The Descent

It looked that the weather was starting to pushover and with a few droplets of rain, Kel and I decided that it was time to head down. Knowing that we both are at the forefront of fashion, we unveiled our Y490 raincoats (more like plastic sheets), strapped on our backpacks and gloves and headed down.
Initially, I felt great on the way down. The legs were fine. My belly was full and the backpack was lighter. Kel also had a spring in her step and we cruised past the 9.5th Station without even stopping. Again there were many Konnichiwa's from the locals who were climbing and questions from the foreigners about how long it would take to the top. One local lady actually stopped and asked if I spoke Japanese to which I replied, "Watashi wa nihongo o hanasemasen."
Kel noticed that there were many more people climbing as we descended and that many more of them were foreigners. We listened intently to their North American accents and concluded that the tour buses must have arrived. What surprised us though was that many of the round-eyes were really under-prepared. One young fella was muttering away to himself at the 9th Station in shorts, a T-shirt and a floppy hat while we saw a boyfriend trying to lay down the 'reality speech' to his girlfriend who had given up about half way.
The walk back down the mountain definitely was faster although it was quite tricky. A friend of ours said that the mountain reminded him of when Froddo and Sam were trying to walk through the land of Mordor in The Lord Of The Rings. The Fujinomiya path has many large rocks in sections and then enormous amounts of shoal which made it really slippery. I told Kel that I was using a combination of the French technique and the Swiss technique to navigate the mountain path. About halfway down, my French technique had turned French Polynesian and the Swiss had turned more into Kraft Cheddar. Our legs were really tired and shaky by the bottom few Stations. Luckily for us, the kind Japanese people had put in some ropes on which we could support ourselves when we lost our balance.
At the new 7th Station, I developed a really bad stomach cramp. The day before the climb I had felt sick with stomach pains so I rested knowing that we wanted to climb this mountain. Unfortunately they reappeared and made the last hour of the descent really hard work. Kel was very patient with me and walked slowly ahead at my pace. When we returned to the car, I had to lay down on the road for 10 minutes until the cramping had subsided.
With our bare feet blackened from the dust and our mouths dry, Kel drove the car slowly back down the road towards Fuji. I felt a huge sense of pride in our achievement. To have climbed the mountain in one day was a monumental effort. There is a Japanese saying that "A brave man climbs Mt. Fuji once. A fool climbs twice." The climbing season is only open from the start of July until the end of August, so fortunately, we won't be able to climb her again. Kel and I climbed her once, and once was enough.