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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/Nederlandian on 2025-07-09 06:18:27+00:00.
PSA: Mt Fuji is NOT just a “sloping gravel trail”
OK maybe it’s on me but everything I read on Reddit before hiking mt Fuji led me to believe it wouldn’t be that hard…I was wrong. Now I consider myself moderately athletic (go to the gym and run regularly) I am definitely not an avid hiker, but I thought I’d be fine with some stairmaster training beforehand. We booked an overnight stay at the 8th station so we could see the sunrise and started hiking at 1pm, yes the first part was a gravel trail but it very quickly turned into climbing up a trail of volcanic rocks. I very quickly put my hiking sticks away and was using my hands to climb up these rocks. The steep hike and the rising altitude meant I was stopping every 20 steps to catch my breath. Halfway through the 7th station I got so tired but fortunately I became buddies with a guy also going at my pace and we slowly meandered our way up together. The cruel joke was I settled on seeing the sunrise from our 8th station hut and it was gorgeous, my mom hiked to the very peak at 1am but there was so much fog she didn’t even get to see the sunrise. Also the way down is a different route that’s all switchbacks and much easier, it is all loose gravel though so be prepared to slip and slide your way down :D
YES people do hike it very quickly and are probably way more fit/experienced hikers than me, I just wanted to put my two cents out there so future hikers know what they’re getting into and can prep properly!!
TLDR; it’s a steep hike on volcanic rocks in high altitude but definitely doable with some training and determination