Well It was my birthday last week. Not sure when you are officially old, but I am now 39. On my birthday the Shionome sans came over after work to celebrate. They also brought me a new hat and Karasuyama shirts that Taka san made. Of course Kate made one of her delicious cakes for everyone to enjoy.
Here is one of the shirts and the hat. The Kanji says Karasuyama which is where Taka san is from. Karasu is crow and Yama is mountain, so I guess the town is named crow mountain.
Also this week Kate and the children attended a cooking class. The main item on the menu was Korean Okanomiyaki. Pictured is the entire group that participated.
One of the tasks required for the dish was to clean Ika (squid). Most children did not want to do this, but both Liam and Colleen volunteered to give it a go. Looks like messy work, but they did it.
While they were cleaning the squid Colleen's sensei Shido sensei accidentally squirt Colleen with ink from the squid. If you look at her shoulder in this picture you can see the black blotch. That is the ink..
I have been planning for a bit to hike to the top of Mt Fuji. I asked the family and only Liam was interested to do it. I did a little research on line and determined that he should be old enough to make it, but figured it would be a little tough for him. When climbing there are two main options. #1 climb up most of the way, stay in a hut, then just before sunrise make your way to the top, #2 start the night before and walk through the night arriving at the top before the sunrise. I chose option #2, the main reason was because the huts need to be reserved in advance and as a result there is no guarantee for the weather. When it rains the climb can be extremely cold and unpleasant, and in some cases make it impossible to get to the top. I watched the weather throughout the week and determined on Thursday that we were going to go for it. We finished packing on Thursday so that Friday immediately after I finished my job we drove to the 5th station of Mt Fuji. We spent about 1 hour to acclimate, buy our hiking sticks, grab some food, and purchase some emergency rain ponchos just in case. Here we are before setting off around 8:15 pm.
When we started the top was covered by clouds and there was lightning all around the sky. There was no lightning on Fuji itself, only clouds, and we could not hear the thunder. As a result I was no so concerned, but I worried a little it might rain. We were lucky, after about 1 hr the top completely cleared up and the sky filled with stars. We could still see a lot of lightning, but way off in the distance.
The trail itself is pretty easy to follow. It is well marked by paint and chains. Some parts of it are actually quite steep and require actual climbing. This area was particularly rocky and each step required a little thought for placement. Liam really liked this area and went up it quite fast. We started to sweat a little so I told him we should slow down. We were on pace to arrive at the top well before the sunrise, and I didn't want to wait at the top with damp clothing as it would be pretty cold.
Liam was pretty energetic up to the 8th station. It was at 3250 meters. The top is 3776 meters so we were a good ways along. He was a little hungry and the power bars I brought were not hitting the spot for him. I decided to get a cup o noodles for him from the station. As you got higher up along the mountain the price of everything also got higher. I think at this station I ended up paying $4 dollars for 1 cup o noodles, but it hit the spot for him so it was worth it. If you wanted Oxygen at this station I think it was around $20, in Utsunomiya I think it was about $5. After doing the research I decided not to take any. All around us people were huffing away at it, but we never had the need for it.
Between the 8th station and the top Liam crashed. He was battling two things, #1 too much exertion earlier on left him on low reserve, #2 it was 2 am and he is typically in a deep sleep by this time every night. He laid down on a rock and fell asleep. That is him in the green. We had multiple layers of clothing so that is why he is in red in the pictures above. At that point I debated my options. #1 Let him sleep until about 3 am and then wake him up to push on to the top. #2 Let him sleep until he woke up (even if it meant missing the sunrise) and then make our way to the top. #3 let him sleep and then turn back for home. I decided on #1 because I thought it would be the best for him, but after about 20 min something started him and he woke up. He looked like he had found a little energy so I said lets get to the top and then you can sleep. He wasn't super happy about that, but I could see the top and it didn't look much further.
While he was napping I snagged this short video. There is actually a line of people working their way up the mountain, most have a headlight, and so you can see the line snaking up behind us.
Once we got to the top I found a place with smaller rocks to make Liam comfortable. He laid down and I covered him with the extra clothing that was in the pack to keep him warm. It was freezing, and I was shivering pretty good, but it was 3:15 am and the sky was already showing signs of the sun rise, so I just sat and waited.
You can see the progression as the sun gets closer and closer to showing itself.
I snagged a short video across the sky as I waited.
About this time I tried to wake Liam so see the sun, he woke for an instant, and then felt right back to sleep. I felt it was more important for him to get a little sleep because we still had to trek back down as well, so I let him sleep.
The sun showed itself a little after 4:30 am. There was a blanket of clouds below us, but they did not affect our view as we were above them.
Liam actually got a little more than an hour sleep at the top. Finally the light and warmth from the sun woke him.
We walked around the top a little to explore and take in the sights.
I set the timer to get a picture of both of us at the top, this gives a bit of perspective as to the height.
One of the things that kept Liam going was the stamps for the walking sticks. At each station for a fee of about $2 it was possible to get a stamp branded into your stick to show that you had actually achieved that station. Here is one of our sticks, the red stamp is from the temple at the top..
Finally we decided we were tired and had seen enough of the top so we started the descent. This was actually a little harder on me. The path is covered by small lava rocks that move when you step on them. The entire way down you have to resist gravities desire to make you go faster. My legs were a little tired by the time we got to the bottom and my knees a little sore.
At the bottom of the trail before heading back to the 5th station we looked up the side to see what we had done. From here you actually can not see the top as it curves away from this point. It was a great adventure, but we were both glad to be at the bottom.
I decided to take carry my Garmin GPS with me so I could see the route after we finished. From the data it is possible to see the difference in slope of the climb as compared to the descent. The elevation data is the green. Blue is our speed. I think we averaged about 2 mph on the round trip.
We were happy to make it back to the fifth station. We ate some more Fuji bread and then loaded back in the car to head home. I am really proud of Liam for making it to the top. It was really a challenge for him, but he didn't give up and was able to make it.
That is all for this post, have a great week....
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