Jam-Packed Japan: Murderous Mount Fuji

Lovely to see you again, it’s been a minute. Please forgive the long gaps between my articles, my partner and I have just moved to our ‘forever home’ and things have been a little crazy! We both work full time, and with moving our whole life, there’s been no time to bore you all with our wonderful adventures. But fear not, more is coming…

Overview of Plan

As you know, we planned our trip meticulously and you can find the itinerary here. We did hit some snags, and these are shown in blue on the post-departure itinerary. All things considered, getting there wasn’t the hardest part, and get there we did.

The plan was to get a bus from Tokyo to the Fuji Subaru 5^th Station, start climbing Mount Fuji, and at around half-way, spend the night in a small hut on the mountainside. Then, we would follow the trend of getting up a little after midnight to start climbing the rest of the way. The idea here is to be able to watch the sunrise from the top of Mount Fuji. Subsequently, we planned to then descend the mountain, catch two buses and a Shinkansen (Bullet Train) to Nagoya and Bob’s Your Uncle.

Did we make it? Yes. Were we on time? Ish. Was it perfect? Was it heck. See how we did below…

Travelling from Tokyo to Mount Fuji

Straightaway, we were not off to a good start. We had planned to get the Fuji-Goko-Line Bus from Busta Shinjuku Station (South Exit) to Fuji Subaru 5th Station. Generally, signposting is not a strong suit of the Japanese from what we’d seen and this station was no different. Huge, multi-level and with no idea where we were meant to go. I kid you not, there was a sign pointing one way for the Fuji-Goko-Line and another sign pointing to a different floor altogether! Finally, we arrived to a desk and could ask the employee who promptly informed us that the bus was fully-booked, no space at all.

Obviously, we had not known you could book it and from my extensive research beforehand, I had just-a-say managed to understand a route to take, never mind any information on booking it.

Learning Nugget: You need to book the The Fuji-Goko-Line Bus in advance.

This would have been a cost-effective way to get to Mount Fuji, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, we got a sneak preview of the route we’d be taking the following day.

We ended up taking a much more expensive train from Busta Shinjuku Station to Otsuki Station, and then a bus to Kawaguchiko Sta. As a matter of fact, this train was also very full, so we didn’t have a seat and prompted to squeeze onto the floor with a couple of other excited, silly people planning on climbing Mount Fuji.

Kawaguchiko Station is a Bus Station located in the shadow of Mount Fuji. Excitement coupled with apprehension filled us as we saw the mountain looming behind the building. Little did we know the struggle to come. But for now, we’d overcome the first challenge: we were on our way!

The sun was already hot, and so being that we missed one bus and had to wait for the next, we decided to get an ice cream while we waited. There was a very repetitive tannoy sounding next to us, and a fellow wearing a large sign warning about the remaining number of silly people climbing Mount Fuji allowed. They were limiting the daily climbers to 4,000 and so if you were the 4001^st, you wouldn’t be allowed up – so they say. Not sure how accurate this fellow’s sign was, but we felt a little concerned despite there being a couple of thousand spots left.

This bus arrived at approximately 13:45 to Fuji Subaru 5th Station: we were an hour behind our schedule and so we headed straight for the starting line to pay our fee and commence climbing Mount Fuji.

Deadly Statistics

Did you know that a handful of humans die every year while climbing Mount Fuji? In 2024 when we climbed, it’s reported that 9 people lost their lives and many more injured. In fact, the first death of 2025 has already been reported as I’m writing this: First Death of 2025.

Granted, a lot of these injuries and fatalities occur in older persons, and those with moronic tendencies and a lack of preparedness. Nevertheless, we can attest to the fact that the dangers are real, so all wits but be about you. The mountain is unforgiving if you get too close…

Official Website and Guidance

Since our climbing Mount Fuji last year, it seems the Japanese Government have made more changes and released more guidance. It’s about time… Please find official guidelines and rules at this link here.

In brief, they’ve doubled the entrance fee to 4000 yen (£20pp) and made it mandatory to complete a learning course about the climb, PLUS register online an account prior to arriving. Usually, I hate extra admin work but I think this is a rare occasion I welcome these changes with open arms. Having gone through what we went through, this is needed. I only wish this was the case when we climbed.

