wifed
...it's our mountain now
International stuff
Mount Fuji, Japan, August 2006
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It's was about 18 months ago we were all sitting around a campfire at cymer abbey eating b-b-q chicken kebabs and talking about how different things would be when Gary moved to Japan. I was in the process of trying to get back into shape after a few years out of mountain biking. They had taken me to the cut gate a month or two before and wifed me up. It was a rude awakening as to just how unfit I had become. So with getting fit in mind I decided I needed a goal. Felling a little stronger than I had been doing recently and with all this talk of Gary going to Japan it just popped out.
"What's the biggest mountain in Japan? Its Fuji isn't it? Do you think it's ride-able?"
It seemed like bravado for a start, something to cling to while coughing and spluttering my way round British trails in order to get back to a level of fitness where riding became fun again. But I searched google and found that people had indeed ridden mount Fuji.
The next few months Gary and me spent a lot of time in the saddle trying to get as many quality miles in before he left. In December we wifed the two gates, and I settled my score with the cut gate on the way round :) many of those miles were spent talking about Fuji. Its hard to say at which point this changed from bravado into something we were actually going to do, maybe it was bravado all the way? Our own fear of backing down could have been the very thing that made it happen.
When Gary left I got my head into training, kept riding through the winter then started stepping things up in the summer. Toward the end I was doing around 100 miles a week. I had developed a routine of taking a 25L bag of dirty washing, riding to the nearest hill, running to the top with my bike on my back, riding back down, then taking the washing to my mums and riding home with it wet. The total trip was about 25 miles, and it was seriously painful!
But as painful as it was, I knew that this was nothing compared to mount Fuji. It is after all considered to be a god by the Japanese, and you don't expect to do battle with a god without it hurting!
Back top topThe plan
We were really lucky with the plans. Ideally we wanted to stay in Gora and use that as a base from which to head out and back. We would go to Subarishi and climb the Subarishi line then descend to Gotemba, the longest possible descent. This would also mean we could ride the Ashino-ko skyline trail before returning to Tokyo.
Thanks to Gary's girlfriends aunt we managed to get a slightly different plan together. She owns a holiday home in Hakone-Yumoto, just down the road from Gora. Very kindly she lent us the place for a few days. This meant we could send our spare kit to the hotel near the holiday home and go directly to Fuji from Tokyo.
The only drawback was that it meant climbing up on the Yoshidaguchi line, which meant a few hundred more meters to climb than the Subarishi line.
So the plan was set. We would go to directly to Fuji with only the kit we needed. From there climb up one side of the mountain during the late afternoon-night. Get to the 8th station where we had a bunk booked, grab a couple of hours sleep, then make the final push for the summit in the dark and watch the sunrise from the top.
Then it would be a quick ride around the crater before descending via the Gotemba line...all 10000ft of it :) the advantage of this being that the Gotemba line is the longest climb. This meant there would be relatively few walkers on the descending path.
Who's idea was this?
Getting to Fuji was quite an operation in itself. We rode our bikes from Fuchu in Tokyo to a bus stop on the side of a motorway. We had a couple of cheap foldaway bike bags, which we rushed to cram our bikes into before the bus turned up. There we sat in the blistering heat grinning to ourselves and each other as we mulled over thoughts of what was about to come, and everything that had lead us to this bus stop. The bus turned up so it was a quick goodbye to Mia (Gary's other half) and Ali the dog. Then we climbed onto the bus.
Ok, the thing about lycra bike clothes is that when you're not on a bike you look really stupid. Needless to say I felt quite self-conscious when I walked onto the bus. But this soon passed as we got underway and the Japanese mountains started to pass us by. There's something about Japanese mountains that's really distinct they really are awesome.
As we got towards Fuji I will admit to feeling a little worried. It was huge! I knew the bus going up was a good thing as it was making a decent dent in the climb. But there was another part of me that knew this dent was only a third of it. So the climb also illustrated just how much we would have to do on foot. It was kinda hard knowing what to think at this point. Neither of us said very much, there was after all, nothing left to discuss. There was no turning back for us now, our bed was waiting a few thousand feet up the side of the volcano and there was only one way to get to it.
So we spent the last portion of the bus ride scoping out the terrain in the forests, trying to gauge what it was going to be like. We couldn't tell much, and we knew it was going to change radically as soon as we were above the tree line anyway. The only indication we got were the huge sections at the side of the road where they had rendered over the loose rocks to stop them from sliding. So it was loose, but we knew that anyway.
 A lizard at the bus stop in tokyo |
 Fettling before setting out for 5th station |
The 5th station
When we got out of the bus I was quite eager to get my bike assembled. I was very conscious of the fact that I was now standing, bikeless, in nothing but lycra. Although it bothered me less when I saw there were lots of roadies all drinking pocari sweat as they had just ridden the road up to that station. I have to say it was an impressive feat. The bottom half of the mountain is very hot and sticky, and that climb is pretty damn steep.
