Japan Worldcon 2007

[Padraig]

The quest should have been to buy something from the top of Mount Fuji.

And I should add that it was great to meet GoN, Daj, Caress, Alchemist and Plunja again. It had been too long (even GoN said it! ).

Samuarai Warriors of the Godzilla Suicide Squad, Order of the Bear

That was the theory, I think I ended up saying something different...

[Caress of Cersei]

That was the theory, I think I ended up saying something different...

Each person had a different title by the end of the evening!

[Padraig]

Yes...garbled by me. They must have been honoured!

[Alchemist]

Con Report, Part 2 of 2

FUJICON

It is said that, while everyone should climb Mt. Fuji once, only a fool climbs it twice.

I would add that only an idiot climbs it even once during a typhoon, in the middle of the night.

On that count, Pod and I both need our heads examined.

*

"I bet Pod dies at the 3rd Station," GoN predicted.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mt. Fuji, the trails are marked periodically by "stations". If you take the most popular trail, you'll encounter stations 1 through 8, then a second 8th station (the "real 8th station") where the Kawaguchi-ko trail joins up with the other main trail ascending from the mountain's south side, then station 8.5 (I don't know, don't ask me), then the summit. Most people take a bus to the 5th station (2305 m), and hike to the summit (3776 m, around 12,300 feet) from there. It's also traditional to hike part of the way, sleep for a few hours at one of the huts along the trail, and wake up in the middle of the night to finish the climb, hoping to arrive at the summit just before sunrise. It is said that sunrise from the summit of Mt. Fuji is a truly breathtaking experience.

I thought it would be more fun to start from the bottom, the way pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages did, before the invention of rapid highway bus service to the 5th Station straight from Tokyo. Hiking is fun, I thought. Who wouldn't want to add an additional 9 hours to their 9-hour hike from the 5th Station and back? Besides, I had heard that the final stretch to the summit could get really crowded. Wall to wall people, slowly shuffling along the trail on their way to the summit. Whereas the initial hike through the forest, up to the 5th Station - well, that was supposed to be peaceful and serene, through quiet green forests, with spectacular views of the Fuji Five Lakes region just below. At least that's what the Lonely Planet guide told me.

Privately, I wasn't convinced that Pod would end up being the weak link in all of this, as GoN feared. I USED to do a lot of hiking. But I hadn't done any yet, not this year. Would my legs give out? Would I pass out from altitude sickness? Would Pod have to leave me in a makeshift shelter by the side of the trail while he sprinted the last few meters to the summit? Who could say?

"I'm glad Pod's not going by himself," CoC said.

Yeah. Well. I was glad I wasn't going by MYself.

*

Our first clue that all was not well should have come on Tuesday afternoon, upon our arrival in the small town of Fuji-Yoshida, just to the north of the great mountain. We stopped at the tourist information booth for maps. Even though we hadn't asked about the weather, the woman made a point of showing us the forecast.

"Tomorrow afternoon, 30% chance of rain," she said. "After midnight, 90% chance. And winds. Very strong winds at the summit." She asked about our waterproof gear, which we assured her that we had. But she didn't actually tell us not to climb the mountain tomorrow. She didn't come right out and say, "You idiots! There's a typhoon approaching!" And I had been told by a coworker who climbed Mt. Fuji that "30% chance of rain" really means "It will definitely rain 30% of the time", and likewise for "90% chance". So I wasn't expecting to stay dry.

I thought we were prepared.

*

Wednesday morning, bright and early.

Or, not so bright. It was actually pretty overcast. But it hadn't started raining yet, which I found encouraging.

We started off the day with hamburgers and french fries at Mos Burger, a Japanese fast food chain, and the only place in Fuji-Yoshida that seemed to be open at 8:00 a.m., at least the only place that served anything more substantial than toast (I can't start a 34 km hike on a breakfast of toast, sorry). While we ate, we read about what we could expect along the hike. Apparently the lower reaches of the mountain are home to many types of wildlife, including bears and wild boars.

