Me VS Fuji-san

Last Friday, I achieved the biggest physical feat of my life. At a little before sunrise on the 22nd of July I reached the top of Mount Fuji. It is a view that I will never forget in my life if only for the pain that it cost me to get there. I’m not naturally a physical person, when given the choice I choose to sit on my arse, I’m so lazy I know exactly which carriage to get on at the train station because it lines up with the escalators at the destination. But I did it. I beat the bitch and I never ever want to see that mountain again in my life. Fuji-san is 3776 meters high.
Armed with our torch hats and walking poles with bells hanging off them, we started the climb from about half way up the mountain, the 5th station at 10pm on Thursday night. After six and a half hours of slogging my arse up a mountain that never seemed to end, sinking into volcanic rock which felt more like quicksand, climbing rocks and inclines that were best achieved by crawling I stood prouder than ever at the top, freezing my arse off, high on life (or lack of oxygen) and nearly cried. Bought myself a hideously overpriced can of hot coffee and drank in an atmosphere I never imagined experiencing.

My trekking party consisted of some beautiful friends, which made the experience extra special. Andrew - who is not a stranger to this blog and a funnier mate you could not find, Naomi - my fabulous next-door neighbour who I spend many a girly night drinking red wine with, Chris – a mate who has pulled me through any tough times here in Japan (including up Fuji-san), and a group of other teachers.


It is really common for people to get altitude sickness on Fuji because it is so high, people experience this in different ways, I passed many a spewer along the way, others get headaches and sinus problems, instead I developed altitude Terrets. I said every single swear word I knew on the way up that bitch of mountain and Chris was lucky I didn't wrap my walking pole around his head while he was coaching me along when I really wanted to give up. But it was worth it for the euphoria that I felt when I finally got to the summit. It looked more like the moon than Japan. Our treat at the top was to be hot curry noodles. What a bad idea. They certainly did not sit well for the 4 hours it took us to hike down again. Going down we developed a style of rock skiing, which involved us running, jumping and sliding down often on our arses.


Before climbing Fuji I had never even seen it during the day. When we got to the bottom again on Friday we all agreed that it was a good thing we hadn’t seen it before we left. It looked so huge and so daunting that I never would have attempted it with that image in my head. I am so glad that I did it and you are never going to hear the end of it. I’m so proud of myself, I’ll be telling my grandkids about the time Grandma climbed the tallest mountain in Japan and fought off wilder beast and frostbite to reach the summit by sunrise. Anyhow, we rock and it's 12 hours of my life I’ll never forget. I climbed Mount Fuji.