 | At the end of a 8 hour bus ride, we arrive at 11:00pm ready to climb. |
 | ... or almost ready. |
 | That would be Richard, Kim, and Tanner waiting for us to go. |
 | The bottom of the mountain shot... Time: 11:45pm |
 | ... |
 | Here we are resting at the first checkpoint. |
 | This is at our second checkpoint, station 7 (we started from station 5). Time: 1:00am |
 | The moon was fairly full and lighting our way. |
 | ... en route to station 8. |
 | Our friend Matt took almost all of these pictures, as I was taking mostly stills and video. |
 | That's a good luck shrine lit up on the mountain. |
 | The way got a bit tougher after this point. Time: 2:30am |
 | That's Andrea and me taking a rest. |
 | This is one of the many station 8's we passed. There are several, each owned by different families. Some have places for you to sit down. If you want to sit in the warmth, it will cost you a lot. This was the closest we got. |
 | At 3,125m, it started getting considerably cooler and harder to breath... which makes it even more amazing that the Japanese people were taking smoke breaks all the way to the top. |
 | Here is Matt, our photographer. |
 | I took these pictures while waiting for the sunrise. Time: 5:00am |
 | In the end, Katie and I were climbing alone, some had gone ahead and some had dropped behind. We stopped to watch the sunrise about 200m from the top. |
 | Here's Katie all bundled up. |
 | Predawn signs... |
 | Some people were already on their way down. |
 | Predawn horizon to the south... |
 | and to the North... |
 | The sunrise on Mount Fuji is supposed to be the best site in Japan. It was mighty beautiful. |
 | ... |
 | ... |
 | We didn't realize exactly how high up we were until the sun came up. |
 | ... looking towards the top on the way down. We didn't go much higher and haven't made it to the top yet.. perhaps next year. We know it's doable, we were only 200m away. |
 | Here, you can see the volcanic rocks that we had been stumbling over all the way up. |
 | You can see the lines of people still trying to get to the top. |
 | ... |
 | Natasha, Katie, me, and Matt halfway down. Time: 7:00am |
 | The hike down was harder than we had planned and it was nice to be back on level ground, surrounded in vegetation. |
 | ... |
 | A steep look up. |
 | Here we are at the bottom, happy and tired after hiking for over 9 hours. Time: 9:00am |
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