2015-04-26 富士山（富士宮コース）

Almost 8 years passed since the first time I went to Mount Fuji. Last time was terrible, tens of thousands of people milling sluggishly towards the summit, countless headlights and omnipresent dust. I decided never to return but then found out it would probably be much better in winter.

After a few failed attempts due to strong wind, here we are at the end of April with a perfect set of conditions: 0 wind, warm temperatures, low clouds -> it doesn't really qualify for winter conditions but all the same Fuji is still white and it was a great day.

Fuji skyline (the road leading to Fujinomiya parking lot) is supposed to be closed until 7:30 AM but the gates cover only half the width of the road so we ignored the rule and gained more than 1 hour. Towards the top of the road a staff worker told us to beware of the icy stretches and remarked the road wasn't open yet but didn't say more. At the parking lot a couple of dozen cars were parked and we understood that the 7:30 AM rule is not observed by climbers.

With all the clouds below our feet we started at 7:20 AM. Dozens of people, most of them carrying a snowboard were also leaving around the same time. 95% if not even more of all the people I looked at climbing just front point their way up, burning their calf muscles, and so take breaks every 10 to 20 steps. It is far more efficient to go French style (ie. flat foot) using all spikes of the crampons. Doing so I didn't need to stop at all between stations, on the other hand I had to wait for my partner up to 15 minutes when I reached a station.

The layer of clouds below 2000m of elevation never dissipated and this added a sense of depth to the scenery. The skies were dark blue and the snow so bright it was unbearable to remove the sunglasses even 5 seconds to be taken in picture.

There was almost no wind but when waiting for U-san it got a bit chilly and when measuring what felt like the most windy spot of the day the anemometer read 7 m/s, almost negligible.

Reaching the summit was almost effortless. There was a bunch of people up there and people were taking pictures with the summit post, it almost felt like a crowded summit in summer time where people line up to get their picture taken.

Inspired by the tracks I had seen while going uphill I decided to slide my way back down to the car. After 2 failed attempts with a grocery bag and a survival sheet, I removed my crampons to put on my windproof over-pants on. I put on the crampons again and then could slide smoothly. Using the ice axe for braking I managed to control speed, however direction was impossible to alter, it was going straight and that's all. Breaking was relatively hard and I needed to put my whole body on the axe to slow down enough and then spring back up on my feet, total stop was almost impossible.

The clouds had gained in elevation and we spent the last 500 meters in the clouds. Compared to the morning the snow had melted considerably (it was near 5 degrees at the summit and 12 at the parking lot)

Overall it was a wonderful day, and an easy climb to Mount Fuji, far from typical winter conditions.

More pictures here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8dPS_LBwxeLfkJQT2pRT2E1WWVKSUEyMkNsQWk4cWNYNWY2NmRrVUV3b3JYSnowcENSM2M&usp=sharing