What I Packed

Here’s the detailed version of what I wore, brought and bought. This isn’t a shopping list, of course, but I hope that it convinces you to not be one of those people in running shoes, shorts and a t-shirt, freezing their ass off before giving up at 8th station…

• Lowa Arco GTX Mid trekking boots (amazing!)
• Superfeet blue insoles
• Smartwool hiking socks
• KOWA Vantelin knee supports (I can’t praise these enough)
• Shorts (Lululemon T.H.E. Short with Luxtreme liner)
• Uniqlo T-shirt
• Nike Dri-FIT running hat

• Osprey Atmos 65
• Osprey rain cover
• Maui Jim prescription sunglasses
• My everyday Silhouette prescription glasses
• A couple extra pairs of Smartwool hiking socks
• Extra pair of KOWA Vantelin knee supports
• A couple handkerchiefs
• A small bottle of liquid soap from Hotel Okura
• Lip balm
• Outdoor Research wide brim hat (hiking sombrero)
• Headlamp
• Bellroy Passport Wallet
• Black Diamond Distance FLZ aluminum trekking poles with the carbide tips

• Extra Lithium Ion 10,000 mAh rechargeable battery to charge my iPhone and Apple Watch
• My iPhone X, for Google Maps, AllTrails, taking photos and actually making phone calls
• Apple Watch (Series 2)
• Apple Lightning to USB cable for iPhone
• Apple 12W USB Power Adapter
• Apple Watch USB charger cable
• USB charger cable to charge Lithium Ion rechargeable battery (plugged into Apple 12W USB Power Adapter)

As an aside, for stuff like this, the big IKEA plastic bags are fantastic and highly reusable. It’s a shame they were discontinued, since, unlike me, IKEA considered them single-use plastics.

Besides the clothes I was wearing, these are the extra clothes I brought for the bottom half of the hike that I actually did use.

• Two extra Uniqlo t-shirts (a luxury, since I expected to sweat through them, which I did)
• An extra pair of Lululemon T.H.E. Short with Luxtreme liner

Packing for Mount Fuji was a tale of two hikes—the reasonably warm lower half, and the colder upper half. These are the clothes I brought for the top half of the hike that I actually did use.

• Arc’teryx Gore-Tex Beta AR pants
• Arc’teryx Gore-Tex Beta AR jacket
• Arc’teryx softshell hoodie
• Lightweight running gloves
• Heavier neoprene “US Divers” gloves (these were from snorkeling in Hawaii, and they work well for hiking since they are warm when wet, and have good grip)
• Uniqlo Airism athletic tights (top & bottom) for base layer
• Balaclava

• Bucky 40 Blinks face mask
• Foam ear plugs

I also brought a number of things which I didn’t use.

• Bandaids (my hiking boots were great and I got no blisters)
• Elbow tensor bandages (no injuries)
• Ankle tensor bandage (no injuries)
• Immodium (no issues)
• Sunscreen (I was mostly covered)
• Uniqlo down puffy vest (between the Arc’teryx hoodie and Beta AR jacket I was fine)
• Toque (I didn’t need this, the balaclava was more than enough)
• My extra pair of outdated backup glasses

Now, I still recommend bringing bandaids, immodium and sunscreen, however. Blisters, a sunburn or diarrhea could ruin your hike.

The night before, I went to the Family Mart and the 7-11 near my hotel and got food and energy jelly for the hike:

• 7x “Energy in” energy jelly packs (I ate 7 packs: 3 on the first day, 4 on the second day)
• 3x “Protein in” energy jelly packs (I ate 3 packs: 1 on the first day, 2 on the second day)
• 3x “Mineral in” energy jelly packs (I ate 2 of 3 packs: 1 on the first day, 1 on the second day)
• 10x Calorie mate bars (I ate 3 on the first day, 5 on the second day)
• 2x small bags of mixed nuts

I probably could have gotten all of these at the 7-11 near the shrine at the base of the trail, but I didn’t want to leave that to chance.

These various varieties of “in” jelly packs worked really well for me. I love that the description is “a special jelly drink designed to supply carbohydrates equivalent to one rice ball”–I have never encountered a more intuitive unit of measurement, and because of this, I bought an almost perfectly correct amount for the hike. I wish these were easily available in Canada.

I started the hike at “station 7-11”, near the shrine at the start of the trail. This is where I bought (too much) water and sports drinks. Here’s what I bought:

• 6 liters of Aquarius (I drank none on first day, almost 4 liters on the second day)
• 2 liters of water (I drank all of it, split between both days)
• 5x 900ml (4.5 liters total) Pocari Sweat Ion Water (I drank all 5 bottles: 4 on the first day, 1 on the second day)
• 3x 900ml (2.7 liters total) Pocari Sweat (I drank all 3 bottles: 2 on the first day, 1 on the second day)

I had a good balance between high calorie sports drinks (Aquarius & Pocari Sweat), lower calorie sports drinks (Pocari Sweat Ion Water) and water. I wanted to ensure I was not dehydrated.

