The decent and afters

The decent from the summit for a short part is in fact the same route from which you came, although in the sunlight the path seems so much less difficult than you imagined on the way up. Although you have to be careful because there is a lot of loose shail, going down was so much easier despite the protesting muscles. After getting back to the Hot Cocoa station, the decent route splits from the ascent route and becomes a steep zig zag path which is a boring as it was arduous, particularly as cloud or fog descended on the slopes and we could see nothing after 30m in any direction. Because of this, the decent seemed to take so long and was not helped by the fact that the sign posts; on the rare occasion that a distance was sign posted; were either inaccurate or there was some kind of Bermuda triangle effect going on. i.e the sign post would say 8km to base camp, then you'd walk for a hour and the next sign would say 7.9km. Really soul destroying at that point! But the worst part of all is when you get right to the bottom and have to walk back up a big long hill to get to the car park. I'd kept promising my body that the car park was round the next corner - that's what my brain obviously believed, but after the 7th or 8th corner with no car park in sight, I was about to have a mutiny on my hands. Fortunately we got back to the coach before anything untoward happened, 3 and a half hours after leaving the summit.

When all bar one person had returned from the mountain - there's always one person who can't follow the simplest of instructions - we went to a Japanese hot spring or Onsen. We sat outside in the rain in the 42 degree spring relaxing. It was heaven - except for the naked men, but I'm sure it did the aching limbs the world of good.

Would I do it again? Yes I probably would, but I would do a lot more preparation before hand. If anybody reading this is contemplating climbing Mt Fuji, and I do recommend you do, respect the mountain more that I did and do the training before hand. Alternatively, for those less athletic, do the climb in stages. Book a place in one of the lodges and rest for a few hours before making the final stages to see the sun rise. This will also help your body get used to the thinning oxygen levels. Good luck!