Hmm, I thought to myself, wild boars ... isn't there some fantasy novel where some king gets killed by a wild boar? Of course, Pod was handy with the reference. Pod commented on how ironic it would be if two BwB members were actually gored to death by a wild boar. I'm normally a big fan of irony, but not so much as it concerns interesting and ironic ways for me to die. I told Pod that, as he had been crowned King of the BwB, I would have to leave the wild boar encounters to him.

"What did you just put in my vegetable juice?" Pod asked.

"Nothing." I stuffed my hand back in my pocket.

"What's in that squeeze bottle in your hand?"

"Um. Eye drops?"

*

The entrance to the historic Fuji-Yoshida trail is about a 15-minute walk from the train station. It's very striking. There's a huge torii gate, and a shrine, and several huge redwood trees, like the ones in Muir Woods near San Francisco. It really encourages you to reflect on the history of Mt. Fuji. The first recorded ascent of the mountain was in the 8th or 9th century, and pilgrims came to pay their respects to the mountain for hundreds of years.

The first part of the hike was as pretty as I had expected. It started to rain, but at the beginning it was really more of a drizzle. We did not encounter any dangerous wild animals. The only wild animal we saw was a large hawk, which took off from a perch about 25 feet away from us.

We were soon joined by another hiker who also wanted the complete Mt. Fuji experience of starting from the bottom. Andrew, from Singapore, was great company, and told us stories of hiking in Indonesia and other places. At one point, when we saw a large mushroom by the side of the trail, he made a comment about hobbits, which led to a discussion of The Lord of the Rings. Pod and I both admitted to each other later that we almost asked Andrew if he had read ASOIAF, but for some reason we never brought it up.

We also crossed paths with 3 guys from Canada (Calgary, in case you're curious) during that first stage of the hike, but we didn't really end up hiking with them at all. I should mention that it was starting to rain harder and harder. I wasn't noticing the lovely shaded path so much anymore, or the peaceful green clearings. My feet were still dry, but, although I had waterproof/breathable gear, it's never THAT breathable, and it was really too warm to be hiking comfortably in a jacket and long pants, so after a few hours they were wet inside and out.

Pod and I had made a reservation to sleep at a hut just below the 6th Station. Looking back, we probably could have stayed at one of the huts farther along without a reservation, but we didn't know that ahead of time. We reached our hut around 4 p.m., saying good-bye to Andrew, who was pressing on as far as he could that afternoon before looking for a hut. In retrospect, that's probably what we should have done too, because we weren't nearly as miserable at this point as we became later on that night. But it was raining hard, and we were soaking wet. We had reached sufficient elevation that we were starting to get cold whenever we stopped moving. The thought of a warm hut and hot tea was very appealing, somehow.

The hut WAS very nice. We were the only guests, so it was just us and the three Japanese staff. They had a traditional Japanese fireplace, and a separate shed where we could hang our wet clothes to dry. They fed us, too. Okay, it was only hamburger steak and rice, but still better than cold peanuts, rice crackers, and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, which is what I was down to.

Maybe it won't be raining so hard when we wake up at 11 p.m. to finish the hike, I thought.

While we were eating dinner, the staff turned on the news. They seemed to be talking about typhoons for some reason. But it was all in Japanese. I couldn't figure it out. Were they doing an historical retrospective on typhoons in September? And why? Then the current weather map and the earnest meteorologist came on. I didn't understand a word he was saying, but there was no mistaking the spiral-shaped weather system covering the edge of Honshu island. Right about where we were.

Uh oh.

*

I guess we were stubborn. We woke up in the middle of the night, determinedly pulled on our dried-out clothes, turned on our headlamps, and started off.

It was still raining. Hard. And it was dark. Really dark. LED headlamps are great for conserving battery power, but not so great for actually seeing a long distance ahead. Especially in a rainstorm.

