Fuji

In total 22 persons joined the Fuji-san hike (including many new members) this saturday.

Saturday around noon when I checked the weather forecast, it was cloudy but no rain (except a little shower that was forecasted around midnight) and JWA claimed a rain probability of only 30%...

When we reached the Fuji area, it was raining a little bit which was disappointing but still not too bad. When the bus started to climb Mount Fuji the little rain became stronger and we started to worry. During our dinner we could not really enjoy the view of the 5 lakes area, but we could see big lightenings in the sky around us.

Then we split into two groups (around 19:30): one group was to start hiking from the 5th station, whereas the other one was to start from a place close from the 4th station.

The beginning of the hike from the 4th station was fine (under a small rain) but after 30 minutes the rain became much stronger. A few minutes later the group reached the 5th station were they went to shelter themselves under a roof where... the other group was already waiting for a better weather.

Around 21:00 the owner of the hotel in front of which we were sheltered offered us to stay in his establishment for the night (for 5000yen/person) telling us that there was no hope to go further than the 7th station as there had been landslides (claim that seems to be untrue)...

The wisest half of the group decided that the weather was too bad to start hiking and thus accepted the offer of the hotel owner whereas the other half decided to try to go to the 7th station and decide then.

Those who went to the hotel had a nice chat while eating some more of their provisions and then spent the night sleeping in a safe, dry and warm place...

As the thunderstorm was over, the other half took the way to the summit. After a while the rain became less intense. We passed the 6th station without difficulties and then we reached the 7th station without any problems. Of course, we were wet and a bit cold but so far, it was not too bad. On our way to the 8th station, we experienced the "Fuji-procession": it was about time for the groups having rest in the huts to wake up and start hiking, thus creating jams at the most difficult points of the trail.

The path followed by the trail was like a very long Christmas garland with red and green lights blinking.

At the 8th station some of us were getting very tired and considered stopping to have at least a short rest, but we were so close from the summit that everybody decided to continue (and the 5500 yen/person charged by the huts [without drying facility] even for just one hour of rest helped to take that decision).

After the 8th station the rain became more intense and the wind became stronger. We hardly reached the summit around 4:30am, 30 minutes before the sunrise but we were all very wet and cold and decided that there was no point to wait for the sunrise as the weather was very cloudy.

Thus we decided to go down as soon as possible without doing the loop around the caldera. The path down was much easier than the way up: soon there was enough daylight to turn off our headlights and at 8am we were back at the 5th station where we met the wise hikers and the bus driver.
We then went to an onsen and came back to Tsukuba around 13:40.

My conclusion: do not trust the weather forecast!