5 glimpses of Fuji San

In the night, climbing, Fuji san seems inhabited by, possesses maybe, a kind of magic, whispering quietly forever having been but seen only here, mysterious shapes and dizzying lines defying experience. Standing on the side of the great volcanic cone on weary legs and bleary eyes, I felt perhaps to have climbed not just above the clouds, but through a misty portal. At one of the upper stations we turned around and watched our shadows flutter like flags in the whispy clouds drifting swift up the side of the mountain. They passed and again the staggering horizon of Fuji san reappeared, a crooked diagonal edge in the moonlight, plumeting seaward, pointing to the glow of invisible towns below the cloud bed.




We reached the top seperately, our group staggered among the slow snaking chain of flashlight pinholes crisscrossing the mountain skwyard--perhaps what impressed me most (and at times frustrated) was the sheer number of people willing to make the climb to the sawed flat top of mount Fuji. It's not an easy climb, but a wide array of people attempt it, old or young knees be damned (and many succeed). So, at the top, reforming our quintet seemed difficult, but reform we did, with plenty of time to gather ourselves for the moment we had been waiting for. And then, with our faces long, but aglow, the sun split the sky and lit the sea of clouds churning around the peak. We silently watched. I wondered how after such a long night, the sun could arrive so cheerfuly, and I warmed up, feeling something new, akin to flying.



When the sun is low and relative to the still, and vastly wide horizon, it moves fast. Shortly, the sunrise became clear morning, and we decided to hike to the backside and around the rim of the peak. The snow lined pit of Fuji is a massive crater, ringed with black charred rock and scattered with volcanic rubble, the entire mountain being the result of this incredible hole. We walked along the edge, slowly tired, until we came upon a sheet of ice, crossed by a single set of footprints. Looks easy enough we thought, as the team of mountaineers ahead of us, kitted with poles and boots, assisted eachother across the slippery expanse. No problem. We set out slowly, and carefully, step by step, retracing the frozen prints. He yelled out as he fell, sliding down the ice, kicking his heels to no effect, but finally, gradually he slowed at the bottom of the slope. We looked at eachother, and considered going back, though then realizing there were more hikers waiting behind us, cooling their well-heeled boots as we slowly crept along. We took a few more tenuous steps, when, looking down the ice, we realized that the slope no longer seemed to gradually flatten out, but disappeared over an edge and opened up into a sheer drop down to the bottom of the pit. It was then that my knees quivered, and though I had felt vertigo before, I had to take a moment and catch my breath, and reassure my sneakered feet hesitating on a foot print of wet ice. We all took the same breath. Step step step, slowly, standing and finding balance, we achieved the other side, quite exhausted, though vividly alive.



From the back of Fuji, in the clear day, laid out across the landscape of thin clouds and tiny hills, is a massive pillar of shadow extending for many kilometers of Japan. Standing on the edge there, the volcanic cone, so rough to climb, looks smooth enough to roll toilet paper down all the way to the next prefecture. I think that might piss someone off though. The whole side of the mountain visible, the changing environment at different levels of elevation are visible, from barren rock and debris to small green shrubbery and the forested base. All darkened by the distinct flat feature of the pyramid of Fuji, so big it blocks the sun.



Having been up all night and hiked around the crater all morning, we felt it was time to hike down. I almost complained that I was tired when a grandmother and her great great grandchild skipped past me into the fog on their way to breakfast. We made our way, a little slower, but not much as P inspired us to skip as well, and we nearly jogged most of the way down despite our grieving feets. The route down, in the mocking light of day (the sun, so beautiful, is it not also a little cruel), was hours of zigzagging dirt and dust trails that wore our minds down as well as knees and ankles. However, we were spared sunburns by morning mist blowing up the slope, beautifully and cool. Squinting hard, we tried in vain often to see how far we had to go yet, but just kept stepping into the fog until finally our feet hit pavement and we were again on earth.



[group shot!]