We reached one trail junction after another. It wasn't always clear which way we were supposed to go. The signs weren't always in English. At one point, we thought we had taken the right turn, and all of a sudden we reached a dead end at a small clearing, and there was some sort of shrine there. It was really rather spooky, coming across a shrine and rows of small stone figures, at midnight, with the rain streaming down their faces and ours. In fact, I think if had been hiking alone at that point, I would have been too spooked to go on. It felt like I was trespassing someplace that, as a Westerner, I didn't really belong.

Then something weird happened. We thought we just turned around and retraced our steps, since this obviously wasn't the right way to the summit, but we never did reach that last junction, where we had taken that wrong turn. Instead, the trail started going up, and up. That was probably the spookiest bit, for me. It was like we had to visit the shrine before the correct trail would "open up" for us. I'm sure that's not really the case at all. But it was strange.

We walked for a very long time. In the rain. The trail switchbacked from side to side across the mountain. It's very well-marked, fortunately. There's often a wall along the slopeside edge, and sometimes there are actual concrete or stone stairs. Mt. Fuji is the most climbed mountain in the world. 600,000 people a year climb Mt. Fuji.

Not too many climb during a typhoon, apparently. Pod and I saw other hikers relaxing inside mountain huts, or sleeping on hut floors, but we didn't pass anyone else on the trail, and no one passed us.

For some stupid reason, I had worn my glasses instead of contacts, but I couldn't see a thing with all the water streaming down them, so I had to take them off. I could actually see better without them. And my eyesight is VERY bad. Pod had to read all the signs we passed, to make sure we were on the right trail.

When it's raining really hard, waterproof gear doesn't actually keep the rain from driving itself between your gloves and jacket sleeve. Or up underneath the cuffs of your waterproof pants, to soak the bottoms of your hiking pants, which then channel water to your socks, and down into your boots. Every time I took a step, I could feel my feet sloshing in the water in my boots. Every time I leaned against the wall, the water inside my waterproof gloves sloshed around. We kept stopping at restrooms along the way to ring out our gloves, and sometimes our socks.

We passed the 7th Station. The 8th Station. We were high enough for altitude sickness now, and I wasn't dizzy or disoriented, but my legs were burning with every step. I could feel that there wasn't quite as much oxygen as I was used to, and I didn't like it.

We reached the "Real 8th Station", where all the summit trails come together. Another break to try and wring out some water. It was much colder here, about 8 degrees Celsius (46 or 47 Fahrenheit). And, when we looked up from the lower ledge where the restroom was located, the wind over the upper ledge suddenly seemed a lot stronger. You could hear the wind howling.

I think this is where we both realized we weren't going to make it to the summit. The summit is quite exposed, and if the wind was this strong already ... in any event, we decided to go up to the next ledge, where there was a hut, and maybe get something hot to drink.

As we went up those stairs, the wind hit us like a punch in the face. It was all we could do to stay upright. We went into the hut.

"Typhoon," one of the hut staff said. "Dangerous." We assured him that we had no intention of trying to reach the summit.

We were really cold now. Everything we had on was drenched. We got some hot soup and tea, but it didn't seem to help, we were still shivering fiercely. We considered the possibility of staying at the hut, perhaps until the weather was a bit better, at least until we could warm up a little, but I guess the huts higher up the mountain are all unheated, and there's no way to dry your clothes, so we would have been staying in an unheated hut in soaking wet clothes, and that would probably have been more dangerous than just going back down, since we would have been at risk for hypothermia.

But it was nasty outside, and the descending trail is different from the ascending trail, and neither of us was really sure how to find it....

In the end, the hut stuff sent us down with a group of Japanese hikers who arrived shortly after us. They had also been on their way up, but had decided to turn back. This was the best possible solution for us, because we didn't have to puzzle out Japanese trail junction signs in our miserable and possibly disoriented state, all we had to do was follow everyone else.