The station itself was quite crowded and had a very mercantile feel to it. There were lots of souvenir shops and places to buy food. There were also large groups of Japanese walkers stretching and psyching themselves up before the climb. It was kinda cool watching large groups of normally reserved folk gathering round and shouting out cheers in the same way that an American football team would shout after a huddle. I thought about having a little chant myself, but decided that shouting "you're my wife now Dave" before doing battle with a god was perhaps foolish.
Instead we made use of the vending machines selling tins of hot coffee and found some food. It was a toss up between octopus balls or b-b-q squid. It was a tough choice, I almost had both but in the end we opted for the squid and then stood there watching her b-b-q it till it turned to rubber. I was powerless to stop it as Gary was off fetching the tinned coffee and I only knew one word of Japanese. So after our somewhat rubbery squid and a bit of bike fettling we realised that an essential fuel stop was turning into putting off the inevitable. It was time to saddle up.
Looking downhill around 5th station, just before the trees stop
No cycling
We headed out of the 5th station towards the obvious upward path and managed to ride for about half a mile. We passed by a tanoy with a recorded message giving warnings to people attempting the climb. The part that stuck in my head was "beware of lighting on the mountain, do not attempt to climb the mountain in summer clothes, make sure you have sturdy boots and cotton gloves, do not stray from paths as landslides are common on the mountain" and so on.
I checked over myself. Nike riding shoes, with metal studs and cleats, lycra shorts and sleeveless vest and fingerless gloves that would be useless for protecting my pinkies from the abrasive rock should I need to scramble. We carried on riding for a while as I pondered the warning in the message. I was just at the point where I was starting to question my sanity when a guy giving out maps stopped us.
Now the thing about Gary and me is that I am the order to his chaos and vice a versa. Where I leave nothing to chance and plan things to an almost obsessive degree, Gary likes to use the suck it and see method. It's actually a good combination for mountain biking. My organising sets us up with the best possible chance of success His lack of planning means he has a very fluid approach and when plans go tits up, he is used to relying on his wits.
I did mention to him a few months before that there was no mountain biking allowed on Fuji during July and august. But he kept insisting that it would be ok and to leave that side of things to him. Ok, so the guy had stopped us and now it was time to leave that side of things to him.
He started to negotiate, which was quite tough. He speaks a little Japanese but it's not the best and the guy with the maps didn't speak any English.
So Gary used his wits, he called his girlfriend who is Japanese and asked her to talk him into letting us pass.
Gary deploys his cunning plan
I had to chuckle to myself when I saw his "plan". Although it's a good thing we never went with his first plan, which was to try and blag it that we were a film crew doing it for channel 4.
When the map guy finished talking to Mia the news was good. He was going to let us pass, but we had to carry our bikes. This was what we had planned to do anyway so it wasn't a problem. I think the fact that we were going back down to Gotemba also worked in our favour, as there would be no walkers on that line.
So we strapped our bikes to our backs and away we went.
 Garry |
 Gaz |
A little way after the guy let us pass
Round one, ding ding
Until this point we had managed to ride a fair way but as soon as we passed the guy with the maps we realised our battle had truly begun. To our right there was the huge steel buttress zigzagging up the side of the mountain. The surface was loose pumice stone, which did little to offer your feet support. Walking with your bike on your back was do-able but by no means easy. Each step was a matter of planting your foot and pausing for a second to let the surface make its mind up weather or not to support you, then quickly jerking your other foot forward and stamping it in before you slide to far backward. It thought back to a documentary I saw about the French foreign legion, their motto is "don't think, march!" or at least its one of them. This seemed like a good thing to do at the time. Just find a pace, lock into it and keep trudging on.
We think the 8th station is at the top but its not, the top is much further than that
As it turned out we were doing ok. We were actually overtaking quite a few people. Each time we did there were shouts of "oh sagoi" which means amazing. It seems the Japanese couldn't believe we were attempting to do this... don't know about them, I couldn't believe it.
The butresses holding the loose sections
We did a few of these switch backs then found the other type of terrain we were going to have to deal with. We turned into the bend and the rock rose fiercely up in front of us; this was why people used cotton gloves.
With a bike on our backs we thought better of scrambling and walked up it like stairs. It wasn't easy but we thought it better than leaning over.
Gary commented that it was "scary hearing me walk with my cleats" personally I think walking in them was scarier :)
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Though as scary as it was it was also quite atmospheric. Along side us there were lots of Japanese folk with their Fuji sticks ready for branding. All of which had little bells on to warn of snakes and such, not that there were any close to the path.
Altitude sickness?
