Climb Every Mountain

I was stationed for two years on USS Kitty Hawk (CV60) in Japan. One weekend, I decided to go on a morale trip to climb Mt. Fuji. A beautiful landmark, Mt. Fuji is popular with the locals and tourists. It's not a cake walk, though. People have died.

Two things you must know before climbing Mt. Fuji, because the weather at the top can be brutal most of the year, there is a short climbing season. We went at the very beginning of the season. It felt odd, but we brought warm gear even though it was a warm sunny day on the ground.

Also, the mountain starts out wide on the bottom, and gets rapidly steeper. By the time you are near the top, you are practically rock climbing. This was a one-day outing, so we started somewhere near the middle as the mountain started its upward incline.

Out of the 20 or so people in my group, I would say the average age was 25. I was 42. I was not discouraged by this. I felt I was in good shape.

As we began our ascent, it became more clear to me I wasn't 25 years old. I kept the group in my sites, but I was consistently a few paces behind. This only really mattered near the top, I would find out later.

The view on the climb to the top was beautiful. There were stations along the way to stop, rest, and take in the atmosphere. Occasionally, I would see older Japanese women returning from the top energetically leaving the mountain and having a lively conversation as well. My imagination assumed they did this as daily exercise and they were in much better shape than I.

Nevertheless, I plodded on.

As I neared the top, my legs felt as heavy as blocks of lead. Climbing straight up at this point, I would regularly stop and stare so intensely at the rocks beneath my feet as if to use brainwaves to move my legs upward a few more feet. With each new step, there was a victory I had accomplished and another new challenge to be won.

With one final heave, I made it to the top. Once there, the first matter I was confronted with was the weather. It was snowing sideways. I took a minute to get my bearings. But as I looked around, something else became very apparent to me. I was alone. Where was my group?

I saw a shack where they sold hot chocolate and headed there. It was empty of customers, so I got a hot chocolate and sat down to think. Suddenly, the door blew open and four very healthy-looking men walked in. As I was the only one there, they began a conversation with me in no time.

When they heard of my predicament, they offered to accompany me down the mountain. That, being the most immediate concern on my mind and the fact I didn’t know where to go to get down the mountain (You can’t go down the same way you came up), I decided to go with them.

Earlier, before we left the base to go on the trip, we were given a safety lecture. Apparently, there is a right way to get down the mountain and a wrong way. We were strongly cautioned not to go down the wrong way. I was about to go down the wrong way.

I had some hoped someone from my group would show up out of nowhere right about then and ask me where I'd been. But things were starting to get real.

There was still a blizzard going on. And though they didn't look dangerous, I didn't know these men. Then I saw the path going down the mountain, and morbid fear set in.

The mountain's path was carved in a switchback pattern in such a way I could see much further down than I wanted to. A singular chain running alongside of the path tried very hard to suggest safety.

With my first step, I began making the trek downward with great trepidation.

Until I couldn't anymore. It happened all at once. I suddenly became a tight ball in the middle of the narrow path crying,"I can't do it, I can't do it."

As I was hunkered down, resisting my fate, my thoughts focused on my strangely silent travel companions.

I expected to hear them prodding and imploring me to get up and continue down the mountain.

But, there was nothing. They were just standing there – waiting. And it worked. After a minute or two, I got up, dusted myself off, and without another word, we moved on.

It stopped snowing and the path widened the further we moved down the mountain. I relaxed considerably. But I started to notice we had come a long way. It occurred to me we would be hiking down the entire mountain. I also realized we were coming down the opposite side from the way I came up.

How was I getting back to my ship?

The day became warmer, my energy began to run thin, and our hike was far from over.

Near the foot of the mountain, I came upon a large patch of pea gravel leading to a dirt road in the distance. The deep gravel pulled at my legs like quick sand. Coming up from behind me, the four men ran across the gravel and quickly made their way to the road. I thought they were showing off.

Later, I found out this is how you approach this area. It's called screeding. It's to keep from sinking. It would have been nice to have known this, however, I don't believe I could have brought myself to run anyway.

When I made it to the road, the four men were about a quarter mile down the dusty road. My perseverance was fading. My attitude was beginning to show. I didn’t sign up for this. I should be on a bus somewhere returning to the ship. Once again, I collapsed right in the middle of the road. I wasn't going anywhere. In a few moments, the others looked back and noticed I was down. Again, my thoughts were they would be annoyed and jog back to rally me up and get me on my way.

Again, nothing. They were just standing there, waiting. I really was starting to respect these guys. I pulled myself up and moved on. They all turned back around and continued.

Now, I knew where we were going. While we were still on the mountain, I found out that these guys were junior officers—Marine officers. It seemed they enjoyed spending their Saturdays climbing Mt. Fuji for physical training. They were based at a training center not far away called Camp Fuji.

There was a bus at the end of this road, about five miles away, to take us to their camp where we would contact my ship.

I was treated very well at the camp. They took me to the officer in charge and he had me sit down while he spoke to someone on my ship. The young junior officers left and I didn’t see them until later.

The leadership on my ship was aware I was missing. They would get in touch with the group organizer. I would be escorted by the Marine bus to the group’s bus and we would all meet at a designated place on the road. I figured that I had been missing for about two hours.

As I got back on the Marine bus, I passed by the junior officers and I wanted to express my gratitude for their assistance getting me down the mountain. I thought they had shown great patience with me.

But something wasn’t right. As I passed by them and was saying good-bye, they all looked very contrite. As if they had not done the right thing by me. I was confused and boarded the bus.

"Surely, they hadn’t gotten in trouble for this," I thought. I bet they did.

When I got to the group's bus, the organizer of the event met me at the bus door. Agitated, he asked me what happened and I told him the group left me. He asked a few more questions trying to figure out why I didn’t join the group at the top. I didn’t have any good answers for that because no one was on the top of that mountain to direct me where to go. He was still angry.

I boarded the bus. The atmosphere on the bus was hostile. Apparently, they'd spent some time waiting for me to be found. I was unmoved and found an empty seat. I was low-key resentful that not one of them wondered where the "old woman" was while they were up there.

Sunday morning was spent in my rack, grateful to be somewhere familiar and at rest. It was a peaceful day before reporting back to work the next morning.

On Monday, my commander walked into the office where I'd already been working on some tasks. He asked me what happened on Saturday.?

I knew he was finding out what he needed for the chain of command. I was sure the duty section reported me missing on Saturday.

I told him the group left me. He said, “They left you?” I said, "Yes." He said, “Okay,” and went into his office and never brought it up again.