Kawaguchiko Day 19 7/10/2014

The alarm went off at 6am and by 6.30am we were heading up to the middle station on Mt Fuji.  The station is the furthest you can get by car and is at 2360m.  There was a circle of cloud around Fuji but the summit looked clear and we set off at 7am on our long & steep ascent.  The initial walk was through forest but it became an increasingly more barren lava landscape.  The route up has 3 further stations before you reach the summit and is littered with huts selling provisions and providing accommodation in the climbing season.  All where boarded up and all signs completely covered.  Apparently c318,000 people climbed the mountain in 2012 within the 2 month climbing season.  At c3000m we broke through the cloud to an amazing inversion and the summit was in sight although still c800m to go!  Around this time we meet a young English guy who'd set off from the base station at 800m at 4am that morning.  He was very eager to know how far it was to the top however we didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm and were deliberately vague!  There were a couple of other parties on the route but clearly nothing like the crowds experienced during the main season.  We reached the summit at 3776m just after 11am - not bad considering we'd climbed up 1416m and altitude.  You can see right into the bottom of the crater from the rim of the volcano and if time had permitted we could have walked round the full rim.  Instead we ate lunch, had a brief chat with a Japanese guy (well he talked to us a lot and we didn't understand a word of what he was saying but he seemed very happy!), took the obligatory summit photo and set off back down in expectation of making the last bus back to Kawaguchiko.  We descended through thickening mist in time to have a coffee at the middle station and boarded the last bus, tired but elated to have climbed one of the world's iconic mountains.  Back at the hotel we had a quick shower and headed out to a nearby restaurant.  Simon had fish pond smelt which despite sounding rather unappetising was a tasty fried white bait dish.  Back at the hotel again we celebrated with a couple of local beers and updated our blog.  We still can't load photos (if anybody knows how to load onto blogger.com on an iPad please email us to tell us how to!).  Simon has posted a few on Facebook if you want to have a look.