The next few rounds were much the same. A mixture of steep nasty rock staircases and steep nasty gravely bits. Steep and nasty seemed to be a running theme. Only the occasional hut we passed through broke up these parts. These usually meant turning sideways and carefully squeezing your bike through. Stopping to have your photo taken with the locals. Then trying to find the motivation to move again.
 Change in terrain |
 More solid but much steeper |
As the air got thinner the bikes got heavier and cut deep into our shoulders. Now the switchbacks had become points where we would rest our elbows on our knees and let the bikes sit in the middle of our backs. Or if we were really lucky we could back up to a low wall or rock and rest the whole backpack on it before walking on.
The one thing we couldn't do, was take them off and put them down. We had to do this a couple of times and it was painful. The blood rushes back into your shoulders and the pain rushes in with it, but in a strange way this pain was a relief as it was a different type of pain to the relentless weight of a mountain bike.
Looking down after a while on the lava staircase
We got to the hut we had thought was the edoya hut while it was still twilight. We were distressed to find out this was not our destination. And even more distressed when the guy at the hut pointed to a small flickering light in the distance, he told us our hut was beyond that :(
It was no good; we couldn't keep our bikes on our backs any longer. Nature had been requiring my attention for a little while so now seemed as good a time as any.
We made use of the facilities and stopped for a bite to eat, then sat there for a while and mustered the strength to move. It was starting to get dark now so we were both anxious to get to the safety of the shelter that awaited us.
Taking a well earned rest
As I started to walk I realised I was struggling. I was starting to feel a little bit dizzy and was loosing my footing more frequently. For a brief moment I was worried. It was clear that the altitude was taking its toll on me. Gary seemed ok, so he waited while I took a moment to lean on a wall. I was actually quite worried in case this got any worse. I would have taken any of the possible effects of altitude sickness, nausea, headache or whatever. But dizziness was dangerous, and if it did get worse then it could cause us some serious problems.
I took my moment to lean on a wall; the mantra till this point had been the foreign legion thing. But even that seemed week. So I tapped into my last resort, the thing that always gets me through. Touching the void. If that guy could drag himself over a glacier, through crevices, and over miles of huge boulders with a shattered leg, I was sure I could find the strength to keep going.
 Slightly cooler but no less steep |
 The last smile before my curry so i made it count :D |
As it turned out my fears were unfounded. I started to walk again and my head cleared and again I was focused on the task at hand.
We marched for another three hours in the dark and got to the edoya hut at about 10pm. Never have I been so glad to see a garden shed in all my life. Before going in we spoke to a couple of the guys working in the hut next door. They were all into mountain biking so obviously took an interest in us. One of them was saying that he had worked two seasons up the mountain and hadn't seen any bikes up there. At that point we realised we were entering into quite a small club of people who had done this. But as nice as these guys were, food was waiting, so we had to say our goodbyes...
On making our way inside we were met with a typically warm Japanese greeting and some slippers. As I slipped them on I groaned in relief and a giggle rippled round the room. A polystyrene tray full of curry and rice was shoved into our hands, which was about demolished before they could get our tea out to us.
 There are good points to carrying bikes :) |
 Sitting at the edoya hut at about 11pm |
We bought a couple of cans of larger, went outside to drain them, massage each others shoulders, and watch the fireworks going off a few thousand meters below.
When it came to sleep things were very cosy. The bunk beds were like huge industrial shelves, stacked 4 high and running the entire length of the hut. There must have been a few hundred people in there. I lay there unable to sleep while Gary beside me, snoozed happily away, a complete stranger on the other side. Its not like I missed out on much sleep, we were only there for a few hours till we had to make the final push to the summit before sunrise.
Blood, sweat, and tears
When we got up for the last leg things had changed quite a bit outside. There were now a few thousand lights zigzagging their way up the side of the mountain above, and as many coming upward from below. We ate our breakfast and sat working out how hard this was going to be. It was tough climbing with space around you, but with all these people things were going to be hellish.
 3am and I'm in a head gear showdown |
 Lots of lights heading to the top |
The thing about Japanese walkers is that they aren't like British ones. They don't think and act like they are the only ones allowed out into the countryside. In fact they seemed positively thrilled that we were there. All of them wanting to wish us luck and chat to us as we climbed. So things were much better than we imagined, room was made for us and we slotted in nicely.
There were a few points where things bottle-necked as folk were taking photos of each other going through gates. The Japanese and ourselves simply waited still until things moved again. The Europeans on the other hand, let us down a touch. When the jams happened they seemed to just keep pushing upwards, which inevitably made things worse. In the end we walked side by side with our bikes. This made it harder for them to overtake us, and easier for everybody else around us to stay standing. The rat race proved to much, we were starting to pass rocks that had traces of wet blood on them, folk were obviously tumbling, so we decided to take refuse on top of a crushed hut to watch the sunrise and let the crowds pass.
