Mt. Fuji was totally nuts this weekend. As we were climbing the mountain, a typhoon (think hurricane) swept over us, soaking everyone and nearly giving several people hypothermia. Only four of us made it to the top. Everyone else was forced back by rangers.

To start with, the trip was supposed to start at 9 on Saturday morning. Instead, one guy oversleeps and makes the other 29 of us wait for him. Most of us wanted to leave him when we found out he was so late, but our leader wanted to wait for everyone. We called him around 9:20 and woke him up, but he didn't make it to Toyama City until 10:30. We rented three mini-van like things. They fit 10 people each, and were very skinny and very tall. I could practically stand up in them! Each van had two drivers, who were all first year drivers thanks to changes in the Japanese driving laws recently, and one navigator. The navigators were all second year JETs, but none of them had been to Mt. Fuji the year before. Unfortunately, none of them possessed a good sense of direction either. We started out in front, with Tristan (US) driving and Becky (Scottish) navigating. We unfortunately turned the wrong way out of the rental place and headed the wrong direction. After awhile, we got a cell phone call from another van saying we were going the wrong way. So then we got demoted to following the other vans. The road there wasn't too bad, though it did contain tons of tunnels. Toyama is surrounded by mountains, so we took expressways to the east, and then south to Mt. Fuji. We must have passed through nearly 100 tunnels on the way there. I kid you not.

The expressways are also all toll in Japan, and pretty expensive. Going a long way on the expressways is cheaper than going a shorter distance, on a yen per km basis. The whole trip to Mt. Fuji costs about 8500 yen (78 dollars) per van. If you were driving by yourself, that would be quite expensive. On the way there, we missed one of the turnoffs we were supposed to take, and then had to go another 10 km down the road before we could turn around and go back. Unfortunately, this 10km was in really slow traffic, so the whole detour took nearly 1.5 hours! We finally arrived at the city near Mt. Fuji around 7pm, and grabbed some fast food for dinner. Then we drove around looking for where to park for Mt. Fuji. The lead van seemed pretty clueless, but then we finally called them up and suggested following all the signs that pointed at Mt. Fuji (which were in English). It was a radical suggestion, but it worked. Most people start climbing from the 5th station, which is around 2300 meters up. The top is around 3770 meters high. We couldn't park at the 5th station because it was too late at night. Instead we parked nearby and took a bus to the 5th station. The parking lot was very full at Mt. Fuji.

We actually had a bit of luck in getting to the parking lot. Tristan was driving again in our van, and leading the way. We told him to take a left at an intersection, and he started taking a wide left, into a bunch of cars waiting at the stoplight. All the Brits started screaming "Nooo," so he swerved back to going straight through the intersection. Turns out we were supposed to go straight anyway. Luckily, he didn't make this mistake into moving traffic ever. Though he did nearly get hit when he was making a right turn and someone ran a red light.

There is a very limited time when you are able to climb Mt. Fuji without it being really cold and covered in snow. It is pretty much July-August that this is possible. This means lots of Japanese people climb it during this time also, not just tourists. Also, for reasons I don't understand, it is traditional to climb it all night long and see the sun rise from the top. The sun rise is supposed to be very beautiful from Mt. Fuji since it is so high up.

We got dropped off at the 5th station, which is a bunch of tourist shops and some bathrooms, etc. Then we started up to the top as a big group. Our basic plan was to buddy up more or less and then try to stay somewhere in the group. This worked in getting up to the 6th or 7th station, but at that point the path upward becomes quite narrow and very densely packed. Starting at around the 7th station, there are a series of huts, which are like small stores where you can eat or rest for awhile. They are all very expensive though. The higher you go, the more expensive they are also. Most of them have pit toilets and electric generators.

