Natsuki's Spectacular Mount Fuji Climb: 1 Year Anniversary!

So as I was eating a mountain of chicken last night, it suddenly hit me that it is a year to the day that Natsuki, myself and our incredible gang made it to the top of Mount Fuji.

Something I had pledged never to do again, after only just about surviving it way back in 2013. I thought it would be nice to look back and write a bit about our trek and share some previously unseen photos.

If you haven't seen it already, or even if you already have, here's the link to our epic Fuji climb video. Who needs Lord of the Rings when you can spend your Sunday night joining us on our struggle to deliver Natsuki to the top of a volcano, at a fraction of the runtime no less.

🍿 WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DQYFfO7BQk

To mark his milestone 50th birthday Natsuki wanted to do something special and having never ventured up Fuji-San - or literally done any form of physical activity whatsoever - it seemed like the perfect challenge.

We were going to get Natsuki to the summit.

To do this we would of course need to adequately fuel ourselves with a Mcdonalds breakfast beforehand, at a store with perhaps the coolest view of any.

The trail up was steep, rocky and gruelling as we, perhaps unwisely, chose to take the Fujinomiya trail. There are 4 trails up to the top of Fuji, Yoshida, Subashiri, Gotemba and our good friend Fujinomiya.

This route is the shortest on paper, but as you will see below it was also very steep and rocky. We chose it mainly as we anticipated less climbers and honestly I don't regret picking this route, given it didn't resemble the theme park attraction atmosphere of the main route.

As the ascension continues, it is breathtaking to see the clouds below you and the ground become obscured. At one point we could see the shadow that Fuji was casting down on the land the below, which was stunning to behold. I say it was breathtaking, but maybe that was just the effect of thinning air as we got higher and higher.

You can genuinely feel the difference as every breath becomes a little harder and you don't quite feel you are getting the oxygen you need. As an asthmatic, I've had 34 years of previous experience in this field.

Luckily Natsuki came well equipped, with a cheap can of oxygen in one hand and a Marlborough cigarette in the other, keeping his levels perfectly balanced.

As night drew in we made it our luxury accommodation for a gourmet meal.

 Well it was a hut and a basic curry - but when you consider you're 3000m up in the sky it's actually pretty damn good. This was the point where the team was really starting to feel the altitude sickness, with a lot of dizziness and grogginess going around.

Full of rice and thick, oily curry, we squeezed like sardines side by side in to our small 'private' sleeping area, for a couple of hours sleep. I thought sleeping on a rock 10 years previously was the pinnacle of awful, but this genuinely wasn't much better, with phone alarms beeping and ringing throughout the night ensuring sleep remains a distant dream.

(Dave - dismayed above).

Feeling positively refreshed after our 12 minutes of sleep, we set back off, for the final hour of our trek to try and reached the top just in time for sunset. It was very touch and go whether we would make it in time, and I wont lie Natsuki was struggling. To be fair we were all lacking energy.

But we made it just in time - genuinely almost to the minute. It was truly stunning to see the sun pop up above the horizon as we reached the summit and went over the brow of the final cliff.

It was rather emotional - not least because of what an achievement it was for Natsuki. There'd been speculation he wouldn't be able to make it in the final hours and he proved us all wrong.

The way back down was in many ways the worst bit. Without the prospect of that glorious sunrise to pull you through and with energy running lower and lower. Coming back down uses a total different set of muscles and you have gravity and your own weight wanting to send you down the slopes which can make it hard to keep your footing. As Natsuki unfortunately found out, suffering a rather nasty fall, doing a literal somersault down a slope.

We were quite worried about him as it really didn't sound good at all, but he managed to remain positive...ish and made it to the bottom where it was all smiles again. 

An absolutely exhausting 18 hour journey over, its safe to say I was completely wiped. A moment that one cheeky member of the team kindly caught on camera back on the coach ride back.

But a year has passed now and would I do it again? Have I changed my mind with time?

No. No I haven't and no I would not.
BUT I enjoy hiking and I'd love to venture up more Japanese peaks before this year is out.

It'd be amazing to climb one of Fuji's neighbours and get a view of the mountain itself at sunrise.
As for Natsuki, he's a changed man!

Who am I kidding. Outside of two hours of cycling on the cyclethon he's back to his old ways.
But he beat the odds and proved us all wrong. And for that alone, the whole journey was worth it.

Thanks for reading guys and I hope you all have a great weekend.

Chris

P.S. Let me know if you have any questions about Fuji! And speaking of questions, thanks for all your questions the other day for the Q&A video which will be coming up soon. I'm having a fun time scripting and filming that now. Back to it!