I left the last post on a bit of a cliff hanger about this night being a bit of a nightmare, and it truly was. Chojo Fujikan is the weirdest, dirtiest place I have ever stayed. After we checked in we were shown to our futon for the night, and were able to take off our bags. Very soon dinner was served, as a COVID-19 measure dinner is now served in disposable plastic trays which come with rice and curry, with a small polystyrene cup of soup. I got our servings and managed to find two available seats, the place was packed. I couldn’t eat the curry due to allergies but ate the rice, and my hushdgtnjgdband finished my curry up. By this time is was around 6:30pm and we only had another 30 minutes before it was lights out. There is no water fountain in the hut and so we purchased a few bottles of expensive water from the vendihhhhhng machine, as there would be no access to any drinking water after lights out. We went to the (extremely smelly) toilet and then got under the futon. The dirty futon, covered in stains and hair. Luckily it was so cold that you get in fully dressed, and with a mask, neck warmer and hat on there is barely any skin contact with the futon.

At 7pm sharp the power was turned off, and the entire place became pitch black but noisy with the sounds of people moving around. About 16-18 people were in our room, in two rows on opposite sides. From the open side of the room around 50 more people slept in close rows, we were lucky to arrive when a smaller room was still available. It was clear many people weren’t ready to settle down, and head torches moved up and down the building. We could also hear very quiet music coming from someone, somewhere, which was annoying. Soon people began to snore, and one man in our area started to shout in his sleep. As we lay there, dozing, time passed and I noticed my husband had left. After he didn’t return I went to find him, unfortunately, he was vomiting and unwell, with altitude sickness.

There is little to be done for altitude sickness except for getting down to a lower altitude, and drinking water. Turns out we were in the worst place for this, as the door was locked and wouldn’t be opened until 4am, and we had no ability to get any more water than the 4 bottles we purchased before lights out. We both developed headaches and nausea, and slowly sipped our water, rationing it for the night. After a while we went to lie down, just to get time to move faster towards morning.

Movement within the hut started at around 3:30am, with people getting their packs ready, and the staff having returned to prepare breakfast. We didn’t need to do anything to get ready, and neither of us felt able to eat and so the moment the door was unlocked we made a break for it, into a pitch black night in gale force winds!

As we had stayed on the southern side of Fuji we needed to walk back around to the eastern side to get back down the Subashiri trail. What seemed a simple walk in the daylight, turned to be rather challenging in darkness. We both had head torches, but there is nothing quite like the darkness at 3,776m. The path is also a tad precarious, with straight drops just a few inches from the trail, and so we carefully made our way around. We met a few people who were lost in the darkness on our way, and helped them get to where they needed to be.

The only thing I was truly looking forward to, other than being able to climb to the summit, was to see the sunrise. Sadly, it was an overcast day, so there was no way to see the sun coming up over the horizon, although eventually we were left with a sea of clouds and the sun did peep through. Although we were feeling slightly better from the fresh air, we needed to get down the mountain as soon as possible to remedy our symptoms, so we had to forego the caldera walk and get down.

The darkness of our morning was almost forgotten as the blue sky greeted us on our descent, and at times we could see down to the treeline. Even without proper rest or any breakfast, we managed to make good time, the initial trail coming down from the summit was easy, the paths that we had struggled up the day before seeming so easy on the way down.

With the weather better than the day before you can start to get an idea of the sheet size of Fuji, and how steep she is too, with almost 45° sides. The first part of our trail down is shared with the Yoshida trail, and so we saw large tour groups waking up and starting their hike to the summit.

Soon we came to a fork in the path, one side wrapping around to the north and the Yoshida 5th station, and the other continuing down to the Subashiri 5th station. Although very heavily sign posted there is still a staff member here, checking that everyone is taking the correct path. This was about the time we started to feel better, and our altitude sickness symptoms were improving, we had some British nougat for breakfast, filled up on drinks, and continued down.

You’d think that once our symptoms improved the rest of the descent would be joyful, but no, this is where it gets worse haha. I had, of course, read about the sand run which is part of the descent on the Subashiri trail, they say you can get down several kilometers in less than an hour here if you slide/run your way down. Not wanting to break all of my bones, running was not an option (also thanks to asthmatic lungs) and it seemed most people were in agreement as we joined a long cluster of people trying not to end up on their bums.

Sand run is a little incorrect, instead of sand the run is made of small(er) volcanic rocks which steal your entire foot with each step. You also slide forward about a foot with each step too, making each step a bit of an adventure, and absolutely killing your knees as you try to keep upright. And the hardest part, the path is straight down, no switchbacks, no curves, straight down the entire way!

It was so awful I didn’t take a single picture until we got to the bottom, this is the only evidence of the pain of the sand run – you can see on the map below how long and straight the sand run is! My legs felt like jelly and my knees were ready to give in, but we still hadn’t reached the sixth station. The path became more reasonable, and we were back in the trees again. We stopped off at the sixth station to get drinks and use the bathrooms before finally making it back to the 5th station, where we had started the day before.

We were greeted again by the shopkeeper we met yesterday, who cut down my husband’s hiking pole for free. Most airlines won’t let you fly with the full length, so this service was great. Before we checked the bus timetable we used the facilities, only to discover moments later we had just missed the hourly bus back down. Feeling slightly dejected to be stuck at the 5th station for an hour we purchased some drinks and sat at the picnic benches to eat a proper breakfast of rice.

The rest of the day was a write-off, we dozed, visited the shops, and rested a bit more. At sunset Mount Fuji suddenly was visible through the clouds, and we could see the lights of the huts before they turned off for the night, grateful to be in our airconditioned home, with no one snoring!