Leave me a comment, or get in touch if you’ve gone through the torture in 2025 (or beyond, if I’m lucky!)… I mean this delightful experience… and let me know how this website works, how the learning course is, and whether it’s enough?

CLIMBING MOUNT FUJI – From Start to Sleep

The ‘ticket office’ is located to the right of Fuji Subaru 5th Station. You may see a throng of people who also think climbing Mount Fuji is a good idea heading that way, but it isn’t well signposted from way back at the entrance to the station. We paid 2000yen per person, the fee in July 2024, which is approximately £10pp and we received a small, wooden amulet souvenir of our climb.

Our spring got sprung after around the 6^th turn of the very repetitive, steep gravelling path. Getting into the clouds there was next to no view, although I must admit, the signs informing you of how many kilometres to the summit were useful and a welcome sight. Not always the most reliable, I think one sign indicated we were further back than the previous sign haha.

Getting higher….

We passed several huts, all offering water and various other bits of equipment for sale. A common souvenir seemed to be a burnt symbol on your wooden hiking pole. We could not proffer our umbrellas for this service, for obvious reasons. There were trees, plants and rocks to sit on, and even some built seats at one or two points. Moderate difficulty, with the actual climbing parts sometimes easier than the long steep stretches of gravel walking.

We reached our hut at around 16:20, which is bang on time. Despite leaving later – pretty good going! Roughly 2.5 hours climbing Mount Fuji Part One.

Accommodation Evaluation

£138.60 for 1 night, Dinner, Sleeping Bag and Breakfast (for two).

It’s important to realise that the only accommodation available up Mount Fuji is in the form of mountain huts. These mountain huts are all very, very similar and also very expensive for what you get. With new regulations for 2024, climbing Mount Fuji without an accommodation booking was forbidden in the afternoon, and you had to prove you had a booking.

Booking the Hut

Booking the darn thing was difficult, to say the least. The website (click here) was stupidly difficult to understand and contradicting in its information, both in the Japanese translation and as per the English version of the site. We checked month after month since around February. At one stage, there were booking instructions which informed us we could only book online starting from X date in May, and in the same paragraph advised us that it was not possible to book via the internet.

The site advised to phone up in order to make a booking after said date in May. We stayed up multiple nights until 2am (10am Japan time opening phone lines according to website), in order to try and book via the phone. This cost us money on our phone bill, and nobody ever answered the phone. We attempted to email towards the end of May, twice, requesting a response and help in booking. Also in vain.

It wasn’t until the 4^th of June where we managed to book online via their online reservation; when it finally opened and worked. However, it only worked via my mobile phone browser, and not via the computer. This was discovered through pure desperation after refreshing my webpage 1345 times.

The ‘Room’

The reason we held out for this hut was because the ‘dormitory-style single rooms’ were separated by a thin wooden wall. According to the photos and reviews of other huts, there was a simple curtain separating bodies. No thank you, if it could be helped. Tiny pod-like spaces, around 1m wide and 1.8m long, two stories per actual room and several rooms.

The Mountain Hut

Basically, it was essential to book in advance and you had to fill out a form when arriving with more information. Although this is difficult when you’ve just been climbing a frigging mountain. As soon as we arrived, we checked in and dropped our bags off in our “rooms” and proceeded to enjoy the atmosphere and the view from the veranda outside.

The dining and common space was a large wooden hall, with school desk-like tables set out for eating. You are assigned a specific dining time, a specific table (shared with others) and the food is handed out on trays. There is no choice; you get what you’re given. You can have extra servings of rice and miso soup, if you wanted.

I wish I could tell you what we ate, except rice, but I have no idea and didn’t really want to ask. Breakfast was given to us in plastic boxes for climbing Mount Fuji’s top half in the morning/middle of the night. Rice wraps, omelette and a vile disgusting vinegar squishy thing. Yuck.

