In the beginning .. .... ...

I can't quite recall how we got into this Climbing Mt Fuji thing. I think it was while we were discussing and planning our Hokkaido trip. That was an 8Day7NightFlyDrive package from PRIME Travel and Tours . While checking out Sunrise Tours (of Japan) website - we took their Heritage Tour last year - came across a new tour called Challenge Mt Fuji! and got hooked.

So we extended our trip. Booked online Sunrise's 3 Aug CMF tour, and Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku for 1-2 Aug and 5 Aug. Sunrise came back sorry our tour group is full. Sought help of Helen at PRIME to try and get Keio Plaza for 3-4 Aug; and she also made reservations for us at Shinjuku Hotel Washington for same dates. In the end, ended up with 2 nights at Keio Plaza followed by 2 nights in Hotel Washington. And no Climbing tour to join; we were willing to 'lose' a paid hotel night too. As we didn't have reservations to spend the night at any of the Huts (list A and list B) on the mountain, it meant a day climb with compulsory return to Tokyo by last bus.

What to do? We decided to take the first bus to MtF, climb the darned thing and get back to Tokyo hotel by the last bus off the mountain. First bus out about 7.30am, it takes about 3 hours to get to Fifth Station, and last bus at 1600 hours gave us about 5 and a half hours; just enough to get some stuff at Fifth Station, and about 2 and a half hours climbing up and another 2 and a half climbing down. The darned mountain is over a hundred kilometres out of Tokyo.

Now why get so het up on this CMF thing? First, it can only be safely climbed in summer ie late June till end August or thereabouts. This coincided with our FlyDriveHokkaido trip. And though Japan is a great destination, going back to do the climb next year means 3 years in a row to that country, which may be a bit too much. And from all that we found on the Net, it's a simple enough jaunt for ages 7 to 70.


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