Mt. Fuji (3776m), Shizuoka prefecture, Japan

Toyohashi Alpine Club
Mountaineering in Japan

Mt. Fuji (3776m)

Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
23 November 1994
Report by Darren DeRidder
Party: Iain Williams, Malcolm Field, Darren DeRidder

No collection of reports about mountain climbing in Japan would be complete without one on the highest, most famous, most photographed, and most climbed mountain in the country, Mt. Fuji. Internationally recognized for its clean aesthetic form and unique beauty, Mt. Fuji is one of the most popular sights in Japan, and climbing Mt. Fuji has become almost a rite of initiation for foreigners there. Iain wrote a good report of this climb, but I have lost it, so here is mine instead.

There is a Japanese saying which goes, "A wise man climbs Mt. Fuji once. Only a fool climbs it twice." That makes sense, seeing as how Fuji, which at a distance appears almost heavenly, loses any trace of beauty once you set foot on its slopes. The graceful summit that floats above the valley mists and beckons hopeful climbers turns into something like the worlds largest ashtray once the hike begins. Long long lines of traffic wind up the twisting road to the 5th stage, the point approximately halfway up the mountain where the actual climbing begins. Buses spew out dense black clouds of diesel exhaust: the trees seem to be dying from it. Crowds mill about in the cramped souvenir and snack shop,  yammering away about what kind of junk to buy and bring back to friends and co-workers, apparently oblivious to the fact that they are on Mt. Fuji and should be enjoying the views. Climbers in all sorts of outfits from white pilgrim garb to thousand-dollar GoreTex and everything in between form a literal queue up the dusty, monotonous path to the summit.

Along the way, at the 5 remaining 'stages' along the route, there are huts. The price of a can of Coke climbs with the altitude. The summit of Mt. Fuji has a Coke machine too, and if you have $4.00 you can buy a can. There is also a pay phone, in case you want to call home. Almost everything that is enjoyable about mountain climbing has been removed from Mt. Fuji, so that under normal conditions, a climb of this mountain is an unholy miserable slog.

That's why we climbed it in winter.

Mt. Fuji is officially closed in winter. You're not supposed to climb it. There is an 'official' climbing season on Mt. Fuji, and after that, the huts along the route to the top shut down. Apparently this makes most people think that the course is unclimbable. What on earth would they do without the $4.00 can of Coke at the summit, or the phone? What if they needed to use the toilet?

This was fine with us. The less people, the better. We didn't need Coke, couldn't afford to call home, and we were adept at backwoods toiletry. What we wanted was a winter climb on a big mountain with as few distractions as possible. Some people looked at us like we were crazy. Some of our Japanese climber friends nodded and told us we'd have no problem, but to beware of the winds.

The wind was something I already knew about. A year earlier to the day, I had made a winter attempt on Mt. Fuji in the company of a relatively inexperienced Japanese climber named Kuno-san. He was a member of some alpine club or another, and the members of his club had sent him off with doleful remarks and warnings. He carried a little notepad in which he kept a careful commentary and recorded all our starting and stopping times. He looked like he thought he was taking his life in his hands and was getting ready to die.

On top of that, people from his club had said to me, "You have to be careful, because you are responsible if anything goes wrong, it's all your fault." They then proceeded to tell me stories about all the climbers who had died on Mt. Fuji by trying to climb it in winter. This was put into perspective a bit by a climbing friend of mine who told me about his yearly trips to do telemark skiing on Mt. Fuji. "Last time I went all the way from the very top down to the 5th level," he said.

Anyway, with my inexperienced Japanese friend in tow, I proceeded up to about the eighth stage were I sat down for a drink. Before leaving the 5th stage, which was still open for tourists, I had bought a can of hot coffee. This was mostly frozen by now but I shook it up and drank it anyway. We decided not to rope up for the last bit, even though it was a little steeper and the wind was really blowing.

After the ninth stage we couldn't stand up anymore. The wind was just too strong. We had our crampons on and our ice axes, but we had to crouch down in the howling gale just to keep from getting blown off the mountain. The wind was blowing snow and ice and even little rocks through the air. We were covered head to toe, but it wasn't too much fun.

We could have crawled to the top but we decided to go down. When the path switchbacked and turned into the wind I had loads of fun by getting a running start down the wide, steep trail, leaping into the wind, and literally gliding down on the force of the airstream like a ski jumper by leaning forward and making my body like an airfoil.

So, the next year, I was back with Iain and Mal to climb Mt. Fuji. Finally. All the way to the top.