There was a small shop where you could purchase postcards (expensive), snacks and water and other small climbing tools. In essence, this is open 24 hours for those people leaving at all hours to climb. We checked out at around 00:30am and proceeded climbing Mount Fuji Part Two…

CLIMBING MOUNT FUJI – From Sleep to Summit

This was rough, this was hard. It’s not for the faint-hearted, and feint I almost did. I’ll caveat by saying we are not seasoned mountain climbers. We had done some training and workouts to prepare, but we are essentially tourists.

00:30am-ish

We’re starting our ascent. It’s pitch black, with headlamps being the only guidance.

The first path from the hut is a rocky, steep climb. 0 to 100 immediately. Within 15 minutes, I am vomiting down the mountainside. Dizzy, can’t see in front of me, light-headed and hurting. Throwing up down one of the world’s most famous mountains with the sheer effort so early in the morning, having just gotten up, after climbing the day before. I thought I was going to collapse off the mountain and be lost to the darkness. Become a statistic.

03:30am-ish

A golden light adds to the light blue, and you know that dawn is coming. Time is running out to get to the top.

04:35am-ish

The sun breaks the horizon and dowses the valley in sunlight. We had spent a few minutes sitting down, as we were truly struggling by this point and weren’t sure we could make it. There was a large queue forming at what we could see to be the very top/summit. So, we stopped just shy of this last part, to watch the sunrise properly, and not trying to crick our necks while stood in a narrow-ledge queue.

05:00am-ish

We arrive to the summit, and a wave of relief and achievement engulfs us. Emotional and exhausted. We did it!!!!

The Mount Fuji Stamp – A Myth?

Yet another disappointing misinformation was that there was a post office at the top where one could get a unique stamp only possible from this summit. This was, of course, closed when we went, as was every building up there. The season had only just started, and these features were only open later in the season… Silly us for believing they’d be open when the season starts…

THE DESCENT – From Summit to Station

We thought the hard part was over, oh how we were mistaken. I hope it’s different now, but through my research before the trip, all the focus was on climbing Mount Fuji. Nada, zilch, rien was said about the descent.

It was a desert. Dry, dusty, never ending, steep and hot. The temperature very quickly rose on this side of the mountain, and there was no shade. No trees, rocks or huts offering water. The one building we passed was empty and closed up. Everyone was struggling, no exceptions.

Starting at the top, the very narrow steps leading to the top, which were jam-packed with tired tourists wanting to reach the summit, hardly seemed big enough to cope with also the descenders. One had to be super careful not to slip or put a foot wrong, especially with idiots not giving space when they could. This part itself took more than 30 minutes easily for just a few meters.

The maps made it look like this downward route was faster than returning down the path used for climbing Mount Fuji, but I’d probably suggest retracing those steps, if you’re allowed. Had there been a building open on the top of the mountain, as we’d believed, we may have been able to purchase water there, making the descent easier. As it was, any motivation we had left for the experience was extinguished. As a result, the view became uninspiring, if not for it being a target to aim for and dream about as we struggled through the gravel.

The View

With the sun beating down so harshly, and no water, the view was hard to take in. Whilst climbing Mount Fuji, we encountered clouds, and, of course, the pitch blackness of 1am. And so, the view was short-lived in any instance. Yet seemed to stay the same forever…

What Did We Pack?

Of course, we didn’t come to Japan solely to be climbing Mount Fuji: we were here for a 3-Week Backpacking Adventure. With this in mind, we had to pack very strategically and minimally.

I managed to survive the whole 3 weeks with just 4 T-Shirts, 3 Pairs of Shorts, 1 Dress and 2 Pairs of Shoes, 1 Pair of Old Leggings, 1 Old Hoodie and 1 Rain Jacket. As mentioned previously, we did laundry in three hotels along the way and so with careful planning (see itinerary), this proved possible.

In preparation for climbing Mount Fuji, we researched and booked a common service in Japan: shipping our luggage from one hotel to another (more info below). To clarify, half of our stuff was whisked from Tokyo to Nagoya, and the other half we had with us climbing Mount Fuji.

