Fujisan

Before Ray came over to visit, he included this desperate entreaty in one of his emails:
"Is Mt. Fuji worth climbing".
Now, you don't need to be Harold Bloom to unearth the aching subtext contained in these 5 beseeching words. Ray is from Cavan after all where subtle understatement is as much a part of the county character as drumlins and potholed roads. Basically, what he meant was "Brian, please, please, pleeeease come climb Mt  Fuji with me. Please."
Look again at his question, nay plea: "Is Mt. Fuji worth climbing?" Note the use of the word 'worth'. I think I am not alone in detecting a certain dread, a certain sense of barely repressed fear even, in its implied hesitancy. Cuilcagh mountain (hill really), Cavan's highest point, is only 665 metres high; Fuji is six times that. Reassurance is being sought and it was mine to give.
Though then again, as they say up Blacklion way, I could just be full of auld sheep shite.
So plan "Let's Japan highest mountain together, forever, go yeah!!" was hatched. It ultimately involved 36 hours, 2 car journeys, 2 plane flights, 5 bus journeys and some climbing.
Motored up to Chitose airport; flew down to Haneda airport in Tokyo; bussed it into Shinjuku; took another bus to Kawaguchiko; and finally a bus to the 5th station on the Yoshida trail to the summit.
God bless Japanese transport - connections seamless and everything on time (except for Ray's luggage which took an inordinate amount of time to appear at Haneda arrivals). I even had time to go shopping for a gas canister after being forced to dump one by baggage security at Chitose airport. I mean me, an Irishman, and a potentially explosive device, what could they possibly be thinking?
So we arrive at the 5th station which is 2,300 metres up the mountain. So yes, we cheated, as do most people, but 36 hours was all my wife gave me. But it's Fuji, I tried explaining to her, your country's highest, most sacred mountain. But you have to be back here by tomorrow evening she replied, and handed me my car keys.
And we had to climb it at night. Well, we didn't really have to climb it at night, but the tradition, and Japan is a country that places a premium on its traditions, is that you reach the summit just in time for sunrise or goraikou in Japanese. Apparently the view is so spectacular it brings tears to your eyes.
With this mind we packed an extra packet of tissues, checked the batteries on our headlights and started off at 6:30pm. It was now dark, the mountain had been gently enveloped in a thick swathe of fog and we figured all we had to do was keep going up. So no surprises then when just 20 minutes after setting off, we managed to wander off the trail and found ourselves climbing up a rather steep construction site access track.
Back down we went. Rejoined the correct trail and back up we went. And went. For about two hours until we arrived at the mountain hut where we were to spend the night. Or at least that part of it until 1:30 in the morning when we work woken and told to be best on our way if we wanted to get to the top in time for goraikou.
It was cold. Quite cold. There was a stiff breeze blowing which had turned the fog into a drizzle and apparently it was blowing harder further up. Typical Cavan weather in other words.
We kept going.
At the 8th station (there is a series of stations from the fifth to the ninth, marking off the trail), we stopped for a rest. Not that we really needed it (ahem), but at the pace Ray was leading me we would be up and back down the mountain before dawn broke. Plus, we figured it would better to kill some time softly here rather than being blown out of it further up.
So, being Irish, we had a cup of tea. While some of our fellow Japanese climbers, God bless them, sucked on small portable canisters of oxygen.

Fortified by hot tea and mars bars we started off again. But even that turned out to be a tad rushed as we reached the summit some 30 minutes before the sun was due. Not that it seemed we'd have much chance of spotting it. The wind was howling, the snow was blizzarding and the carcasses of frozen sherpas lay strewn around the ground.
Kind of.
There was wind. And rain. No sherpas, though the boys who had been sucking on the oxygen back at the 8th station looked like they needed some. No sun either.
And we waited. And got colder. And this blog became Hemingwayesque.

The sun finally did break through the clouds and there were tears. But that was the wind. 

We stumbled around the summit rim for a bit. Had another cup of tea. Breached the weather station perimeter to reach the true top of Fuji.



Took some photos with my not very good camera.







Then down we went. And the cloud cleared, the wind dropped and Ray decided it was time for a recline.



And yes, dear reader, I was back in Muroran by that evening while Ray took his Men's Health cover shots off to Kyoto.