But back to the adventure; we left around 0630 on a Tuesday morning and arrived at Mt Fuji around 1030. We then took the 50 minute bus ride up to the 5th station, which is huge! Much larger than I expected! There is some food there and that is where we bought our iconic wooden climbing sticks that you get stamps on at every station. We then started climbing around 1200 and arrived at our mountain hut at the 8th station around 1630 because we took our time. We then had dinner at the hut and tried to sleep from about 1700 to midnight when we woke up to start hiking so we could see the sunrise. We started hiking at about 0100 and made it to the top around 0400. We then stood at the top of Mt Fuji to watch the sunrise and I will never forget the view, it was amazing!
It was very chilly at the top when we stopped hiking but we got really lucky with the weather, it didn't rain while we were hiking until the very end of our journey when we were already at the bottom. We then hiked down to the bottom which took about 4 hours. We were able to get stamps from every station on our walking stick and mine is completely filled now! :) I am so proud of it!
Mt. Fuji will always be one of the highlights of my time here in Japan and I almost didn't do it but I am SOOOOO glad that I did! Definitely a once in a lifetime adventure and I will have a story to tell for the rest of my life. They say if you don't climb Mt Fuji while you are here you will come back to Japan but I hope that even if you do climb it you will come back because I hope to climb it again one day! Japan never ceases to amaze me and all the hassles of work can wear on me sometimes but I always remind myself that I am in an amazing country and get to travel the world courtesy of the Navy right now and I am very thankful for that.
Here are some pictures from the climb!