Things never happen so easily for me and same was with my Visit to Japan, as it kept postponing from November 2010. But the secret behind this was unfurled when I got to know that Mt Fuji will be available for Trek only during July and August Months. Surprising consequences, just to help me finish this Trek (Even tsunami was right on time)
After a big Tug of war between me and Japan, I could finally land here in late June. With accompany of a nice group, I made myself packed up for 1month with visits to some local land marks. But the much needed spice to my visit added when one more Collegue joined us. Being an old chap of Japan, he guided us to some exciting places from Hakkejima, Fuji-Q and finally to Mt Fuji.
Mt Fuji - "The one who climbs it once is Wise and the one who tries scaling it next time is a fool"
An huge Solid Mass, claiming an height of 3876Mts above sea level, with a Pine Vegetation at its Trunk and Rugged Shoulders and Tip, Added with a Volcanic Crater at Top to make it warm if Chill goes worse. With Clouds struggling to reach till its neck and its Historical Volcanic remains giving close shave with out any Vegetation. Five lakes surrounding its base, with Air hardly finding its presence and Sun showing his Essence, this Giant looks awesome when the Snow covers it Face.
With its Rough look (Terrain) driving some people Crazy to challenge it and with its sacredness making others a piligrimage.
All the above explanation would have already revealed how the Fuji-san Trek would be, and being an Crazy trekker I was eager for the same. Few weeks earlier, when we were at Fuji-Q Highland (To experience some Notorious Costers and other Rides), I was said that this is almost the base of Fuji Trek and can see Fuji-san from FujiYama (looks like Yama only). But with Clouds gaming around we could not get glimpse of it.
With all our thoughts settled on Mt Fuji trek and much went discussions on the same came to an end when we finally decided to scale it, a last weekend before its closure. And finally a crew of 8 Indians including some surprising entries, decided to pack up. Bought Headlights and cross checked Shoes which accompany us, Prepared our Backpack, and decided on the food to be packed.
With all the preparation and in Winter attire, we finally started our Voyage on a Cloudy Saturday Noon and with multiple train shifts finally reached our FujiSan Station. With some snack and hot Potato veggies spent an waiting Time of 1hour before we boarded a Bus to reach Station 5 of Mt Fuji.
Around 7Pm in the evening, with a White haze all around we got down at MtFuji 5th Station, which was completely covered with Fog. 5th Station is the Starting Point of our trek and we were already 2200mts above Sealevel. I made a statement that "Would have been better if we could scale all 3876Mts (from station)".
We started load shedding, first with a visit to RestRoom and then with a brief session of filling tummies. With regained josh and with our high spirits, bought Sticks for Trek and started towards the Peak.
Trek starts from 5th station and leaving another 5 for us to trek. With black light around us and mist hugging , we started walking through a nearly flat terrain. With some flashes from camera and few pit stops, we reached 6th Station quite easily. But by this time already 2 ppl decided to go slow and let others continue.
And from here the actual trek started with steep and rocky terrain. It was zigzag path to scale up to next stations and hell lot of people trekking along with us. An one and only Trekking spot where I saw people in such a huge number (almost like Tirupathi Darshan Q). With Stops at every 2-3rd curve, we could reach 7th station.And with similar Pauses after 2/3 Zigzags and stops at substations with Stampings on our Trek Stick, we could finally reach 8th Station and finally crossed 8.5Station. And it was our Head lights which really helped us to bare that wild Dark.
And a little after this we realised its too much and thought of a nice break, and its the time when Sky started showing the signs of Sunrise. Searched an place to get glimpse of SunRise and ourselves settled down on a Rocky path and just rested our Backs. But the Sky didn't let me go down and got lit up with some Spectacular Colors. With those first Rays of light I could realise, we were above Clouds.
Only few meters above, the clouds couldn't resist from Touching/Drenching us and started Drizzling. And the fellow trekkers were so exhausted that the remaining Trek path looked like a waiting Q and people started moving in terms of inches. After a great display of patience from ourselves we could finally finish that last chuck of trek in some 2hours and finally kissed the Peak.
We were exhausted to our extremes and couldn't spare much of our patience to look around. Just made a visit to the Temple to got Seal on our TrekSticks and soon rested our backs on some space to enjoy our first chance to close our eyes. After a relishing sleep for 30mins we got kinda rebirth and thought to descend down. With a brief visit to the Wide mouth of Volcano and clicks to capture the Victory we started descending down.
By this time we realised that Fuji san is a Tough guy and we still had the whole way what we trekked to descend down. The descend was a flat slope with lose gravel and it was like hell to walk on that slope. With wear and tear of our knee caps, we started counting the path to be covered in terms of number of Zigzags.
With a spell bound slide on those slopes, we could finally reach 6.5station and from where we really cursed the trek, as we still had few kilometers to walk to reach our base camp. And by sparing last bits of our patience, we were walking towards the station 5, between this hell the Rain started pouring down. Finally the trek came to an official end when we all reached the station 5 at 2PM, where we started last night at 8PM.
With brisk bites on the Sweet and Spice Corn, we got into bus to reach Fuji-san station and then few hops of trains, we reached our Nihon Sweet Homes at around 8.30PM.
Finally realised "One who climbs Fuji once is Great, if he scales it next time he is a real fool"
It will be a tough thing to get the clear sight of the Fuji-sans Peak completely and even I was an eager bug to see that but couldn't make it. And finally it was my day to see the Peak of this Tall guy from a height of 10200mts when I was on return flight to India.
https://picasaweb.google.com/117154012054876485022/October72011
And link to other pics
https://picasaweb.google.com/117154012054876485022/MtFuji
After a big Tug of war between me and Japan, I could finally land here in late June. With accompany of a nice group, I made myself packed up for 1month with visits to some local land marks. But the much needed spice to my visit added when one more Collegue joined us. Being an old chap of Japan, he guided us to some exciting places from Hakkejima, Fuji-Q and finally to Mt Fuji.
