Robertsons & Daughters: Japan!!! Part II, Mt. Fuji and Traveling ....Hiking Mt. Fuji in one day with our family!

The day arrived to hike Mt. Fuji! We got to the bus stop about 6am and basically no one was there. I wanted to make sure we got on the first bus that took us up to Mt. Fuji. We were able to buy bus tickets online. Yay for the pocket wifi!

Check out this blog for Mt. Fuji info. We hiked it in one day and I used Lindsey's info---it's great!

https://lookaboutlindsey.com/how-to-climb-mt-fuji-in-one-day/

Make sure you bring Japanese cash and coins with you on this hike. You need coins to use the bathrooms at the stations....you don't need much money per bathroom, but once you get up the mountain there aren't any trees to run off into!

Gorgeous views on the way up! This morning was a little difficult because Shanna had a fever. She and Haley had their wisdom teeth removed about two weeks ago. One of the surgical spots was irritating Shanna, which caused a fever. We didn't want to leave her in the hotel room all day, nor did we want to skip the Mt. Fuji hike. Lee had some ibuprofen and even brought some from their post-surgery recovery. Shanna took some medicine and actually felt okay the rest of the day.

Here we are at the Subaru 5th station. I think technically you can hike Mt. Fuji from the bottom, but we started at a common start--the Subaru 5th station. It's probably the most touristy of the stations from where you can hike up. I think there are 4 or 5 ways up Mt. Fuji. On our bus ride to the station there was a lady and a friend or daughter. Each day they were hiking the different routs up Mt. Fuji. Wow...brutal! The bus ride from Kawaguchiko was about a half hour.

We walked around a little, maybe bought some stuff--two walking sticks for sure for Clark and Elden, and started our hike up the Yoshida Trail. A table was set up for the Mt. Fuji preservation society or something. They acted like you had to donate money to them before you could start your hike. You actually don't have to. But we did and we did get little wooden squares that actually make great ornaments. Along the trail, there are more and more stations. Like the next station you reach on your hike is Station 6. Then Station 7, and so forth. At each station you can get your walking stick branded or stamped with a wood burning stamp. It's really cool. At some stations the stamps are smaller so we paid to get a stamp on the back of the wooden square if you don't want to buy a walking stick.

Our biggest mistake was not using suncreen. I actually thought I didn't have any, but I did in my camelbak. It was very cloudy and a bit cold so we didn't think about it. But with the high elevation, we were burned badly. Clark had shorts on and the back of his legs were fried and he got blisters too. So did Clark and I on our necks as well. So wear sunscreen even if it's cloudy!

We're walking through lava rocks.

Lee, Clark and Elden went on ahead because we thought that I might have to turn around with Shanna. The hike to the top isn't that far, only 3.1 miles, but it's pretty brutal with the steep ascent and rock scrambles. The altitude isn't something we're used to either. We started at 7,545 feet. The top of Mt. Fuji is 12,389. We got altitude sickness in the form of headaches. Breathing was labored too. But we are all in good health so no one threw up. We didn't take any altitude sickness medicine either. I heard that has its own side effects that show up as altitude sickness. Not worth it to me.

A snack from the grocery store the night before...a dried, candied orange slice. Not too bad!

I kept encouraging the girls that we were getting close...haha, I was way off! But eventually we did make it and met up with Lee, Clark and Elden again.

I brought some "ritz" crackers with me. As you can see they are in their own little sleeve. Because of the altitude climb, the package inflated. Crazy! And the higher up we went, they eventually popped. I had two or three of these packets.

A steep rock scramble.

One of the stations. We stopped to rest a lot, but not very long each time.

At one station I bought an oxygen canister. Not sure if it was effective. Maybe placebo wise? Either way, I think it did help....maybe?!

On top of the world!

These two guys were filming some sort of program or documentary about hiking Mt. Fuji. They asked if they could film us hiking up. It was pretty funny. So about the last hour and a half on the way up they followed us and filmed us. I tried to find out how we could watch it, but either they didn't know or I didn't know the station or platform it would be broadcasted on.

The Japanese love vending machines. Even at the top of Mt. Fuji there are vending machines!!!

At each station on the way up you can stop for the night. They have different huts with sleeping quarters. The most popular thing to do is to start your hike late in the day, spend the night, then be at the top to see the sun rise. We didn't have enough time to dedicate two whole days to Mt. Fuji, so we opted for just one day.

We made it!!!

We stayed at the top for about an hour or so. Clark and I went further up. We didn't officially go to the tippy top where the weather station (or whatever it is) is. We wanted to head back down. Also at the different stations you can buy snacks, water, hot soup or ramen, use bathroom facilities or I guess even sleep! Don't forget to get your stamp as well...and bring your money for that too.

More pictures of hiking on the way up.

At the top the sun was out and some of us got fried.

Right before we went down. We hiked up one way, and hiked down a different path.

