Mount Fuji

I have lived in Japan for over two years now so it was about time I climbed it's highest mountain; the iconic Mount Fuji. I went with my friends from Ueda last weekend. Many of them are leaving Japan at the end of the month so it was also a chance to meet them one last time and say goodbye.
We chose to climb at night and try to make it to the summit by sunrise. The climbing season for Mt Fuji is July and August (you can climb at other times but there's lots of snow and none the cabins are open). Fuji is always busy during this time and we went on Saturday night so the mountain was jam packed with people; tour groups of businessmen from Tokyo, tourists, other English teachers who had the same idea as us, families with (crying) children, pensioners, etc. We started about half way up at the Kawaguchiko fifth station which is where most people start. We started the ascent at 10pm under clear skies and were in high spirits. On a good day when it's not very crowded you can climb up in about 4 hours. Because there were so many people it took 7 hours. The terrain is all black rock and dirt. The further up we got the more people there were and this slowed our progress.
The last 300 metres were the worst. We were practically queuing on the path. At this point the high altitude was having an effect as well. At about 3am it was at it's coldest and I was wearing 5 layers of clothes. The slow pace and the huge volume of people was testing everyone's patience. I was guilty of complaining a lot at this point. At about 3:40am the sun started to come up and this brought gasps and shouts of "Kirei" (beautiful) from the masses of people. The sunlight revealed a spectacular view of the Fuji five lakes below. At 5:10am I passed through the gate and reached the summit. By 6am the whole of our group was at the top. We rested and saw the caldera and took and some group photos and then headed down.
We took the sunabashiri route down which translates as the sand run route. It's wide, sandy, goes almost straight down and you can run down it. I enjoyed this part the best and took only 80 minutes to descend. My knees were complaining as I waited at the bottom for everyone. After everyone had come down it was time to go and we said our goodbyes. I found, with no sleep, the simple task of getting the right connecting trains back to Matsumoto confusing and difficult but eventually made it back. I'm certainly glad to have climbed it but you won't see me back there anytime soon.