Fugu & Sakura

Yesterday we walked around and went to various shrines and temples in the greater Tokyo area.

First stop was Ueno Park, where cherry blossoms (sakura) are almost in full bloom. You can tell that in about 2 or 3 days, these blossoms are going to go bat crazy and explode with an array of pinks and whites that make the Washington DC Tidal Basin seem like the kid brother who wants to play on the basketball team.

Because of the Sakura festival underway, oodles of foodstalls and vendors come out to ply their wares and sell goods. 99% are legit, some are your standard scam artists that we had a fun time calling out at one point. This is one vendor that didn't get a sale from us:

At the Kaminarimon Shrine with giant chochin, Asakusa is one of the more traditional areas of Tokyo to visit, and it's throngs of tourists makes it easy to see that it is as popular as it is busy. And why not? These shrines were one of the first places I visited in Tokyo, and I routinely come back here to bring people new to the city. It is literally chock full of shops, chotchkie stores and kitsch, but you can still find a nugget of gold nestled away in one of the hundreds of shops selling Japan keychains, replica swords, mochi, Godzilla figurines and Ninja facemasks.

By the senso-ji shrine, Schactler tried again, for the second year in a row, to get a good fortune. This is where you place your luck in the hands of an obscure metal box that you spin until a thin piece of wood akin to a chopstick comes out. On it, you read a number and pull a piece of paper out of a similarly numbered drawer. This, then, is your fortune. As we all learned, there are several layers of fortune: Supreme Good Luck, Good Luck, Moderate Luck, Luck, and Bad Luck. Schactler tried twice, and both times ended up with Bad Luck fortunes.

Given that our next stop was to eaf Fugu (blowfish), we thought it wise to make sure the waitress was aware of this, and to ask the chef to be extra special careful with the cuts made on his blowfish.

So off we went, to Akasaka (not Asukasa.. Akasaka) to eat up on our fugu meal. Tucked away in an obscure side alley, we found our store- it's sort of hard to miss if you are searching for it, given that massive blowfish replica on top of the store and a hundred odd fugu swimming around aimlessly in a tank wondering what happened to Bob and Joe, who were just there with them until a minute ago.

So while the sashimi comes out and is the version that is considered the most likely to inflict harm on a person eating it, there was one dish - a shabu shabu version that hit our table and was so fresh that chunks of meat were actually still twitching from where the poor fish was wriggling up until about 5 minutes earlier. That fresh.. crazy.

While everyone got out of there in one piece, one guy said that he felt his lips turn numb, and two eaters lips literally and honestly turned blue. I wish I were kidding about this, but it's the truth. Crazy stuff, but still quite an experience to remember.

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Fuji Return

Heisman'ed again.. That's all I can say.

But even with a turnback, it wasn't something this team wasn't aware of. After all, each person on this team had been turned back at least once already, so we all went into it fully aware of what winter Fuji could (and did) throw at us.

After doing battle with some park ranger who did a fantastic job of convincing us that we weren't allowed to go forward (in his mind, essentially saving us from ourselves)- only to learn in hindsight that he really couldn't tell us, just warn us.. we found another route and continued on. Making a nice spot and bedding down, we all fell asleep like kings. But to show just how dramatically this old joker threw us off, I superimposed our route, turnaround points and how far we had to go out of our way once we encountered our setback:

At 7am we kicked it and made solid progress until about 9am, when a storm brewed basically out of nowhere. We were all excited because up until that point we truly all thought that we were going to summit this time. Then clouds moved in, and then a storm started dumping snow along with 75mph winds. We found a shelter at one point to try and hunker down out of the wind, and that worked for a few minutes until we all started getting cold- temps dipped to -20.

It was at this point that one of our team started feeling ill and essentially passed on the summit push. This is always the right thing to do, but unfortunately too many people can fall victim to "Summit Fever" and ignore all of the warning signs. With wind whipping around corners, snow whiting out even the small area we were holed up in, we made a call. I had already been up this part of Fuji in the summer months and knew the trail, having way-pointed it up and down in my GPS. But I also knew where I had placed the wands and knew the trail that I had led the team up, so I offered to take our one teammate down while the remaining 3 attempted to push higher.

The two of us sticking close together as we navigated the wands off of the snow field, we looked back and for only a brief second saw the rest of the team heading higher and quickly disappearing into the blizzard of white. On our way down, I noticed that the winds were strong enough that the marker wands placed on the way up were knocked over, so if that GPS failed...oohh nellie.

