by Bruce Corson

Created on: December 20, 2008

CLIMBING FOOLS

Japanese wisdom has it that you're a fool if you've never climbed Mt. Fuji; also that you're twice the fool if you climb it more than once. By this definition, I'm no longer a fool, but I have no intention of re-attaining the status.

Reaching the top of Mt. Fuji -"Fuji san cho" - is a must-do of Japanese life, though fewer than 0.5% of the population ever make it up. The normally snow-capped dormant volcano appears in what seems half the paintings in Japan, and companies named after Fuji are as common as AAAAcme Plumbers in a US phone book.

In fact, few people see the top in real life without the hike. It's normally obscured by clouds. The surprise for a hiker is that the cloud layer is only part way up the mountain. Upon reaching the summit there's a view of the cloud tops like that out an airplane window, augmented by a giddiness that has as much to do with the fact that the climbing is over, as it does with the sparse oxygen available at 12,388 feet.

Tackling Fuji is not a standard part of most packaged tours of Japan. There's lots to see in Japan that is much easier to reach than the top of Fuji. The temples, shrines, castles and restaurants can mostly be approached by some efficient combination of shinkansen (bullet train), chikatetsu (subway), and takushi (taxi), without stressing your quads and blistering your feet.

My reluctant overnight scaling of Fuji was with a colleague while visiting Japan on business. I had last climbed a mountain when they were still cleaning up from the original Woodstock. My aging Boy Scout gear and my sleeping bag with the cowboys on it wouldn't do for this trip, so I spent several hundred dollars on getting ready: good hiking boots, day pack, down bag, breathable rain gear, the works. My hiking friend has scaled most major peaks in the US and a good part of the Appalachian Trial. He has all the right equipment. He also signs my paychecks. I was seriously worried about being shown up on this trip.

We had intended to do this alone, but as with many of our adventures in Japan, our Japanese hosts worried about us. Two Japanese volunteers met us in Tokyo and guided us to and up the mountain.

One of our guides was president of his company's hiking club. He showed up with all the right gear, and a good deal less bulk than me, whether measured with or without the pack. Lean and mean. To make me feel better, though unnecessarily poorer, the other guy came in tee shirt, shorts, a pair of basketball shoes, his daughter's book

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