Climbing Mt Hood tomorrow AM. Late season weather window I can't pass up.
Wow! Looks like fun!
I’d like to share my Mt. Fuji hike of June 2017.
I had hernia surgery 6 weeks prior to my hike. Doc told me to take it easy for 4 weeks post surgery and then cleared me. So with two weeks till Fuji-san I did my best to get back into shape, which I was just before surgery. After work every night I’d either mountain bike or run laps around the summit of Mt. Diablo. Fuji-san’s elevation is 12,388 and Mt. Diablo is 3,848. Not even the same but wvery little bit helps.
I went with the SO and her 30-something friends. As you guys know I was in my 30s a long time ago but what the hell.
We started our hike at around 3 pm with a plan to summit early in the am so we could see experience sunrise. The weather was sunny and probably around 68 at the base.
We had a guide as did most other groups. We would hike for about two hours at a time with a brief break. Fuji-san is a volcano so the there’s no greenery or trees or shrubs or flowers in its banks. There were some shops at the points where we took a break. When the sun set it was very peaceful. You see the headlamps of hiking groups ahead of us and below us. It was quite beautiful.
Some time around midnight we stopped at a cabin. Ate some Japanese beef curry with rice and took a 2 hour nap. If you’ve been to Japan you’ve seen or eaten the beef curry. It’s not nom nom but after hiking up Fuji-san for a few hours it is NOM NOM! Lol
Hiking up Fuji-san is not easy. It is all uphill. During a two-hour segment we were hiking in soft volcanic rock. That sucked - one step forward and two steps backwards or so it seemed.
Another segment was steps formed out of rocks. That was also fun! Woohoo!
There were some shops along the way that sold small oxygen bottles. I passed as I felt good except my legs felt they were surgically removed.
At some point during the night the moon said “hi”. Here’s a pic of the moon as we hiked:
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We summited some time around 5 am. At the summit there are a few places to eat and buy stuff. And then.... SUNRISE:
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Sunrise was spectacular! There were so many people but surprisingly it was very peaceful.
After a couple of hours at the summit we were ready to descend. I looked forward to using different leg muscles because my “ascending” muscles were murdered.
The weather was beautiful. You get a real sense of your altitude when you realize how mucher higher you are than the clouds. Here’s a pic of our descent; the cloud appear as a cotton candy blanket below us:
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Hiking Fuji-san was an amazing experience. But it was tough for me because I just had hernia surgery 6 weeks prior. Going up was basically 11 hours on a stairmaster. Going down was basically 5 hours on a stairmaster. On the way down I bonked, that’s why it took me 5 hours. The 30-somethings in our group finished in about 3 as I recall. When I made it to base I drank the most delicious Coca Cola ever poured in a glass in the history of Earth. It WAS THAT delicious.
Anyhoo, thanks for listening and happy Saturday!
Live! Do not only exist.