The hike down was not fun. Very steep on lava rocks that don't pack down hard so you don't have a solid path under you. Don't know how to describe it, but the rocks slide and move so easily when you walk on them. Similar to when you walk down an embankment of sand...it keeps shifting. But now the sand is turned into lava rocks the size of raisins and grapes. Plus it was switchback after switchback....did I mention it was steep? My toes were uncomfortable because they were constantly shoved to the front of my shoe.

And then it started raining....and it was super foggy at one point. Which was actually really cool and ethereal. Reminded me of the old Dr. Who movie where they are outside on a rocky hillside chasing something or hiding.....

Shanna and I went ahead of everyone else. On our way down we saw at least three groups starting their accent. No fun. It was about 4:30 at this time.

A few times we thought we were super close to the Subaru 5th station, but we weren't. Mentally it was the hardest hike I've ever been on. I don't do a ton of hikes, but I've hiked Old Rag, Angel's Landing, McAfee Knob, plus several others....so I'm not an absolute novice. But yeah, this was the hardest hike overall for me! There are bathrooms on the way down too. Sometimes you can even get close enough to take a short detour to an actual station to use the bathrooms there. Watch out....some of them are really smelly. But like I said, no trees are around, so?

FINALLY.....back to the Subaru 5th Station! YAY! The others were about 20 minutes behind us.

We had a bit of a hiccup with the bus going back. The buses only run about every half hour. We were cold and tired and wanted to get back to Plaza Inn. By the way, at Plaza Inn we left our door keys in the basket at the front desk, haha. And an actual key! It was interesting.

The bus arrived and Lee had to make a pit stop. The driver didn't want to wait, so we were trying to stall. Finally the driver wanted to leave and we weren't sure if some of our group should go ahead or not, and we were having problems pulling up our roundtrip bus ticket we had bought on our phones. In the end, Lee ran over and got on the bus and we were all able to go. The bus driver wasn't able to verify that we had paid the round trip ticket so I think he told us to pay, but we already had paid for the round trip and just left it at that. He never checked when we got off. A tense moment with cold, tired, headached people. But we made it back!

We ate at a restaurant by the grocery store we frequented the night before. Yummy food!

The next morning we needed to get some more medicine. TIP for Japan travel. Bring a medicine store with you! You can't buy Advil or Tylenol or whatever at grocery stores or convenience stores. You HAVE to buy it at a pharmacy. And then everything is in Japanese (duh, haha). We walked over to a pharmacy that morning. We got back to the Plaza Inn and headed over to the bus station. We thought we had only 5 minutes before we needed to hop on a bus, so Shanna, Haley and I ran to a gift shop to buy t-shirts. We looked for about a minute, grabbed the shirts, bought them and were off.

Our walk to the pharmacy.

Mt. Fuji! Sadly we didn't get very good pictures of it.

Mt. Fuji!

Plaza Inn.

Each hotel had Japanese robes to wear. Clark and Elden have a picture with them on. Just need to find it....

Once again, we were slow with our ticket purchase. We should have gone over right away that morning. The bus we wanted to take was already full. I think Clark found us another route, but we had to wait a little bit. So why not buy some Mt. Fuji cakes? Not very good, but they were cute! More dry twinkies.

Mt. Fuji and Mt. Fuji cakes.

Mt. Fuji shrouded in clouds.

We did a little transfer to the Shinkansen! We bought the rail passes at a JR office in a train station. We got a 7 day pass. They were $241.28 each. A little pricey, but in my book it was worth it. We spent the bulk of our time in Osaka and Kobe and we were able to save a lot of travel time because we could use the Shinkansen instead of regular trains. Plus traveling back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen is the fast way to go. (I'm writing this in 2024 and they are quite a bit more now....$343.)

So fun riding on the bullet train!

I let the kids get something to eat if they wanted on the train. It was more expensive, you know, like airport food costs. But once was fun. I bought some ice cream.

We did another transfer to go to a Toyota Museum in Nagoya. This was our outing for the day before we reached Osaka.

Delightful signs everywhere, haha.

I loved how the attendants were dressed at the museum.

The museum had a place for out luggage which was great! It was a bit of a hike from the train station, but doable. Harder because it was 100 degree out! The museum was set up in eras, with different makes and models of cars from each one. Not just the Toyota brand. It was really nice. Now for an obscene amount of car photos! Something Clark loved to do on his mission is get pictures with cool cars he saw all the time. This was a stop he wanted to make and it was worth it!.

The gift shop was pretty cute. Spendy so we didn't buy much. We did refill our water! Nice that you can drink tap water there.

One our way out of course we were drawn in to the vending machines across the way. They had golden Fanta that Clark raved about! Delish! The other fun thing about the vending machines...items cost about $0.75 each.

Heading back to the train station. Elden just brought a backpack for our 9 day trip so he didn't have to lug around a suitcase as well.

AHHH!!!!!

We made it to Osaka and found our cute apartment! First night out we ate at an Indian restaurant that Clark ate at on his mission. It was so cool going to the exact same places he had been. The food was really yummy.