Clothes and Equipment

After climbing Mount Fuji, I disposed of the old leggings and hoodie and the umbrellas which were ripped to shreds after their ordeal. Admittedly, this wasn’t the most sustainable but we found it necessary for our trip: and it saved money and resources buying specific clothing, and allowed us more space for souvenirs from our once-in-a-lifetime trip.

We had purchased the umbrellas very cheaply on our first day, to combat the monsoon-like downpour we experienced the first couple of days, and saved our bacon on the mountain acting like walking sticks.

Tantalising Tidbit: We actually took our Tokyo souvenirs up the mountain with us too, we’d come too far to have them lost by a shipping service!

Travelling from Mount Fuji to Nagoya

Due to how long the descent felt, and the very slow start exiting the summit, I thoroughly had it in my head we were going to miss the bus. I had it in my head the bus was at 10:30 (original planning time?). This of course added to our ordeal. As a matter of fact, we arrived early to the 5^th Station, and I’ve never been so happy to see a building in my entire existence; our bus being actually planned for 11:30am.

We managed to get an earlier bus, that wasn’t actually on the timetable: the 10:50am from 5^th Station to Kawaguchiko Station. Also, we could use the return ticket we had purchased what felt like 76 years ago… With some time to kill before our bus reservation, we revelled in the feeling of being back on level ground and I bought a bottle of craft beer from the café. I didn’t care what time it was, I wanted this. I blooming heck deserved it. Far Yeast Blonde, I devoured it. Find my beer review and more beer goodies in the long-awaited Beer Article for Japan (coming to a screen near you hopefully this year).

From Kawaguchiko Station we managed to board the bus (actually an air-conned coach) at platform/quay 6 to Mishima station. This was one I’d reserved in advance.

Booking the Bus from Kawaguchiko Station to Mishima Station

I had read in some distant corner of the web that the bus from Kawaguchiko Station to head in the direction needed for Nagoya could get busy. They could also refuse our travel if it was too busy.  As I have said, we should have booked more legs in advance for this, had we known/found an option to.

To book the journey from Kawaguchiko Station (bus station which links to Mount Fuji, but also other cities in the area), to Mishima Station we booked on the following website:

https://sekitori.jp/en

Here’s what it looked like when we booked:

The bus was actually an air-conditioned, very comfortable coach. Certainly, worth the money and the peace of mind of booking in advance. 2000 yen is roughly £10 per person.

From Mishima Station we were able to take the Shinkansen and arrive ready to collapse at our hotel in Nagoya.

Luggage Posting Delivery Service

In the hope that our journey climbing Mount Fuji would be easier, we actually posted our luggage from the last Tokyo hotel, Toyoko Inn Shinjuku Kabukicho, to the Nagoya’s B Hotel.

During the booking of this Jam-Packed Japan trip, we booked a luggage posting for when we would be in Kyoto, but we were going to see about this one ‘on the door’. In reality, it was pretty simple. We filled out the below form, paid the fee, and attached the necessary label and padlock to the bag. The hotel receptionist accepted the bag… and then the Nagoya hotel receptionist brought our bag out on the other side. In truth, we felt incredible relief it had made it safely.

As I previously mentioned, we took the souvenirs with us whilst climbing Mount Fuji, for fear of them getting lost! They’re not replaceable as easily as my unfashionable clothes haha. It cost us 1850yen which is just close to £10 to send one of our backpacks stuffed with our remaining clothing and belongings. To clarify, I think that’s a pretty good price, especially as it turned up safely!

Summary

Take a day trip, on a boat, where you can get a wonderful view of the impressive-looking mountain from the ground. Don’t go climbing Mount Fuji.

We met some great people with whom we shared this difficult but unforgettable experience and it was cool to see them while climbing Mount Fuji, at the hut and/or on the descent. Sharing the pain…

But seriously, I think this is one of those things that you really should only do if you love climbing mountains in the first place. You’ve got to have a heck of a lot of passion for it, as it will drain and suck it from you. For me, I’d avoid it and seriously think twice about any other mountain climbing. Always check the descent…

See you next time for more Jam-Packed Japan! Haven’t decided which article to write next, if you have a suggestion or want to hear more about something from the itinerary, leave me a comment or get in touch!