We woke up at 2:45am to get ready and we were hiking by 3:10am. We passed old gate 7 and new gate 8 in the dark and saw sunrise at 4:45am.
The clouds were layered and we actually got a second sunrise at 5:08am. After some beautiful sunrises, we continued trudging up the mountain, getting stamps at New Gate 8, Gate 8.5 and finally at the “summit” (Gate 9 was essentially abandoned).
The “summit” was the first point on the caldera that the trails reached where there were restaurants, gift shops and where we got the summit stamp. The actual summit was still about a 40 min hike around the caldera.
We waited in a long line for the summit pic, which was worth it… Because we did it!!!
We finished the caldera loop and then began the decent. The decent took about 3hrs, including stops back at Old Gate 7 and New Gate 8 to get the final stamps.
Then there were long rocky areas that you could scree (or foot slide) down
And at the near bottom there was a surprise 2nd gate 5 stamp that was on the return trail to actually finish off the hiking pole.
We then stopped for ice cream while waiting for the bus. Then we navigated two local trains and a bullet train to make our way to Kyoto and to meet back up with Belinda and Charles.
