Mt Fuji-san

        Because I don't quit at things and one of my greatest strengths is Persistence, I'll be danged if I come to Japan and not climb this mountain. HQC and I checked the weather and found it to be favorable on Monday and Tuesday. Having flexible time during this preliminary two weeks to our cross country biking trip, we made some minor adjustments in our plans and left our crap behind in the hostel so we can climb Fuji with minimal equipment. 

You know how when you're about to go on a trip and you're telling people about it, they always say, "take lots of pictures!"

Oh Ok. thanks for that tip. I wasn't going to take any but good thing you reminded me.

"You want a Christmas card? You want a Christmas card? Here! Here's your Christmas card!"

Making a pit stop at MaxValu to buy a ton of water. Since there are no streams on route while making The Climb, I figured we needed to stock up so we can "replenish our fluids" during the next few days.

It gets dark way too fast now and like Brandon and Jerry, I hate it, too. We weren't able to make it to crappy 5th Station yet again.  

So we figured here's a nice place to sleep. At this haunted, abandoned toll booth with that Evil Red Light. I hate Evil Red Lights. 

For the past hour or so I had noticed something was off on my bike.

Little did I know that my wheel was literally off the fork.

The temps were reading 11 degrees C. A little chillier than I'm used to. Let's get in that tent!

There he is. first time the clouds cleared so we could get a full glimpse of him. We chose to hike the south trail or the Fujiyama one, I think that's what it's called.

Note: this was taken the morning after our <spoiler>hike</spoiler>.

There's a level in Halo 1 called A Walk In The Woods. This is also called A Walk In The Woods and we could hear the sounds of detonations frequently throughout the day. One word, three syllables: Covenant. 

Look at the deer-er. He's being a deer-er. They make weird high-pitched noises, too. Unless that's some other animal.

"The trees are strong my Lord, their roots go deep."

Fun fact about me: when I am doing a big hike or Endurance event, I always hate it starting out. I think to myself, "Why am I even doing this? I've already hiked one mountain, why do I need to do another." And so on and so forth until I'm at the top then I think, "I love this!"

This was a large tree.

The trail was very well marked all the way up.

"Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy Mushrooms."

Backstory time: Our goal was to climb this on 4th of July weekend. But the combinations of having a gutless Commander at MCAS-Iwakuni that is afraid of living and wants to keep his desk job and the rumors of the trail being closed because of Coronavirus (I thought sunshine, exercise,  and isolation were good elements to combat the virus? 🤔🤔🤔🤔). Anyways, before I start hurting your feelings, we decided to opt out and choose a later date.

This was their attempt to close the trail.

It was nice to get out of the tree line and see our end goal.

The Quay is doing great!

For some reason, I didn't recall this great, big crater while looking at this on Google Maps.

Now we're above the cloud line.

Forgot to turn this pic 90 degrees. It shows a couple of signs.

6th Station. 

Usually these shops are open but not today, Junior!!

Time for Second Breakfast!

Since I'm a student pilot, this isn't my first time looking down on the clouds. 

Found her.

As a Geology Minor I was able to teach HQC all about the igneous rock cycle formation.

Over there is where the bombs were being detonated underground

I think she was wondering what was taking so long to get to the top. 

Picking up a treat from off the ground.

Now we're getting above that crater.

Apparently, there's a road that goes to the very top. Bring your tractor next time so you don't have to hike it.

While there is a shrine at the top, this is not it. So don't be deceived. You still have quite a ways to go from this point.

Look at these holes.

Clouds are finally leaving us alone.

If you look closely, you can see amongst the yen coins, a few Royal Marine pins.

I'm not sure which station this is, 10 or 11.

If you don't look back to see how far you've come then you won't be able to see how far you've come.

Look at her go.

I think that's the top!

Thankfully we missed the snowstorm over the weekend. Looks like we made the right choice to postpone it, huh?

"Didn't I tell you they were beautiful!?"

There's a trail that goes all the way around the ring of the caldera. Fortunately, our trail was the closest to the summit.

"Harry! I've reached the top!"

We beat it.

"Would you just look at it!?"

Land Surveying has been in my blood for decades. I like finding bench marks and monuments.

Look at that beep.

That's pretty neat.

See, I told you she's always in good spirits.

I got spooked when I first sawl this because I thought it was an animal.

Want to hear a Tender Mercy? At the risk of casting my pearls before swine, I will do so anyways. During the descent I took off my Ruck and realized I lost my water mouth piece valve, as shown in the pic. Without it, the water bladder is useless for convenient drinking. I promptly decided to turn around and trek back up the mountain in search of it. While doing so, I said a calm prayer that I would be able to locate it. Having been in these situation before, normally I become a frantic, broken record with my prayer and spam the heavens repeatedly with it. This time I did not. The Quantum Realm knew the desire of my heart and I left it at that. 15 minutes later I found it. I love this because it was something so small and unnecessary but just enough to show me a Tender Mercy of the Lord. To quote George Knox from Angels in the Outfield, "You can call it Angels, you can call it faith. You can call it whatever you like."

Clouds rolling back in.

Had to be there.

Sure felt a lot longer than 3.8 km.

Fuji City at dusk.

Good reference of trails to have on hand.

Holly and I had a 7+ mile walk on the road until 10PM. It was miserable. And I was afraid of that bear was going to come out and eat us. I hate bears. I'm glad that Cameron Hanes shoots them. We hitchhiked the last 3 km home.

But we did it. Now I've climbed the highest peak in the CONUS and Japan. What peak will I conquer next and "who's coming with me?" Even though this wasn't biking related I still wanted to insert it into this blog for documentation purposes.