The Beautiful Mt Fuji

Well, I am so excited to share a small episode of my
latest adventure to the top of Mt Fuji.

They call Mt Fuji "The heart of the Japanese people"
with numerous poetry, paintings and photographs
written and composed about Mt Fuji. It is the most
photographed mountain on earth and it is easy to see
why cause of its appealing connical shape and it's
stature towering above the Japanese Alps at 3776m asl.
It is towering cause the average height of the
mountains around it is 1500m.

The round trek took us 12 hours to complete staggered
over a 2 day period, the first day we started at the
5th Station (2500m asl) and walked to the mountain hut
at 3250m. THis took 4-5 hours depending upon weather
and at 7pm at night it is not fun walking in 200km/hr
winds and horizontal rain with a flappy raincoat
acting like a sailing boat! People have been known to
have liturally blown off Mt Fuji and I can see why
cause a few times I nearly flew off with them.

It is a nice feeling reaching the warmth and
hospitality of a mountain hut, with fires burning and
a hot Japanese curry waiting with steamed rice. The
plan was to sleep for 6 hours and wake again at 2am
for the summit climb to see sunrise.

Waking up the next morning I have this terrible
throbbing headache, i thought i better drink some
water and then I realised I only brought a 300mL water
bottle from a vending machine yesterday and I had
already drank it all. Its pitch  black outside and
pouring rain, about 3 degrees and windy as a flying
sheep. I also remembered I forgot a torch!! Teiko
seemed quieter than usual and tired, climbing this mountain
together was a special event for us! I was going to
support her in every way that I could and be with
her every step of the way! If it needed I would carry
her as far as I could. I could see that she was
determined to do it and this was very impressive
cause she was really trying! I was amazed!! Something
very special happened between us on that mountain and
I will never forget what it was on the 6th of July!

We set out, the fog is thick, you can see
approximately to the end of your nose at best, plus we
had no torch! So we stumble on into oblivion, every 5
mintues stopping and catching our breath, the air is
noticably thinner.

Suddenly we meet a japanese sports university of about
100 people climbing, they are making good progress and
we tag on the end of their line, I also noticed about
half of them were using oxygen. THis is not nessesary
but i can see the appeal and would not mind a wiff
myself but naturally we are here to do it the original
way!
The sun quickly rises and everything becomes quiet,
dead quiet! There is no wind, no noise, just white
fog, its peaceful! How long has it been since you have
heard dead quiet??? I think mountains are spiritual
places and this experience of dead quiet and an
presence really surprised me. It made me feel more
connected to my surroundings and respected the
mountain as if it were personified. No wonder this
mountain is so special in the hearts of the Japanese
psyche, it is pure, simple, yet powerful!

Suddenly the clouds break, the fog lifts and we are
left we the most unforgettable view out across the
oceans of clouds, each cloud level has a different
texture and direction, colour and pattern, we are
nearing the summit well above 3600 m now and well
above any clouds. It looks like the view out of an
aeroplane but we are on land? It is just too difficult
to describe in its full magnitude.
We reach the top and everyone is celebrating, hugging,
singing, dancing and a cool japanese guy comes up to
me says "Congratulations and says give me five man!" I
was pleased, i smiled and said, yeah man!! Thanks!!!
How wonderful!!!
There are various snow drifts around, a large crater
filled with snow elusively sticking to the shaddows...

There it was, something i will always treasure. And I
will leave you with a thought I had at the top,

Like the fast flowing stream
Water is together
Then a rock
Splits it's path
However water
Does not worry
Cause it knows that
It will join back
Together again
Somewhere down the path