The sunrise was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. As it rose over the horizon it set fire to the banks of cloud stretching into the distance, yet it left two huge flanks of cold blue sky either side. We spent about an hour there and wasted lots of memory on our cameras, every few minutes the scene would be subtly different so we couldn't afford to miss a thing.
Finally the sun was high enough in the sky to send the remnants of the dark packing and it was time for the final push.
We could see the top now so we knew nothing short of a serious injury or an act of god that would stop us reaching it. Although that was still likely, Fuji is after all a god, so we weren't getting cocky just yet.
Though we were now filled with a new energy that the warm light of the sun had given us it was still very tough. And although it was cold, the direct sunlight was encouraging a nasty chilling under sweat. We passed a bloke sitting there with his girlfriend, snorting from a can of compressed oxygen. We had resisted the temptation to buy a can ourselves but on reflection it might have been a good idea. He offered us a go, so I took three shots. It was like rocket fuel, I stomped like a mountain goat about another 300 yards before it effects wore off.
A few minutes later they caught up with us and handed it to us again. This time he said, "it's a gift" It was only a half empty aerosol tin, but up there it was like a lifeline, so it was difficult to thank him enough. But we did our best and had three snorts each before stomping off again.
Now we could hear cheering from the top, a few of the girls we had bumped into during the climb had waited for us near the gate. They had quite a crowd with them and as they saw us coming they started to shout down to us.
So we continued waving and sucking on our oxygen bottle. Just before the last bend we passed a guy sitting on a rock, he gave us both a big smile and handed us both some sugared almonds.
Then we turned the corner we had longed to find. Ahead of us was the gate to the 10th station, and a big crowd gathered round it. As we passed through the gate they gave us a standing ovation. It took us a few minutes to admit it to each other but that actually bought tears to our eyes.
 The gate to the 10th station |
 Bikes at the crater |
We went and bought a hot coffee and wandered around the crater admiring the views we had earned the right to gaze upon. There we were, tiny blots on this magnificent landscape. Presented with our own insignificance in the face of this huge scene. Then as we sat there near the crater savouring our time, we noticed that even in this place, as high up and far out of reach as it was, there were still a few tiny insects. That kind of thing really puts you in your place. To feel dwarfed by the landscape, only to realise that there are things in it smaller than you, and they all matter. So some place in the middle of it is you, so then you must matter to.
As we sat there a German woman and an American guy we met on the way up came over to us. They commented that we were famous on Fuji and every place they had been folk were talking about the guys with bikes. But it mattered little to us, the time for congratulations was earlier at the last gate. Now, although still feeling like kings, we were kings that knew our place, and that was as much as we needed.
An offering to the gods
We could have stayed there all day if we wanted. But there was still a long way to go. We had to get round to the Gotemba descent and get down the mountain. Then we had another 20 miles or so to go in order to get to Hakone-Yumoto. It was time to leave.
Riding round the crater was interesting, but with all the people there and us not having tonnes of sleep we thought it best to walk much of the way. Then we sat at the top of the route down, to thicker, warmer air, trying to spot Gotemba in the distance. We set up the camera and off we went. Literally in my case, as I went flying from the bike a few yards into it but I managed to grab the chain and avoid bouncing down the side of Fuji. I quickly checked to make sure my bike was still in order, and set off again.
The next 40 minutes were evil. There were lumps of pumice bouncing across the trail in front of my tyres just begging to have me off. Gary managed to ride more of this that me, but we were both being very cautious. We were on the remote side of the mountain now and rescue was a long way off. Even with a mountain bike, getting down to find rescue wouldn't be a quick thing. The only way back up was via bulldozer.
Eventually we found the bulldozer track. I stopped to check the video camera to make sure it was still working after my fall. Only to find out that I hadn't even plugged the lipstick camera into it...gutted! So we set it up properly and set off again, this time making sure everything was working.
The first part of the descent we took quite slowly, partly due to the remoteness, but also because of the view we had. It seemed a shame to rush downhill and not take it in.
The bulldozer track, though smoother, was still challenging. A bulldozer made all the switchbacks, so they don't exactly ride well.
It was a pretty trouble free descent. The only incident was my brakes overheating. A couple of minutes rest to let them cool, and we were soon underway again. It was hard to stay off the brakes though. Towards the end we were pushing 30MPH, keeping down to that speed meant constant braking. Letting go completely is possible, but the trail can go very loose and deep without warning, so it's pretty scary.
When we hit the tarmac road crossing the track, it was a bittersweet moment. One part of me was over the moon as we had, apart from a bit of tarmac, wifed mount Fuji. But on the other hand I was gutted, as it was now nearly over.
We let go of the brakes on the road and cruised into Gotemba at around 40mph. The first thing we came across was a 7-11, perfect!
We quickly refuelled and went for the train with my little Fuji flag flying victoriously from my camel back.
The only question now was "what next?"...