We got to the 5th stage late at night, arriving from Nagoya in Mal's car. Iain and I had our sleeping bags and planned to kip out beside the car. Mal had his futon in the back seat and planned to sleep in the car. Smart man. Ian and I laid our sleeping bags out beside the car, making some comments about the beautiful starry night and hoping the weather would hold. It was cold. Within a few minutes we were both uncomfortable. We laid there silently counting off the hours. About 3 in the morning I heard Iain's quiet voice query, "Darren...?" So I said, "Yeah, what?"

"Are you cold?" Iain asked. I was freezing my arse off. "No, I'm NICE and warm", I said, "What's the matter, can't you sleep?" "I'm busting for a leak, but I don't want to get out of my bag", said Iain. "Well", I said, "Why don't you pee in your sleeping bag?"

Iain then jumped out of his sleeping bag in a flash and, looking like a cat on a hot tin roof (except it was cold instead of hot), pranced over to the edge of the parking lot in his stocking feet and underwear and wizzed in a snowbank. He was back in a flash and zipped up in his bag.

"That was cold", he said.

Neither one of us got any sleep and we were in a black mood when Mal got up at around 5 and started puttering around and putting on a brew. He had slept like a baby and was ready for coffee and a climb. I was ready to take over Mal's futon and forget about climbing. Eventually Iain and I got out of our bags and into our clothes. Moving around and drinking hot coffee got us warmer. There were some other people about but in the darkness it wasn't clear exactly what everyone was doing. By the time it got light we were off and climbing up to the sixth stage.

Mal got a strong start and took off in front. Iain was doing alright, and I was fighting it every inch of the way. I have never, ever worked that hard on a mountain, even at higher altitudes. I carried a full 50m rope in my pack which didn't make things any easier. Iain kept yelling down at me to keep slogging along, and without that encouragement I would have sat down and turned into a popsicle.

About the eighth stage again we knew what we were into. The weather was perfect. Behind us a big cloud bank was approaching and threatened to swallow us up, but for the time being it was holding off. The rest of the sky was clear and we could see the blue pacific and the coastal plain stretching out below us. As we got higher we could see parts of the South Alps. Best of all there was no wind.

Deciding the rope was unnecessary we stored some gear in the entrance of the hut and carried on. Mal, once again in front, blazed his way up to the summit, and Iain followed. I was staggering and semi-delirious by the time I made it up to crater rim. It was still clear and for the first time I looked down into the crater of Mt. Fuji. There was still a bit to go up to the highest point on the rim, where a weather station is situated. The last dozen meters up this slope was slow torture. My body just didn't want to move, it was the weirdest thing. I saw Mal and Iain just up ahead and they said, "Come on, you're almost here." I put one foot in front of the other, and what seemed like several minutes later, they weren't any closer. It was like a dream where you run but don't go anywhere.

At the top I looked North South East and West, took a photo, turned around and headed down without thinking much or doing anything in the way of celebrating. I didn't even eat a Mars bar. The temperature was -16C.

The weather had held off but as we got lower on the slopes the big cloud bank which had steadily crept closer engulfed us and we descended through the last few stages in the freezing mist. When we arrived at the 5th stage there was the usual hodge-podge of tourists milling about the souvenir shop, and we got plenty of stares from curious onlookers as we appeared out of the cloud covered with snow and iced-up climbing gear.

The next order of business was to find a Denny's. I vaguely recall we were able to find one but the service wasn't quite up to par with our regular Denny's in Toyota. Anyhow we got some food in our bellies and somehow managed to crawl back to work the next day with stories about climbing Fuji.

It was a climb that, for better or worse, had to be done. Would I do it again? As the saying goes, only a fool climbs it twice...

Yatsugatake (2899m), Nagano/Yamanashi prefecture, Japan

Toyohashi Alpine Club
Mountaineering in Japan

Yatsugatake (2899m)

Nagano/Yamanashi prefecture, Japan
Winter 1994
Report by Darren DeRidder
Party: Darren DeRidder and three others

In the winter of 1994, I set off with three strangers for the snow-bound peaks of Yatsugatake. To climb Aka-dake in winter was a real mountaineering objective, and I wanted experience on real alpine routes. My Japanese climbing partner, Kitoh-san, had worked it out for me to get a ride with an acquaintance of his, and so long as I was self-sufficient and not too much trouble I could tag along for the climb. 

These three guys were old friends. Climbing Aka-dake together was a bonding event for them, and I was very much the outsider. I couldn't speak the language very well, I had no idea who these guys were, and I was about 20 years younger then they were. They made a few awkward attempts at talking to me, but as we trundled down the highway under the glow of the magnesium lights, they fell to conversing amongst themselves and ignored me. 

It was just a bit too cool to drift off to sleep, so I stayed awake as our driver navigated the dark mountain roads and pressed on into the night. At last we came to a place where we couldn't drive any further. The snow was deep, and more than once I thought we might have gotten stuck, but eventually we made it to a widening in the road and a gated track where we parked. I shivered in the black cold and nervously tried to get ready quickly, putting on all my layers of warm clothes and gore-tex, mits, hat, boots, gators... and making sure I'd put everything in my pack and secured it well. 