However…

I bought way too many sports drinks. I should have bought about 8-10 liters of sports drinks and water. I could have gotten away with 6 liters, and just bought the rest on the mountain. There are ample stops going up, starting at 5th station. However, between the base and 5th station there’s nothing. If I was being cheap, I could have brought 8 or 10 liters, to save money. (Drinks cost 500 yen for a 500 ml bottle.)

Instead, I was paranoid because of my experience climbing Mount Misen, where I drunk 6x 900ml (5.4 liters) of Pocari Sweat and Pocari Sweat Ion Water—and it was only a 550 meter elevation gain. The heat on Mount Misen, however, was in the high 30s (Celsius). The high for Fujiyoshida City that day was 35 degrees Celsius, but when I started the hike it felt like high 20s / low 30s (Celsius). At any rate, it was cooler than Mount Misen had been.

However, while I knew this, I really had no clue how much I would need to drink, and I knew there were no stations until 5th station and a lot of elevation gain. So, I overcompensated, and I bought a 15.2 combined liters of water and sports drinks. This weighed over 15.2 kilograms (since, for water, 1 liter = 1 kilogram), which is over 33 pounds–and that doesn’t include the weight of the plastic bottles.

Yes, I literally carried 33 pounds of liquid in my pack at the start of my hike. If you add in the weight of the pack itself (4 pounds and 8 ounces) and a few pounds of clothes and stuff, I was carrying about 40 pounds when I started my hike. Worse, if you couple that with the fact that I was at least 10 pounds overweight, I was carrying an extra 50 pounds!

This is bad enough, but over 19 kilometers of ascent with almost 3 kilometers of elevation gain, it really adds up. If you wonder why I’m so emphatic about the KOWA Vantelin knee supports and the trekking poles, now you know—I literally couldn’t have done the hike without both.

Now, if I had packed light and only bought 6 liters of sports drinks, I would have been carrying about 13 pounds of liquid, which when you add the pack weight and clothes would have been 20 pounds. Now, I would have drunk the 6 liters in the first day, meaning that in the second day I would have needed to buy all my drinks, at 500 yen for 500 ml. So, since I drunk about 6 liters on the second day, this would have been about 12 bottles at 500 yen each, which would have been 6000 yen. Instead, 6 liters of sports drinks, bought as three 2 liter bottles of Aquarius for about 250 yen each, was only about 750 yen. So, I saved about 5250 yen, which is about $46 USD. Whether that savings was worth the effort is debatable.

A happy medium would have been to buy 8 liters of Aquarius or Pocari sweat, and 2 liters of water. This would have lasted the entire first day and much of the second day. It would have saved some money, but also been 5.2 kg (i.e. 11.4 pounds) lighter than what I carried. Not carrying 11 extra pounds would have been very nice.

Anyway, regardless of what I could have optimized for, be it pack weight or money spent, I brought too much. When I got back to my hotel in Tokyo, I still had an unopened 2 liter bottle of Aquarius, and about 500 ml more Aquarius (which I had poured into a 900 ml Pocari sweat bottle for easier access) still not drunk. So, combined, that’s about 2.5 kg of weight, which is just over 5 pounds. So, even if I was trying to optimize for saving money, I literally carried 5 extra pounds with me for the entire hike.

Now, while I brought too many sports drinks, I could have done with a bit more food. Specifically, the following would have been nice, and not very heavy:

• 3 or 4 Snickers bars. (These were sold at the mountain hotels and were a welcome change from Calorie Mate and energy jelly! However, they would have been cheaper at 7-11.)
• Actual rice triangles for the first break a couple hours in, instead of the “Energy in” equivalent.
• Some tasty treats such as red bean paste donuts from 7-11. Calorie Mate and nuts get old quickly. Ironically, when I was at one of the first populated stations (I think it was 6th station), a friendly Japanese man and his young son were there, and they gave me an absolutely delicious red bean paste donut from 7-11. (I think they saw me unenthusiastically eating a Calorie Mate bar and felt sorry for me!)
• A waterproof dry sac containing an extra pair of warm clothes for a third day. I brought enough clothes for two warm days and one cool day, but I should have brought clothes for two cool days, in case the need arose.
• A Heatsheets survival blanket, in case I had decided to make the hike a 3 day affair, and hike up to the summit starting before dawn on the third day. (It can get cold at the peak.)

For dinner the first night:

• 2 cups of Cup Noodle
• One black iced coffee
• One iced green tea

At various hotels on the second day:

• 2 or 3 iced coffees
• Curry rice
• 2 or 3 Snickers bars
• 2 cups of Cup Noodle

Again, that list of what I bought on the second day could have included a lot of more expensive Pocari Sweat bottles, had I prioritized my knees and hip over my wallet!

On the mountain, at 7th station (I think), I bought an oxygen cannister in case I got altitude sickness. (I had seen the remnants of vomited up Cup Noodle on the path, and didn’t want to be that guy!) However, I did not use the cannister at all. I assume that spending the night at a mountain hotel between 5th and 6th station helped me acclimatize.