Welcome to a lessons learned blog. The discussion of a guys trip and hiking Mt. Fuji sounded more glorious than anything, and I began months before on the stair climber at the gym to prepare for it. What I didn't prepare for was the fact that today I made a lot of mistakes, so I present this post in a very different format: from the perspective of lessons learned.
Lesson number 1: Plan way in advance. This location is extremely popular. Now in reality it may not be, but when we went to get tickets to this place we found out just how difficult this trip was going to be. Every direct train or bus to the base of the mountain was sold out, which saved over half the time in physically "getting there." We went two days before this and noticed everything was out. So went to plan B, and ended up purchasing another way there on a train that required us to get out and change trains 3 times and was really expensive, which I will get too in a moment. That decision cost us almost a $100 each, but still got us there, albeit a lot later than what we wanted, 11am instead of 8 like we hoped for. Do the math: 3 hours down. Eventually we found another way that got us there an hour earlier, but by bus, which we decided to eat the cost of and do that. That cost us $75 dollars more. We got on our bus, only to then ride two hours crammed with everyone else.
Lesson 2: Time allotment. Most people go up the day before to Mt. Fuji, hike some, and stay at one of the hostels on the mountain, where you sleep in a single room with everyone else, don't shower, sleep on a floor, which will never sound appealing to me. So we woke up that morning at 3:45, lost an insane amount of time trying to just get up to the base of the mountain, but once we got there we then waited again for the one and only shuttle bus that will take you up there. It was packed, and bus after bus left. So even though we thought we could start hiking at 10am, we still didn't get up there until 11.
After we had planned that we needed 5 hours to get up and 3 to get down, in respect I don't know why I would have even thought that I could have made it to the top. The last bus leaves the base camp to come back down the mountain at 5, so ya, I know math. We got to the base, looked at our watches, and then came stupid thinking: "well if I go really fast at first where it's flat I might shave some time off and maybe make it up." Now in our group of 4, Dustin and Pete were smart, and just wanted to see how far they could go, so they didn't rush and just enjoyed the hike. Jason and I were determined to try to get to the top, so when we hit the bottom and we just started running.
This was super dumb for two main reasons. First, it divided our group, which was not the point of this entire trip. Pride set into my mind, "I need to finish this" and it came at the expense of me ditching two really good friends. Funny part was, Jason ended up ditching me anyway about 2km in, so because of pride I was left alone to endure this trek by my onesies.
You can see here there are multiple ways to get to the top. There are only a few ways up, and one way down, which was another mistake I made on this hike. More to come on that.
Now I like to run, so the prospect of a 6k just cracks me up. "I can do this easy" I thought to myself, once again, pride stole my better judgement. Little did I realize that this was 6k straight up the worst terrain I would ever hike. In retrospect I don't see why I didn't just "think" on this: "Hey, I am on a volcano, which is nothing by rock, and I have 5 miles to go up and 3 hours less to do it in, hmmmm."
Lesson 3: Some terrain you just can't run through. Lessons of life are often most memorable because of the emotion attached to them. That was the case here. The first 1k was very flat, mirroring a lot of the treks Heather and I had taken with our clan of children. But then, like life, the terrain changed with a single turn, and changed to intense switch backs of loose rocks. I am very glad that I brought hiking polls and had shoe covers to keep the rocks out of my shoes! Nothing like 45 degree inclines in loose gravel. This is where Jason ditched me.
The trail would eventually change terrain here and there, from cobble stone, to large rock, to lava rocks straight up. I dressed warmly at first, then got really hot, then realized over time I would become freezing because of how sweaty I was and the elevation. I would come to parts that were just straight up lava rocks, and seriously just laugh to myself and say "of course it is." That got old real quick I tell you.
I loved getting passed by people a lot older than me, which caused me to realize about 4k into the hike that my prospect of making it to the top was gone. It was here I actually had a change of heart and started realising the mistakes I had made, all based in pride. It was here I began to say to myself, "just go as far as you can, but enjoy the view." Every once in a while, though, I would get a break in the clouds and could actually see how far I had come, which was spectacular. My legs on the other hand didn't feel that way. Despite all my attempts at supplementing, hydrating, my legs were shot at this point, and seizing every 5 minutes. They hurt so bad. I finally made it to the top of the 8th station and had to stop. I was out of time, out of energy, FREEZING, and alone.
Lesson 4: Think before you act. Now this trip has this lesson at the heart of it in so many ways, and is the main lesson of life for me. As I started down the hill I came to a decision point. Take one way back down the horrible trail I had just come, or follow the signs that say "go down this way." I started down that road, which if you go back to the top and see the overall map of Fuji with the arrow coming down the hill what do you see? Kilometre after kilometre of horrendous switchbacks, that ends up taking you twice as long to go down. My legs were on FIRE going down these, and I would often have to stop at the end of a switchback and just stretch through the pain.
I eventually got down to the bottom, and ran into another friend, Christ Strommer, from our Branch at Osan. He was going up, had a better plan, and after briefly explaining the lessons learned I finished the last portion.
I made it back to the base, never in my life more grateful to be back. I will probably feel that same way at the end of mortality too after viewing it in much the same way, I would imagine. I found Jason, who not only made it to the top but also had been at the bottom for over an hour and half. How did you do that? His answer was simple: "I just came back down the way we went since it was much shorter." Grrr.
He told me that Dustin and Pete had made it to station 5, then just came back down and caught an early bus back home. I knew they were mad that I didn't stay with them, and they had every right to be. I had made a very dumb decision at the beginning that cost me dearly, but eventually we met up with them and I was able to repent and forsake my transgression of pride. This brings me though to my final lesson though: The stupid stick.
Lesson 5: The Stupid stick.
Now what's a stupid stick you ask? This is the picture from the bus at the end, and yes it's just a piece of wood. The cool thing about this trip is that you can buy these sticks at the base of the mountain, and then at each station you pay like 200-500 yen to get an emblem from the station burned into the stick. This results in an amazing momento that you can remember the trail with, a token if you will of staged accomplished, but why is mine blank?
Simple answer: I ran out of money. I had exchanged Yen after Yen on the trip to cover the costs of things that weren't supposed to be cash only, but ended up being cash only. From Mario Kart to souvenirs to changes in transit from trains to buses, I had planned carefully but not enough, and I didn't have enough Yen to even get one. So not only did I not make it to the top, not only was I alone nearly the entire time, not only was I hurting, not only was I overwhelmed in wondering if my two really good friends would forgive me, but all I had to remember it by was this empty stick, my "stupid stick."
Now there was a lesson in this for me, and it's summed up as this: Pride leaves you empty. My stick was empty because I didn't plan for the contingencies (because I wasn't planning on going back ever again and American to yen is an insane conversion not in our favor), I did it alone, and it cost me more than it ever should.
So many many lessons of life on this trip. Yes I eventually was able to meet back with friends and fix my error, and yes, I had a friend who eventually went up the mountain with my stick and got it burned for me, but the lessons learned were lessons I needed to learn. I don't ever want to do Fuji again, but I bet Heather won't let this one go and will eventually make me go up the mountain again with her to finish what I wasn't able to alone.
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