Fuji Sunrise

Most people climb Fuji at night in hopes of viewing the sunrise from the peak. The crowd is so large, however, that many people who would have otherwise reached the peak by sunrise are backed up somewhere between the last station and their goal when the sun comes out.
All of these photographs were taken in between the last station and the peak.
The group broke up into pairs, trios and small packs of climbing partners before we began the trail. Many people, however, reached the top with someone other than their original climbing partner. I started out with two climbing partners and ended up spending most of the trail with someone else whom I bumped into along the way as my pace veered from the others.
Shortly after my new climbing partner and I began hiking together we decided to pass the time playing a game. Since the game was the road trip classic "let's see who can keep silent the longest" most of my hike was really quiet. It started as a simple children's game, but the competitive drive soon overtook us and other hikers from the group began to wonder if we were out on some Fuji religious experience that demanded a vow of silence.
Actually, though, having once spent a week on a silent religious retreat, I can vouch for the worthiness of silence, especially when in awe of nature. It's also fun to see what gestures people come up with for such things as, "so, am I really stuck with you for the rest of this hike?", "how far to the peak?" and "I think I'd like to buy a hiking stick at the next station."

While resting at one station I overhead another pair of hikers from our group admiring the constellations. One of them really knew what he was talking about and began pointing out various groupings of stars and their modern day use in company logos and designs throughout East Asia. Then, my climbing partner took a notepad out of her bag and wrote down what would be our first completely understood sentence since the beginning of the silence,

"I have gas from the french fries"