Climbing Mt Fuji

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I'm afraid the photos I took aren't up to the usual quality as my photo-taking skills aren't anywhere near as good as Glen's!  Here they are anyway:

Group-Sticks.jpg (168835 bytes)    We did the climb at night, starting about 9:30 pm from the 5th station.  The goal was to reach the summit by sunrise at 4:30am.  At this point I think we were at the 8th station and already had some pretty hard climbing behind us.  The hardest bit for me on the way up, was climbing up some steep lava rocks with a flashlight in one hand and my stick in the other!  To anyone else thinking of doing this, I would definitely recommend headlamps!  You can see the sticks in the photo.  We got stamps burnt into them at each mountain hut on the way up.  Cool souvenir!  From left, Stacy, Alan, me, Mike.  Thank you Mike, for the photo!

MtFuji_sunrise1.jpg (59483 bytes)    The sunrise from around 3,600 metres.  Unfortunately this is as far as I got.  The summit was really close but I was feeling sick and very tired by this point, so decided to stop and watch the sunrise.  It was really cool being above the clouds!

Mt_Fuji_climbers.jpg (142279 bytes)    Other climbers on their way up.  It was really cold and windy this high up, but beautiful clear skies and a great view!

Mt_Fuji_view.jpg (119311 bytes)    Early morning view from Mt Fuji.  We were on our way back down at this point.  I think we all agreed that the way down was harder than the way up!  The surface was difficult to walk on as it was very slippery.  Also I think everyone was tired - I know I was!

I'm glad I did the climb, it was a good experience, but I have to say that Mt Fuji is probably my first and last mountain climbing adventure!