Mt Fuji - "The one who climbs it once is Wise and the one who tries scaling it next time is a fool"
An huge Solid Mass, claiming an height of 3876Mts above sea level, with a Pine Vegetation at its Trunk and Rugged Shoulders and Tip, Added with a Volcanic Crater at Top to make it warm if Chill goes worse. With Clouds struggling to reach till its neck and its Historical Volcanic remains giving close shave with out any Vegetation. Five lakes surrounding its base, with Air hardly finding its presence and Sun showing his Essence, this Giant looks awesome when the Snow covers it Face.
And Visitors say "Its the border between Heaven and the Earth"
With its Rough look (Terrain) driving some people Crazy to challenge it and with its sacredness making others a piligrimage.
All the above explanation would have already revealed how the Fuji-san Trek would be, and being an Crazy trekker I was eager for the same. Few weeks earlier, when we were at Fuji-Q Highland (To experience some Notorious Costers and other Rides), I was said that this is almost the base of Fuji Trek and can see Fuji-san from FujiYama (looks like Yama only). But with Clouds gaming around we could not get glimpse of it.
With all our thoughts settled on Mt Fuji trek and much went discussions on the same came to an end when we finally decided to scale it, a last weekend before its closure. And finally a crew of 8 Indians including some surprising entries, decided to pack up. Bought Headlights and cross checked Shoes which accompany us, Prepared our Backpack, and decided on the food to be packed.
With all the preparation and in Winter attire, we finally started our Voyage on a Cloudy Saturday Noon and with multiple train shifts finally reached our FujiSan Station. With some snack and hot Potato veggies spent an waiting Time of 1hour before we boarded a Bus to reach Station 5 of Mt Fuji.
Around 7Pm in the evening, with a White haze all around we got down at MtFuji 5th Station, which was completely covered with Fog. 5th Station is the Starting Point of our trek and we were already 2200mts above Sealevel. I made a statement that "Would have been better if we could scale all 3876Mts (from station)".
We started load shedding, first with a visit to RestRoom and then with a brief session of filling tummies. With regained josh and with our high spirits, bought Sticks for Trek and started towards the Peak.
Trek starts from 5th station and leaving another 5 for us to trek. With black light around us and mist hugging , we started walking through a nearly flat terrain. With some flashes from camera and few pit stops, we reached 6th Station quite easily. But by this time already 2 ppl decided to go slow and let others continue.
And from here the actual trek started with steep and rocky terrain. It was zigzag path to scale up to next stations and hell lot of people trekking along with us. An one and only Trekking spot where I saw people in such a huge number (almost like Tirupathi Darshan Q). With Stops at every 2-3rd curve, we could reach 7th station.And with similar Pauses after 2/3 Zigzags and stops at substations with Stampings on our Trek Stick, we could finally reach 8th Station and finally crossed 8.5Station. And it was our Head lights which really helped us to bare that wild Dark.
And a little after this we realised its too much and thought of a nice break, and its the time when Sky started showing the signs of Sunrise. Searched an place to get glimpse of SunRise and ourselves settled down on a Rocky path and just rested our Backs. But the Sky didn't let me go down and got lit up with some Spectacular Colors. With those first Rays of light I could realise, we were above Clouds.
With those Rays of sun spreading on this Tall Guy, we could make out that we trekked through the Clouds whole night. And my Dream of Trekking above Clouds was matter of Past. With a long Clicking session, to capture the Sunrise to its best, turned to finish our kinda Breakfast. Still another 15% trek to finish, we seemed recharged ourselves and started to Conquer the Peak.
Only few meters above, the clouds couldn't resist from Touching/Drenching us and started Drizzling. And the fellow trekkers were so exhausted that the remaining Trek path looked like a waiting Q and people started moving in terms of inches. After a great display of patience from ourselves we could finally finish that last chuck of trek in some 2hours and finally kissed the Peak.
We were exhausted to our extremes and couldn't spare much of our patience to look around. Just made a visit to the Temple to got Seal on our TrekSticks and soon rested our backs on some space to enjoy our first chance to close our eyes. After a relishing sleep for 30mins we got kinda rebirth and thought to descend down. With a brief visit to the Wide mouth of Volcano and clicks to capture the Victory we started descending down.
By this time we realised that Fuji san is a Tough guy and we still had the whole way what we trekked to descend down. The descend was a flat slope with lose gravel and it was like hell to walk on that slope. With wear and tear of our knee caps, we started counting the path to be covered in terms of number of Zigzags.
With a spell bound slide on those slopes, we could finally reach 6.5station and from where we really cursed the trek, as we still had few kilometers to walk to reach our base camp. And by sparing last bits of our patience, we were walking towards the station 5, between this hell the Rain started pouring down. Finally the trek came to an official end when we all reached the station 5 at 2PM, where we started last night at 8PM.
With brisk bites on the Sweet and Spice Corn, we got into bus to reach Fuji-san station and then few hops of trains, we reached our Nihon Sweet Homes at around 8.30PM.
Finally realised "One who climbs Fuji once is Great, if he scales it next time he is a real fool"
It will be a tough thing to get the clear sight of the Fuji-sans Peak completely and even I was an eager bug to see that but couldn't make it. And finally it was my day to see the Peak of this Tall guy from a height of 10200mts when I was on return flight to India.
https://picasaweb.google.com/117154012054876485022/October72011
And link to other pics
https://picasaweb.google.com/117154012054876485022/MtFuji
