|
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
mt fuji hike
continuing my adventures from the previous post, we went up mt fuji right after fujiQ. i think it was quite brave a thing to do... but anyways, am glad no one got exhaustion or anything after the whole trip (just weariness).
didnt really take much photos on the way up, cos concentrating my energy climbing the mountain instead. also it was raining most of the climb....
anyway this is how a hut on the climbing trail looks like...
looks quite cosy hor??
but damn ex. think you have to pay 1000 to sit inside for some time (an hour?) and 3000 to sleep... siao! and normal 500ml coke costed 400 yen (6SGD)... bo bian... cos on the way up, no water source at all... so heng my 1 2-liter pocari sweat was enough to last me throughout the climb. and err... nissan cup noodles costed 750 yen (11.50 SGD) hehe... talk about dragon-gate inn... ;p
siownan and me, exhausted.
that's a photo when we were at the 7th station i think. it was becoming cold, evident from siownan's sweater, but due to the climb, i didnt really feel the need for another layer yet, hence the t-shirt still.
we pushed on and on, resting when we needed to. and of course by some time, the large group (19 of us) splitted up, and in the end, i climbed with jianrong and calvin.... 4th floor integrity is strong huh! (3 of us stay at the same level in my dormitory)
since the beginning of 5th station (the starting pt), calvin had been voicing his regret over the climb. and throughout the climb, you could actually hear us swearing over and over again. it was that bad. i think the crowd and the rain made it worse than it was. without the rain especially, i think the climb would be much more pleasant, although, still i dun think it will be worth the effort. i'll explain later.
also for those reading this before attempting the climb hoping that there will be some tips on precautions needed, etc. well i guess the oxygen canister is optional, but better to have one in case. among the 19 of us, i think there were one or two who couldnt really cope with the thinning of air and thus needed a sniff here and there. for me, i dun feel any difference at all. also track shoes is good enough, although boots are preferable for the descent especially. good ski attire is also a plus, since they are both waterproof (against the rain) and keeps cold. otherwise normal winter jackets should suffice (tts what i wore at the summit).
ok, back to the climb. we started the climb at around 830 pm from the 5th station. the guidebooks stated that the climb would last for ard 5-6 hours, and so starting at that time brings us to good stead to catch the sunrise at the summit. or so we thought.
due to, yes again, the crowd and the rain, the progress was severely impeded. among the 19 of us, none of us reached the summit on time for sunrise (which is ard 345 am i think) the fastest (james surprisingly) reached the top at aroung 415. anyway, not that it matters, cos there was no sunrise to be seen on that day... due to the clouds. so suayness for all of us.
but knowing that we could never reach up there on time, we (the 3 of us) took our time up the mountain from 2 am onwards, resting more frequently than before. ok, i must admit i was the weakest link; from 4 am onwards, i was so sleepy that i could sleep standing up. and looking at the next photo, you can see it was quite a dangerous thing to do...
the long queue even at 5 am...
no joke... i think the crowd on the way up can compare with the train crowd in shinjuku in rush hour. we practically walked for 3 seconds, waited a minute or so, walked another 3 seconds, waited another minute, and so on. the queue like this started from 2 am... really sapped all the energy out of us.
i talked about sleeping while standing awhile ago being dangerous. yeah, cos many a times, during the 1-minute or so waits, i dozed off, and was awaken when i lost a bit of body balance. imagine if i were to really fall back, i think it will be a domino effect all the way to the 8th station below!! so anyways, not to risk any danger, we sat at where i took the previous photo for awhile for the crowd to slowly thin out a little first.
here are some photos i took when i was there.
cant really see clearly, but if you do squint your eyes, i think you can make out one of the 5 lakes in the photos.
and yes, i really think the blue filter is too much for this camera. and i can do nothing about it sigh... no money to get a new camera though. think my old minolta camera takes much better photos than this ;(
i must add that where we were, it was only about 10-15 minutes up the mountain if there was no crowd. but due to the crowd, we took another hour plus up the mountain.
the crowd thinning out - our cue to continue...
we finally reached the top at 630 am... spent a whooping 10 hours on the short climb!! all thanks to everyone (literally).
here are some more shots from the top, not very different from the previous ones.
sign didnt say anything glamourous... ;p it says "mt fuji summit - let's bring your trash down the mountain with you"
i ate a hot bowl of ramen at one of the shops at the summit... costed me 800 yen for a sub-standard-worse-than-instant-noodles one... and i paid 200 yen to relief myself there. sigh... kenna tok...
the dragon-gate inn at the summit...
this may not look like it, but the background is the crater.
another photo of me with the sea of clouds.
it was freaking cold after we resting awhile... hence we finished our business atop the mountain chop chop, and started on our way down. there wasnt much things to do anyways, and everything was sooo expensive.
our way down...
we took another 3 hours going down through the volcanic ashes (which got into our shoes and was super duper irritating). it was ok at the start, but after ploughing our way through the seemingly endless roads of volcanic ashes, it was super irritating.
the lies...
estimated timings... off the mark by quite a bit.
on the whole, there wasn't much redeeming factors in the climb. the view wasnt that great (i repeated many a times to my frens that the view from alishan in taiwan was soooo much better, and the best bit was no need to climb up ourselves... hehe), everything was expensive, there wasnt any sunrise. even without the rain and the crowd, i dun think there's much things to look forward to or be happy about. my frens without complaints all said that it was ok for the climb. but of course other than that, nothing much lah. that's why i said that the climb wasn't worth the effort. may as well spend the whole of 2 days at fujiQ, better and more enjoyable... hehe... IMO of course.
i could bitch on more things if i were to blog on this right after my climb, but well... ok lah... at least this wont make me sound like a sore loser that much.. hehe... yes i was slow, but at least after years of no exercise, can still make it to the top... a proud man i am. ;)
posted by winz at 10:22 AM
~|=|~
|
2 Comments:
But at least it is a life time experience that you made it to the top. I can understand the difficulties.
Indeed, it is "foolish" to climb it twice. Haha.
By
Anonymous, at
9:27 AM
yes!! and fiona is going to climb it again!!!! siao!
By
winz, at
9:49 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home