Not that that was fun, exactly. What followed was a 3 hour forced march back down the mountain to the 5th Station. We were still wet. It was still raining. I think the rain might have been interspersed with a bit of sleet, actually, although it's hard to tell. Maybe it was just really, really cold rain being driven into the tender skin below my eyes at 70 mph. At first, the wind was blowing so hard that it was difficult to walk. Then I got a cramp in my foot, so now I had a stabbing pain in the arch of my foot whenever I took a step. Then my glasses broke. I had put them back on, but kept having to wipe the rain off with the thumb of my glove, and the lens popped out. I was hungry and thirsty, but I didn't dare drink any water, because I also had to pee really badly. But I couldn't slow down everyone else. So I just kept going.

At the 5th Station, of course, we were still less than halfway down. Neither Pod nor I felt much like walking the rest of the way. But the bus was delayed due to the typhoon, and no one knew when it would arrive. There were several taxis, but it's actually quite a long drive back down to Fuji-Yoshida village, and it was going to cost about $100.

Eventually, we ran into two more English-speaking hikers in the same predicament, also trapped at the 5th Station waiting for the bus, so we split a taxi with them. Curiously enough, they were both from Ireland, and one of them works at the same place as Pod (although they didn't know each other beforehand - that would have been too weird).

We were afraid that we might not be able to check into our youth hostel until 4 p.m., but fortunately we had stayed there the night before we started off on our Fuji adventure, and the woman who runs the hostel took pity on us and let us check into our rooms and take showers and do laundry and all that. What a relief! We'd gotten there around 11 a.m., and being in wet clothes for the next 5 hours would have been pretty miserable. Although not as miserable as if we had still been on the trail!

The typhoon hit in full force that night (what we experienced on the mountain was only the leading edge of the typhoon!), but next morning, as we were leaving, the clouds were already beginning to clear, and we could see the slopes of the mountain that had defeated us, just a short distance south.

If we had planned our ascent either 2 days earlier or 2 days later, we probably would have made it.

*

"So, Pod," I said. "Next year. Worldcon 2008. I bet the highest mountain in Colorado is about the same height as Mt. Fuji. What do you say?"

He didn't answer.

*

Make sure to bring a raincoat while you're at it. Don't want this sort of thing to happen to you.

*

Somehow, I could relate to this a lot more AFTER my trip than before.

At least we didn't have to deal with lightning.

Kristin

[Regina]

First, I'm so glad you both survived your misadventures on the mountain! Second, I'm also glad Pod wan't killed by a wild boar--that would have been too creepy, under the circumstances.

Apparently the lower reaches of the mountain are home to many types of wildlife, including bears and wild boars.

Hmm, I thought to myself, wild boars ... isn't there some fantasy novel where some king gets killed by a wild boar? Of course, Pod was handy with the reference. Pod commented on how ironic it would be if two BwB members were actually gored to death by a wild boar. I'm normally a big fan of irony, but not so much as it concerns interesting and ironic ways for me to die. I told Pod that, as he had been crowned King of the BwB, I would have to leave the wild boar encounters to him.

[Padraig]

I'm also glad Pod wan't killed by a wild boar--that would have been too creepy, under the circumstances.

It would have been a great story though.

I didn't understand a word he was saying, but there was no mistaking the spiral-shaped weather system covering the edge of Honshu island. Right about where we were.

I have to say...this is not something I noticed at all (and didn't know about until now). I might have been a little more disconcerted than you it seems.

[Bronn Stone]

Pod should be grateful he didn't encounter a hiker named Lancel with a wineskin...

Great tale, Alchemist. Glad you guys made it home safe.

[Regina]

It would have been a great story though.

At the end of every con, when everyone reached the exhausted and emo stage, we'd tell the tragic tale of King "Devil Bunny" Pod and the Wild Boar. Then we'd raise a toast, and cry into our beer for ya.

;-P

[Alchemist]

It would have been a great story though.

I have to say...this is not something I noticed at all (and didn't know about until now). I might have been a little more disconcerted than you it seems.

I think you sort of had your back to the TV, didn't you? But I thought I pointed it out. "Look, just like a hurricane!" Or words to that effect.