August 1, 2013 was the day we climbed Mt. Fuji’s Yoshidaguchi trail. We woke up, got dressed and were on the bullet train by 620am. I am a bit hungry since I don’t eat instant oatmeal but I will find food. We eventually found food and ate at Mos Burger. Rupert and Madi started their climb from the Umaumagaeshi starting point which was about 2.5 hours from the 5th station where Dez and I would be starting. Dez and I left from the train station by bus at 2:50pm and took an hour bus ride to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji. We would get off the bus and I would buy my Fuji hiking stick, (everyone bought there’s at the train station, I didn’t because I thought the ones at the top would look different because the wood wasn’t the same as I remembered my fathers stick he received in ‘89. Dez and I would walk about 15 to 20 min to meet up with Rupert and Madi. Two Americans who taught English in Korea asked us if we were from Seattle because they noticed Dez’s Seahawks backpack. In order to meet up with Rupert and Madi, we would veer left on the trail while everyone else kept right. Simultaneously 3 people screamed “nooo wrong way!” But we informed them we were meeting our friends. After meeting the rest of our team at the 5th station we paid ¥200 for a stamp on our Fuji walking sticks. Our team literally walked about three minutes before we hit a hut selling sixth station stamps. Was this a joke?! Who knows… We paid anyway. The seventh station definitely wasn’t as close. Walking this trail really wasn’t that hard, dirt small rocks hills and switch backs. If this was what Fuji would be the entire time I could deal with it. Bathrooms were a suggested donation of ¥200 at the bottom of the mountain. I paid not wanting bad karma. We made it to the seventh station around 7pm at night. We would have to walk a few more minutes to our reserved napping hut that would cost us ¥5800 yen each. The hut had food, snacks and water but they definitely new the worth and demand of their product. After paying ¥500 for a soy sauce top ramen it was time to rest. We slept on mats until about 11pm when we would wake up, get our gear together and start our journey.
Before we started hiking we saw a picture of this guy… lol basically it says be on the look out for this guy!! YIKES!!
This is Dez on the trail when we first started and her Seahawks backpack!
Up the stairs we go! This is kind of how fuji started, switch backs and stairs.
Rupert
Almost to station 7…
We made it to our hut that was just a bit past station 7.
Peace
Overpriced snacks, Supply and demand baby!
Overall, like I said the first half of the hike wasn’t bad at all, I remember telling my brother if this was how it would be I would be okay! We would then rest from 7p to 11p before waking up and starting day eight.
Domonique Meeks
AmbassadorNique Productions
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DomoVlog: Road To Fuji
Ep. 1 | Ep. 2 | Ep. 3 | Ep. 4 | Ep. 5 | Ep. 6 |
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