Fuji Part 2

August 4, 7:59 pm, Tokyo

From Station 7 the path became significantly rockier, transforming the zig-zag walk into a nearly vertical climb. On the way to the mountain, the school issued us each a pair of working gloves and an oxygen canister the size of a Febreze can; the oxygen was for later, but the gloves came in handy there and for the rest of the climb.
There are two ways to climb up the rocks on Fuji: one can either climb monkey style, hands on rocks, or with support from anchored chains on either side delineating the path itself. While I am usually more comfortable with the first approach, two things got in my way: first was that the path was never consistent in its pitch, meaning that climbing by all limbs would look very funny at points, and second, my walking stick.
Aww dear walking stick: cumbersome when walking, downright dangerous when climbing. In order to free both hands for the climb, I strapped the stick to my body via my backpack waist strap. The sensation was something between a three-hour good posture exercise and stepping on curved rake-heads in the back-yard. My ability to bend was restricted, each step brought the forward side menacingly close to my face, and anyone behind me faced the prospect of the stick mistaking itself for a tail and them for a fly.
All this aside, the rock climb proved far easier for me than the steep walks, which doesn’t surprise me in hindsight; the one time I did an indoor rock wall several years ago, I pulled myself up almost entirely on my arms, no footholds needed. Still, I cannot get over that given how puny my arms are. Oh, everything on me is puny. Moving on…
The rock climbs from Station 7 were where the final vegetation began to dissipate and we crossed the clouds, one layer at a time. Clouds, at least the ones I passed through, act more like low fog than the all encompassing whiteness we pass through in airplanes; different lever of height, I suppose. As I climbed, I finally found a couple of friends to stick with up the rest of the mountain; a Spaniard, a German, and a Jew are climbing Mt. Fuji…
When I reached Station 8, hachigome, I broke out the oxygen canister, and breathed deeply: one doesn’t truly appreciate air until one needs to get it from a bottle. To my chagrin, the zig-zags began anew, even steeper than before. While I had easily been able to keep mine own when climbing over rocks, I once again struggled to keep up as I trudged along with my lonely, bell-ringing stick. I was using the oxygen canister more and more frequently, and I again began to doubt my resolve. If anything kept me climbing, it was the sight of snow clutching to a long, gash-like depression in the side of the mountain, a welcome sign of nature’s perseverance in July; that, and the silence. When you stopped moving, and kept silent, the mountain would greet you with its own total silence. No sounds disturbed the bare, red mountain surface, and quiet enveloped the world tighter than clouds ever could.
At the end of Station 8’s domain, at the beginning of what might be called the final ascent, we began to worry if we would make it to the summit within the scheduled time limit: we had to turn back and head down by 1:30 pm, and it was already twenty to twelve. Thankfully we were met by one of the school’s teachers who offered to serve as Shurpa until the top. Still, I wasn’t able to keep up with the pace as we tried to make the summit in an hour and a half. Thankfully, I had a slow friend, Maraike, from Germany, and together we managed to climb one step at a time until we reached a pair of stone lions flanking a white gate. We sat on the stone steps, and as I rested I noticed the white-washed wooden pillar. Its cracks were filled, literally to the breaking point, with one yen coins, each new coin splitting out a space for the next. Ruminations were all well and good, but I was exhausted; my legs ached, my head hurt, I was cold but sweaty all the same, and the mountain kept on going as if never to end. Then Maraike pointed up. I followed her finger, and from above entered my vision, in all its glory, the Japanese flag that marked the summit. We had been sitting hopeless only thirty seconds from the top; never doubt real-life’s ability to produce dramatic irony. It has to come from somewhere, I suppose. We reached the summit at 1:20 pm, six hours after we had begun. Some people had made it in as little as four hours. But I didn’t know that yet, as I gazed for the first time on Japan’s highest shrine in its highest village. All I could do was laugh.