Hello!
Had a couple questions regarding a trip to climb Fuji-
We’re using a rental vehicle to park at station 5 before we climb the Yoshida trail. I understand that the toll road has limited hours:
It opens at 3am but closes at 6pm for traffic going up the mountain and 7:30pm for traffic leaving. Does that mean as long as you leave station 5 by 7:30 you are okay to drive the hour or so back down or you need to make sure you are off the toll road (at the bottom of the mountain) by 7:30?
Second question- are the facilities 24 hours at station 5? Of course we’d like to buy a stick to get branded. We just aren’t sure if they are open 24hrs.
Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks!
8 comments
Two things about the pilgrim stick.
1) The full size one can be problematic to get home. It probably won’t fit in your suitcase and I don’t think you can carry it on. I ended up mailing mine home.
2) The stick isn’t particularly useful as a climbing aide.
There’s a walking cane sized option and a baton option.
Well I’ll be sure to give the mountain your regards when we climb 🙏
They close the gates at 7:30, so I don’t think they’ll trap you on the expressway, if you’re on after 7:30 pm.
The shop is open 7:00-20:00 during the summer, and 8:30-17:00 during the rest of the year.
Please note that during majority of climbing season (school holidays – i.e. on average from 21 July to 31 August) the toll road is open only to:
* public transport
* taxis
* emergency and park services (incl. certain supply services)
* electric cars
Climbing Fuji is very difficult and at parts, highly dangerous. Please make sure you are well-prepared
Allow more time than you plan. We thought we’d get to station 9 by like 5 or 6 but it was more like 9pm and recognise the signs of altitude sickness. I didn’t realise how bad I was until coming back down and suddenly felt so much better. Altitude sickness affects people differently. Some get it, some don’t.
Why not just take the bus from Tokyo to the 5th station? You will be tired on the second day and just sitting in a bus is a lot easier than driving.
After climbing down, I highly recommend taking an onsen bath.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread! Just to give everyone an update we finished our trip and everything was great.
Question 1: the gates at the BOTTOM are for the times. So you have to be at the bottom of the road by 745pm or you can’t exit.
Question 2: Unfortunately we didn’t find out when the shops open at station 5 but they closed “around 6”- quoted from a shop employee. We arrived at the station at 615am and everything was open.
Other tips:
-Dont bring young kids if you want to summit without spending the night. My wife and I are in decent shape and it was not an easy hike. It took us almost 12 hours round trip, with an hour and half at the summit. We also stopped at each station for stamps. It’s lots of vertical climbing and I couldn’t imagine bringing our young children. We saw many who turned around without making the summit.
-We didn’t regret not doing the sunrise hike. Our weather was beautiful and sunny (bring sunscreen and a hat!!) the whole day and we enjoyed the views all the way to the top. I’m sure the sunrise is amazing but don’t feel pressured to only do that itinerary.
-Leave yourself lots of time like others have said. Get there as early as possible. Like I said above, it took us all day. If it had been raining or cold we could have potentially had to stay the night. You also don’t want to feel rushed.
-We chose to rent a car in Tokyo to give us more freedom to arrive/depart when we wanted to. We also wanted to stay the night in the town by the mountain. We just slept in the morning after and driving back to Tokyo was no problem at all. However, expect to pay around $30 each way in tolls. As posted before, personal vehicles are not allowed at station 5 after July 21 of this year but I wouldn’t discourage anyone who thinks they might rent a car to explore the sites around the area then take the bus to station 5. You can definitely get by without a vehicle.