Sarah and I ended up being buddies and climbing up. We moved pretty quickly and found ourselves at the front of the group when arriving at huts. There were many Japanese tours ahead of us, but most of them moved in single file lines, so we could skirt them when the trail was wider. Once we got to the last hut, which was above the old 8th station, it looked like there was nothing else above but a weather tower. This did not sound promising to us, since the weather had quickly gotten worse. It was pouring rain, and very, very windy. I only had on my shorts, waterproofs pants, t-shirt, and waterproof jacket. Luckily the waterproof items were also very warm, but they were starting to soak through after awhile. There wasn't any good place to change clothes though. We found ourselves with two Americans, Jason and Eric, who weren't JETs. They were waiting at the hut for their friends, but decided to go on up with us. We had about 400 meters higher to climb, and the going was slow because oxygen was scarce and there were many Japanese people in front of us. This part of the climb was really demoralizing because we kept climbing and it never seemed to end. We couldn't see anything in front of us except darkness and other flashlights. Normally when climbing you could see huts above you, but we had passed the last one.

Eventually we did make it to the top (around 3:00) and discovered another hut up there, but it was closed at the time. There were a bunch of people standing around, and some vending machines. We got hot tea out of the vending machines just to hold and sip. It was our only source of warmth at the time. We huddled next to a large group of people crowding around the hut. The hut opened its doors around 3:10 and everyone crowded in. There were a couple coal fires around the room, and we huddled near one. Many people ordered noodles to eat, but I wasn't feeling too well. I just munched on crackers and cookies and drank tea. The room was packed full of people, but then no one else seemed to be showing up outside, so we didn't know what was going on. Sarah, Jason, Eric, and I found another JET up at the top, Aida. She was standing outside the hut and shivering horribly. It think she was getting close to being hypothermic, so we gave her some tea when we found her. We had climbed with her earlier, but had gotten separated at a trail fork, and she had gone on with two other girls. These girls turned back while climbing to the summit, leaving Aida all alone. She seemed really happy to see us. The five of us sat around the fire for a long time, waiting for the sun to come up. Around 4:45, the sun started rising, and I felt really bad. I realized I had to throw up, so I went outside and did that. It wasn't much fun, and it caused me to be even more dehydrated than I already was. I think I had altitude sickness.

The sunrise only lasted a couple minutes, then the clouds came back and covered everything up. I changed clothes since I was cold, though most of my spare layers were also soaking wet. I didn't think it would rain much, so I hadn't packed much in plastic, except t.p. and my camera. We waited another hour and a half for me to warm up and eat some more food slowly. Then we headed down. We weren't quite at the summit, which is a giant crater, but we were right next to it. There was no way I was going to make it there. We also discovered that Michelle, another JET was next door in another room of the top hut. She arrived before everyone else and had snuck in quietly, I guess. So only four of us out of 30 made it to the top.

We started down the mountain, and I started to feel much better as I moved and dropped in altitude. The trip down took a lot less time, and we ended up at the bottom after about 2 and a half hours. When we got there, there were only 4 or 5 people there though, so we were pretty confused. Those people didn't know if they were supposed to go back to the vans, or wait for everyone at the 5th station. There wasn't really much of a plan for what happens when people got split up. Eventually we went back to the vans and the rest of the people were waiting for us. After changing clothes, we started back around 11:30.

When we talked to the other people, that's when we found out everyone had been turned away at the old 8th station starting about 10 minutes after we went through there. The typhoon was making things too dangerous on the way to the top, so no one could pass. Most of the JETs headed back down after eating ramen for several hours. There were about 4 of them that were hypothermic and spent the night in a hotel/hut near the 8th station instead.

Tristan started driving on the way back, and was supposed to lead everyone back again. This time he knew where to go, but our navigator started leading him the wrong way several times. Then another van took over and proceeded to drive us around the city near Mt. Fuji for over an hour looking for the expressway. It was about two turns from our original location, and I knew how to get there. However, we couldn't find our way back after getting lost for so long. We finally made it to the expressway after an hour and a half of being lost. The drive home was uneventful, except when we got to Toyama, the driver turned away from Toyama, yet kept insisting he was going towards the city. They dropped me off near my flat since I was on the way back to the rental place. Then I pretty much collapsed in a big heap at my apartment. Sounds fun, huh?