Karavansara Gosho Machiya
Kyoto, Japan

7 July 2011


My friend David and I just got back from climbing Mt. Fuji. Wow. It was a lot more difficult that we had expected.


We decided to climb from the Gotemba 5th Station as it was the longest normal trail and started from the lowest elevation. The trail head is at 1440m and the summit is list at 3,712m. The trail is measured at 10.5km each direction. And, it probably would be 10.5km each direction is we were not walking on a giant volcanic sand dune. The entire bottom of the mountain is made up of tiny volcanic rubble that is almost impossible to walk in.

view to top of Fuji...and lots of volcanic rubble

By about mid-mountain the terrain gets slightly better but not by much. As we had decided to make it up and back in one day we were totally focused on just keeping our feet moving. To add complications to the trek, the window was howling to the point where we were almost being blow over...and constantly being bombarded with small, flying volcanic projectile. Fun!

me at mid-mountain before the wind storm

Seven hours after we started we arrived at the summit.  We sat there just long enough to take the pictures and started the decent down. I am primarily a cyclist so I was a bit concerned about my knees on the decent and wanted enough time to take it at a leisurely pace. That worked out well and it took us about 4 hours to descent. So, according to my garmin gps the daily statistics:


Total Distance: 21.1km
Total Ascent/Descent: 2,657m
Total Time: 11:02

view of crater

We had decided to take this hike as a training day for a 100km 3 day trek in Nepal in October. Here are the things we learned:


1. Carry more water. We each had about 4 liters. It was not enough.
2. Eat more. Nuts, hi-tech snacks and energy drinks won't cut it. We needed real FOOD!
3. We need to train more if we intend to make back to back 40km days.


It is now three days after the hike and I feel fine....had a nice gentle 65km bike ride this morning to stretch out the calf muscles....what's next??


The Karavansara Gosho Machiya is a traditional Japanese house directly adjacent to the Imperial Palace in central Kyoto.  It is available for vacation rentals and short term rentals.  Please contact us for further information.