprises
loose volcanic gravel heaped into a somewhat featureless and mostly
vegetation-free cone.

Climbing season is during the months of July-August when the volcano is
ice-free and the weather is clement. The mountain huts operate only
during these two months, and buses run additional services to Mt Fuji.

Every year, there are climbing deaths on Mt Fuji, but most of these
occur in the months outside July-August, when ice and snow, falling
rocks, strong winds, and poor weather make climbing hazardous.

During climbing season, however, Mt Fuji is like a giant carnival with
a continuous string of climbers wending their way up the mountain. The
sense of solitude and bonding with nature that one might expect seems
like a bad joke in the sea of climbers. On the other hand, climbing
with such large numbers promotes camaraderie.

The Yoshidaguchi trail, the most popular, starts at the 5th station,
which hosts a large complex of shops, restaurants and parking lots for
buses and cars. (There are 10 stations.)

Having a ciggie break.

Most climbers aim to catch the sunrise, and there are two ways to
achieve this. Many favour starting out late at night and climbing
through the night to reach the summit at dawn. Others start out earlier
in the day, stop at one of the huts to rest and acclimatise, and resume
in the wee hours of the morning.

Together with a few friends, I started out late in the afternoon on a
weekday, when there are fewer people. Fortunately, the day was misty
and a little wet, so there was no fear of being sunburnt.

Shortly after the 5th station, the vegetation, comprising bent and
gnarled trees, and ankle-high plants, peters away, leaving the mountain
brown, barren and mostly unvarying. The path is a large series of
zigzags bulldozed into the mountainside. Metal beams hold back the
earth from sliding over and obliterating the path.

Gnarled trees at the foot of Mt Fuji.

Cloud and mist cloaked the lowlands. The barren brown mountainside and
the unmarked sky above gave an impression of otherworldliness. The mist
billowed in dense clouds, and as darkness began to fall, the first
stars twinkled in the damask sky.

By 8pm, we were the only moving figures on the mountainside, as warm
yellow light shone from the huts where the other climbers had
retreated. We decided to do the same.

The huts start from the seventh station upwards on the Yoshidaguchi
trail. All of them have an outdoor toilet on a mountainside too steep
to step away from the path to ease oneself. The toilets are unisex, and
charge 100 yen (RM3) per use, 200 yen (RM6) at the peak.

Lenticular cloud formation above the peak.

I found it a relief to be out of the cold. We woke at 1.30am for the
last few hundred meters to the peak. At 1.30am, the path was dense with
climbers. The line of climbers was continuous, yet it was possible to
look skyward, and leave, if only for a moment, the crowded, snorting
masses for the infinite space of the night sky, dusted with the pure
light of distant stars.

Daylight was estimated at 4.30am, but progress was slow and I was
galvanised by the man with the bullhorn. I broke rank and started to
climb upwards in earnest. Reaching the Torii gate, which marked the
entrance to the summit, I turned to the east in time to see a bright
line on the horizon, from which rose a shimmering egg yolk, spilling
golden fluid into the sky.

A refuge for written prayers near a Shinto shrine. — Pictures by LEE YU KIT

At the top there was a Shinto shrine, and a Japanese flag, waving
wildly in the morning wind, and a row of wooden shops selling food and
drinks. There were even vending machines. A bowl of hot rice with beef
strips and steaming miso soup tasted wonderful after the cold ascent.

The top of Mt Fuji is a crater, and a walk around the crater rim takes
approximately one hour, passing the highest post office in Japan along
the way. Many Japanese bring postcards to post home from Mt Fuji.

Also along the way is the actual highest point in Japan, near a weather
station. Although Mt Fuji is technically an active volcano, no hint of
steam or heated fissure could be seen.

Mt Fuji has erupted many times in the past, the last time being some
300 years ago, but there was no sign of the sleeping dragon.

On the western side of the crater, I looked down on the mantle of
clouds far below and saw the triangular shadow of Mt Fuji cast onto the
sea of white. I felt far removed from, and on top of, the world.

I descended quickly, leaving puffs of dust in my wake, as the weather
was hot and the trail even less interesting than the ascent.

Descent takes only two to four hours as opposed to five to eight hours
for the ascent. Back at the starting point, I had a hot lunch and
waited for the bus back to Tokyo. True to Japanese punctuality, the bus
started promptly at 2pm, not a minute earlier or later.

I turned around for a last look at Mt Fuji, and fell asleep almost immediately afterwards. W