Fortunately, it didn't. The remaining 3 teammates moved farther up the mountain and made another thousand feet when this freight train of wind hit so hard that the whole team was literally flattened. At 7,000', this wind was strong enough to make me worry about the others, but for them the wind gusts were severe enough that they understood they had reached their turnaround point. Many of the wands placed to mark the route had been knocked over, so in a whiteout like we had it was a bit of a challenge given none of our original tracks were there- washed over with new snow and wind. So use of the GPS was critical, and through this tool they navigated themselves back down to where we were located and the whole team was together again.

It took about three hours to get back to the car, where we grounded our gear, loaded up and headed straight to McDonalds for a hearty meal. On the way home, Dana was A-driving and stayed awake with me while everyone in the back slept like champs. We finally made it back to Tokyo last night around 10pm and slept for close to 12 hours.

It was only after returning to the warm and safe confines of our downtown hotel room that we began the "what if" conversations. But like last year, this weather was so extreme, and so strong that there really wasn't much debate on the right course of action- and we had taken it. Even if that damned park ranger hadn't stopped us and made us go around, we would even now still be stuck on the Fuji Subaru Line trying to figure out how to get our car out- the road is still snowed in and closed 2 days later. I guess everything happens for a reason.

So, there's always next year.. or even before that if timing works out.

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Tokyo walkaround & prep for tomorrow

Today we spent the day walking around Tokyo, picking up last minute items, doing some shopping, and generally having fun. One of my favorite hobbies whenever visiting Tokyo is to pick out all of the great signage and ads to see how creative one can get with them:

As usual, we spent a great deal of time zipping around the city via subway, where we had some fun and entertained other riders.

We also walked from Roppongi down to Tokyo Tower, where we rode up the shoe box sided elevator to the very top, which was swaying like mad from winds. It was a nice reminder of where we are headed tomorrow, and how buffeted we are going to be when at 12,000' and completely exposed.

Tokyo Tower is the highest point in Tokyo, so you get quite a view from the top. We did come across this one great sign embossed on the bannister, which directs you to Mt Fuji way off in the distance. Wow, how great, we all thought and gazed out at a snow-capped mountain that was plainly visible. Then two thoughts raced through my head: (1) Wow, that's alot of snow we are going to have to hump through, and (2) why is the sign in braille?

After a great team dinner of oysters and extremely delicious Japanese food, we all returned to Hardy Barracks where we packed and prepared. We also found a website that had some recent pictures of the Fuji Subaru Line above 4th Station, where we plan to park our van and begin our assault on the mountain:

Snow. Lots of it. That means snowshoes from the get-go, and slow going the whole way up. It also means being extra vigilant for snow conditions. One last check of the forecast revealed this:

Temps are dropping like a rock again, and winds aren't showing much relief. This is going to be a slow and cold experience. Because of that, our gear is overflowing with what we are bringing- and that = heavy packs.


Oh well, it's going to be fun for sure- we are all completely excited!

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Roppongi Hills

We landed uneventfully this afternoon Tokyo time, to rain, rain, rain.

After clearing customs and immigration, we met Dana out in the lobby of arrivals, hopped a Friendly Airport Limousine into town, and made it to Hardy Barracks, our home for the next few nights. I think between the five of us we have close to 15 bags- climbing gear, team gear, and personal stuff.

We walked down to Roppongi, grabbed some quick food and then back to the hotel where everyone crashed in about five minutes.

Sooo tired.... :)

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Tokyo or bust

On our way.. the four of us are enroute for Tokyo on UA #875, arriving at ~4:30 on Sunday afternoon Japan time.

Weather appears to be settling down quite a bit on Fuji, but still extremely cold. Thats ok given the protective clothes we have, and in some ways we wish that Huntington were coming along to get the campfire going for us. We were expecting him and Leonard to be re-joining us on this climb, but then they got scared and decided that the comfort of a warm bed would be better for them. Even Schactler, who broke his foot on the 20km outhike came back to try again, checking in and looking just like David Beckham. You can read all about their trevails on last years climb at: http://landtarget.blogspot.com/2008/02/negative-47.html

Snow is abating, which is good- and the winds are stronger, so I am confident that the snow that does fall will be blown straight off the mountain in time for our Tuesday attempt:


The thing that will be interesting is the mountain condition. It has changed considerably each an every winter sofar - similar to what Mt Rainier has demonstrated with snow accumulation, conditions, and ability to make the top. For example, this is what it looked like last year when it was negative 47 degrees but clear and windy as hell:



Then two winters ago, it looked like this with snow, mild temps and no wind:

Those are either my gloves, or Dana's. Hopefully it looks nothing like this at present, but if it does we are all equipped with snowshoes so no postholing will occur.

All for now, flight from Seattle is boarding in 15 minutes. All gear is checked in, laptops are charged and Dana is all set to meet us in Narita for our long bus ride into town.


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