climbing at 5 PM.

Our group had reservations at the 9th station. It took the slowest people in our group (included an 11 year old boy and a 75 year old, although a very experienced 75 year old climber) 4 hours to get to the 9th station. Took me 3 hours, but probably could have done it in 2.5 if I didn’t stay to help others in my group.

We then ate dinner at the hut, slept in their sleeping quarters till about 2:30 AM, ate breakfast, and started climbing for the sunrise at the crater at 3:30. My subgroup of our larger group was the last to leave (a different group left 30-60 minutes before us), and we made it to the crater in 47 minutes, just in time for the sunrise. We then summitted the mountain after getting our pictures in.

Worst park of the mountain was the travel. The travel there wasn’t terrible because you hadn’t just climbed a mountain, but the travel back to Tokyo was exhausting and quite annoying (another 5 hours of travel). I wouldn’t say it was miserable because the trains are nice, but the bus is no fun haha.