Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji (12,388 ft)

Highpoint of Japan 

May 12, 2024

I was heading to Japan for the ICRA robotics conference so I figured I’d tag the highpoint, Mt Fuji, on the side. The conference started on Monday and the soonest flight I could get on arrived in Tokyo at noon on Sunday. That seemed like just enough time that I could make it work. 

There’s a lot of confusing information online about climbing rules for Mt Fuji. There is window of time between early July and early September each year that is considered the climbing season for Mt Fuji. During this time all the intermediate stations on the different trails are open and selling snacks and souvenirs. Regular busses run to trailheads and many people climb. In fact, by some estimates Fuji is one of the most climbed peaks in the world (along with Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire).

Outside of this window Fuji is in fact still open to climbing, but all the services shut down. So climbers must be much more self reliant. Conditions are also tougher, generally requiring winter mountaineering gear like crampons and ice axes. 

Some websites erroneously say climbing is prohibited outside the regular climbing season, but this is false. Japanese climbers have assured me of this. And I’ve read It is not uncommon for guide companies to guide clients up in the spring. So I would be completely allowed to climb in mid may. 

Based on recent satellite images it looked like the upper peak was covered in snow, so I decided to bring my crampons and whippet. I would climb the southern route, Fujinomiya, since it was the shortest and had the least amount of snow. This would be important since I was getting a late start.

A few days before the climb the weather forecasts starting converging that a major storm was going to hit Fuji starting Sunday night and lasting 24 hours. It would drop 1-2ft of snow with winds up to 70mph. It would likely start between 9pm and midnight. That meant I had to be very efficient to get up and down before that storm hit. It appeared I could barely make it if my flight was on time and I hustled. I don’t usually like racing against storms in the mountains since they often come early, but I decided to give this a shot since it was my only possible day to bag Fuji. (My backup plan would be to pull an all nighter one night mid week to bag it mid week but I wanted to avoid that). 

Tokyo has two airports, Narita and Haneda, and the flights worked out best that I arrived in Narita. Unfortunately Narita is farther from Fuji, so I would definitely need to be efficient. 

Sunday I landed on time at noon, made it through customs, and took the shuttle to Budget car rental, the cheapest place. I did my homework in advance and brought an international drivers permit. This is required for americans to rent a car in Japan and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It’s just a little booklet I pay $30 for at AAA and I sign it and they put a big stamp on and an expiration date. The booklet is not unique to me and is the same for everyone. It just has different languages on it. There’s no real reason why that needs to expire or needs to be purchased every year. 

After filling out paperwork I hit the road at 2pm. I needed to be very careful at the beginning because Japan is left side drive. Immediately outside the rental lot were several blind turns that were scary to take on the left. Then I got the hang of it.

The cars have steering wheel on the right and the turn signal and windshield wiper levers are switched. I lasted about ten turns before I finally messed up and flipped the wipers on in error. 

Many roads have tolls and luckily I paid for Budget to insert an ETC card in the car. This allowed me to drive through the booths without stopping and pay Budget back at the end. 

By 515pm I finally arrived at the Fujinomaya trailhead and it was completely empty. There was a fence across the main trail that said all services including rescue are closed for the season and climbers climb at their own risk. I walked around a bit and found two cars parked at another trailhead and four Japanese climbers packing up. They said they had just summitted and one had skied down. They said 20 people were up there and the trail they started at was open. They said it was completely legal to climb. 

I thanked them and quickly started packing myself. The wind was already picking up and clouds were building above. I estimated I could get up in 3 hours and maybe 1.5 down. So if I started at 530pm I ought to be able to beat the storm. 

I had considered bringing my differential GPS up to the summit to take a measurement and test some processing methods I’m trying for peaks outside the US. That would be fun, but the extra weight would slow me down and the one hour measurement on the summit would also slow me down. 

I really didn’t want to get stuck in a whiteout up there so I decided to practice with some measurements back at the trailhead afterwords if the weather was still OK.

By 530pm I scared down a cliff bar and started up. The trail started like a steep 4wd track zig zagging up. I think this is for servicing the stations and the summit buildings. Before long I met up with the regular hiker trail and I followed that since it was more direct. It had ropes on the side and white arrows in the middle. 

By around 1100ft I started hitting snow and it got dark enough that I needed my headlamp. The snow had likely been slushy during the heat if the day but by now it was hard and icy. I was happy to have brought the crampons, otherwise I would have had to bail. 

I stopped to put crampons on then followed boot prints up. The terrain got steeper as I got higher and I was comforted to have my whippet. The wind also got steeper higher up, and by the time I crested the crater rim it was nearly knocking me over. I had to lean into it and stay away from the edge in case a gust knocked me over. 

By 8pm I crested the last snow slope and found the famous black obelisk marking the summit. There were summit buildings on the southwest side that fortunately sheltered me from the wind. It was good I didn’t bring the dGPS  because the summit rocks were buried in deep snow and the measurement wouldn’t be too useful anyways.

I could see the lights of Tokyo down to the East in between intermittent undercast. I spent a few minutes taking pictures then soon headed down. I carefully leaned into the wind along the rim then cramponed down the icy slopes. 

At the edge of snowline the wind was still howling and then it started lightly raining. I quickly transitioned and started hustling down. The sandy slopes were soft enough that I could plunge step and make good time. By 915pm I finally emerged at the trailhead. 

The rain had let up by then and it appeared the storm was behind schedule. So I took out the dGPS and got a 30 minute measurement at the trailhead. Everything worked fine and that gave me good non-US data to practicing processing. 

I drove back to Yokohama by 1am, ready for my conference the next morning. 

 

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