We didn't hang around. The three guys set off almost immediately along the snow-choked trail. The driver, who was Kitoh-san's friend, was kind enough to explain to me that we had some walking to do before we camped. I said I understood and followed. After several kilometres of difficult walking, we arrived at the base of Yatsu-ga-take in the dead of night. A sliver of moon had thankfully appeared and shed just enough light on the snowy terrace to show a few other tents nestled into the deep powder. A muffled silence hung over everything. I followed suit and stamped out a level platform for my tent, then set it up as quickly as possible, trying to keep moving for warmth. 

A few minutes later I was inside, with my headlamp hanging from the ridgepole, casting a dim circle of light over my stove and aluminum pot. I tried to bring the icy water to a boil. For dinner, I'd brought instant noodles, the best no-nonsense quick-fix meal a bachelor with no cooking talent could think of. I finally did get a boiling hot pot of ramen, but the inside of my tent was getting a bit clammy. I leaned forward to zip open the fly and as I did so, I upset the pot and stove. I'm lucky I didn't set my whole tent on fire, but I made a mess in the tent, soaked my wool socks and scalded my feet. After cleaning things up, what remained of my ramen was cold. I choked it down with a gulp of icy water and a granola bar. There were two little holes in the floor of my tent where the hot burner of the stove had made contact. There was nothing to do but try to sleep, so I crawled into my sleeping bag. 

It was very cold. We were camping out in the middle of a deep freeze. I could hear my three companions in their big dome-tent a few yards away from me. I could hear them talking through the walls of my tent... the thin nylon walls that were not keeping out any of the bitter cold. From their conversation I could tell what they were having for supper. They passed around beers. They had rice cakes. They had thin-sliced bbq beef. They had potatoes. After a while they opened a bottle of sake. There were three of them in that tent having a great time, and I lay there in the dark listening to the feast going on, getting colder and colder. 

I woke up suddenly and realized I was really cold. Things in the next tent over were quiet now. My sleeping bag just was not warming up, and in spite of two layers of fleece, heavy socks, and a hat, my -12C sack was not adequate for the plummeting temperature. I started to work out contingencies. First, I would plan on staying awake and doing half-sit-ups and massaging my feet to stay warm. If that failed I might be able to get some warmth by lighting my stove... if I could avoid asphyxiating myself. If things got truly out of control I would have to plow over to the other tent and disrupt the blissful slumber of my boozy pals and tell them I was about to die so please move over and let me get in. None of these scenarios was very comforting. I was shivering, and really seriously wondering if the situation was about to become an emergency. A soft thump sounded outside my tent door. "Darren! Are you awake?" "Y-y-ess-s-s-s", I said. "Are you cold?" "It's *&^% cold", I said. "Do you have any heat packs?" I replied that I did. In Japan, in the winter, every corner store has boxes and boxes full of these little hand-warmers; paper-like envelopes with a sandy mixture that, when shaken up, gives off warmth for nearly an hour. It doesn't really get that cold in most of Japan, but everybody goes around with their pockets full of these heat packs in winter in Japan. "Put one down the back of your pants!" said the voice. "Put one under your hat, and put one in your socks." "Okay", I said, "Thanks, I'll do it." There was another soft thump, and a slow z-z-z-zip as the guy got back in his tent. 

In my sad condition, freezing and alone in my tiny tent with a belly full of cold ramen, I had started to take a pretty dim view of the three Japanese. I was pretty sure if they got up in the morning and found that I had turned into a big round-eyed popsicle they would just carry on right up the mountain and back down to their SUV without ever a second thought. I quietly cursed them as I shook up the only three heat-packs I had and shoved one under my hat, one in my left sock, and one between my frozen butt-cheeks. Amazingly, within about 5 minutes I was as snug and toasty warm as you can imagine. My body responded to the encouragement of a little outside help and began to kick off some serious heat of its own. My sleeping bag finally warmed up and with a soft envelope of relative heat surrounding me, I drifted off to sleep like a baby. I slept deeply, in complete comfort, until the early morning light seeped through the ochre walls of my Moss tent and the sound of climbing gear getting sorted jolted me into action. 

For breakfast, I didn't have a lot, just a couple of oranges. Overnight, they had frozen as hard and solid as little golf balls. The neck of my water bottle was clogged with ice, too, and I had to pick at it with my ice axe to get a few frigid sips. Not wanting to fall behind, I wolfed down my last granola bar and dug through my pack for my crampons, harness, and helmet. This is what I had come to Yatsugatake for. Packs hoisted, ice axes in hand, we looked up at Aka-dake and started to climb.