Mt FUJI!!!

I just got back from climbing Mt Fuji!!!
Let me tell you, that was a ONCE in a life time experience. It was probably the worst 5 hours, 3 minutes and 16 seconds of my life. But I am glad I did it, if anything now I can say I climbed Mt Fuji. :)
My group started at level 5 at 9:30. There's only 10 levels total so you think 5 levels wouldn't be that difficult. Somehow the Japanese have made it difficult. The mountain really isn't that big; there are alot bigger ones in Colorado, but I swear the Japanese thought "hmm, since this mountain isn't big, we should make the trails really hard as if it were a big mountain!". There were steps and gravel that each step you took you slid back two steps, and then big rocks that you had to use your hands to climb over. The big rocks are actually what I enjoyed most. I would have been fine climbing those things for five hours. It's just the stairs that killed. And they weren't normal stairs; they were the kind that were uneven; some where very tiny while others you had to use your hands to get over as well as some were really long where you had to take three foot steps in between each step. I've never really had any issues with stairs before last night. Now I want all stairs to go away. I hate stairs.
I know the only way I managed to survive the climb was by praying continuously. I just kept repeating, "God help me make it up this mountain, God help me make it up this mountain..." while my other partners sang. How they had energy to sing, I have no idea. Alot of the other interns got altitude sickness, luckily I did not have that problem. Besides dead legs, I was fine.
It usually takes an average person around 6-8 hours to climb so it was really good that we only took five. We were quite proud of ourselves once we reached the top! The only thing was, we start climbing at night to reach the top by sunrise which is 4:30AM. My little group got to the top at 2:30AM. So we had a ways to wait. Which meant sitting at the top of a mountain with very little wind cover. I was afraid I over packed clothes but once I was on the top and being blown away by the wind, I was so happy I brought my wardrob. ;) There were enough of us that made it up early enough that we could all huddle together and try to sleep. It was miserable.
The sun rose at 4:30AM like it was supposed to, but sadly it was a cloudy day. The sun poked through at times, but it wasn't as amazing as others have said it to be. I waited till around 6:30Am to start heading back down, which meant another 2 and a half hour hike down. It was a lot faster because it was basically zig zag paths that had a foot deep of gravel. The easiest way to get down was to either run, gallop, slide, or attempt to walk but end up more on your butt sliding down. I chose to gallop; it was easiest and you had more control. :)
Overall I really am glad I did do it if anything to prove to myself that I could do it, but I definitely would never do it again. Once is enough for me!