MOUNT FUJI, Japan – The climb does not reveal its difficulty all at once. It starts slowly, before sunrise, as the trail winds through thick forest and long stretches of volcanic rock.
A few hours in, the temperature drops. Clouds swirl. Your legs throb.
The higher you go, the more the wind cuts. Your breath shortens. Your body pleads to stop.
At the summit, hot bowls of soup await, with thick udon noodles swimming in curry broth.
Many climbers swear that exhaustion makes the food taste better at 12,400 feet. I wanted to know if that was true.
Could a bowl of noodles justify the climb?
For someone who loves Japanese food, the idea was irresistible.
I have always loved being outdoors, chasing stories and adventure in the mountains.
Last year, I climbed a glacier in Peru. The year before, I stood on the jagged front lines of a disappearing landscape in the Arctic.
Fuji felt different, less about survival and more about pilgrimage.
Mount Fuji is not just a mountain. For centuries, it has been revered as a sacred site, home to gods and the subject of countless poems and paintings.
Rising from the plains southwest of Tokyo, it dominates the landscape, its snowcapped peak visible for miles.
Fuji is tied deeply to both Shinto and Buddhist traditions. Shrines dedicated to Konohanasakuya-hime, the goddess of Mount Fuji, stand at its base.
In the Edo period, worshippers from across Japan formed Fuji-ko pilgrim associations and walked for days to reach its slopes. They chanted prayers at each station, burning cedar sticks as offerings, their ascent both a physical and spiritual act.
Today, hundreds of thousands of people still make the climb each summer, though the offerings are often replaced by cameras.
Some rituals remain: wooden walking sticks stamped with hot brands at every hut, climbers pressing their palms together at summit shrines.
But for many, the mountain is not meant to be touched.
“People from the nearby towns don’t climb Fuji,” said Brent Potter, a co-founder of Fuji Mountain Guides, the company I used for my climb. “There’s an old saying here: Fuji is a mountain to look at, not climb.”
My journey began at Tokyo Station, where I boarded a bus to Gotemba, a city at the foot of the mountain. The next morning, I joined 50 other climbers at the Fuji Mountain Guides headquarters.
The group was a patchwork of accents from around the world, all of us chasing the same sunrise.
During orientation, the guides explained the mountain’s four official trails.
Luke Cummings, one of our guides, smiled as he told us we would be avoiding the Yoshida Trail, the most crowded route, and taking Subashiri instead.
“It’s more rugged, fewer huts, fewer people,” he said. “You really feel Fuji there.”
The Subashiri Trail begins in a lush forest. The air was thick with the scent of pine, and the ground was soft underfoot. It felt almost tropical, a world away from the volcanic slopes above.
At each stop, we branded our wooden sticks with stamps, a modern continuation of an old pilgrim ritual.
The sticks became diaries carved in ash, proof of progress and persistence.
As the hours passed, the air grew thinner.
At the sixth station, the sky cracked open with lightning, and we scrambled for cover inside a hut. For an hour, we listened to thunder roll across the mountain. The silence in the rain felt peaceful.
Outside, rain streaked the volcanic gravel into rivers of mud. When we emerged, clouds pressed low, mist swirled through the trees and the temperature had dropped.
Fuji was reminding us who was in control.
After more than seven hours of climbing, we reached the new seventh station. There, perched on the slope, stood a hut with an udon shop called Taiyokan.
Keiko Seki, the 80-year-old woman who operates the shop, welcomed us inside.
Seki is from Subashiri. She said she ran the business with her husband for more than 50 years before his death last year.
As we watched her work, her movements were steady and practiced.
Inside, she handed me a steaming bowl of pork miso udon. Taiyokan was the first hut on Fuji to serve it.
The noodles were thick and chewy. The broth was savory and restorative. Steam rose into my tired face like medicine.
Seki watched me eat with a quiet smile, the way someone might watch over a grandchild.
Then, she prepared ceremonial matcha. Her weathered hands moved gracefully. In 1988, she told me, she performed the same ceremony for the emperor when he visited her hut.
“I was nervous,” she admitted, laughing softly. “But tea is tea.”
Since her husband died, Seki has run the hut alone, with help only from seasonal workers from nearby towns.
“The mountain doesn’t let you rest,” she said. “But it keeps me company.”
Her food was more than fuel. It was everything I needed to keep going.
That night, after ascending more than 3,600 feet, I spread a traditional blanket on the floor of a shared room, shoulder to shoulder with 10 other climbers. My legs ached. My head throbbed.
I was just over halfway up the mountain.
At 1 a.m., we stepped back into the dark.
The trail above us shimmered with hundreds of headlamps, a glittering river of light winding up the black slopes toward the crater’s rim.
Stars wheeled overhead. The air was biting cold, each breath a puff of white.
For three hours, we climbed in near silence. Our boots crunched volcanic gravel. Our bodies swayed with fatigue.
By the time we reached the summit, the horizon was beginning to pale.
The top of Fuji was not the quiet temple I had imagined. It was a bustling village.
Shops sold souvenirs. A shrine offered stamped seals. A vending machine hummed with cold drinks.
Large groups queued for breakfast, curry rice steaming in the cold dawn air.
Then the light came, a slow bleeding of orange, then red, then gold across the horizon.
Clouds turned to fire. Hundreds of us stood in silence as the sun rose over Japan.
It was breathtaking. Unforgettable. Sacred, even.
Near the crater rim stood one of the noodle huts I had heard so much about from my guides. You can reach it only by climbing to the top.
There is no cable car, no road, nothing mechanical that can deliver you to its door.
Every worker who serves you has come up the same steep trails as the climbers.
By the time I stepped inside, I could feel the altitude pressing into every part of my body.
My legs were shaking, and the cold had settled deep into my fingers.
But the moment the door opened, the smell of broth, curry and steam wrapped around me like a blanket.
As my group waited to squeeze inside for breakfast, another large group filed out, making room for us.
The menu was handwritten on wooden boards: curry udon, miso ramen, hot rice bowls, green tea and canned coffee.
As my group began placing orders, a single server navigated the rush, one eye on us and the other on the door as yet another wave of climbers tried to come in.
I ordered the curry udon, following the advice of my guide, who climbs to the summit multiple times a week to give people a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I finally sat down with my group and took my first bite.
We barely spoke.
The bowl of soup seemed to bring us back to life.
The warmth hit me instantly, spreading through my palms and into my chest.
The curry was bold and salty, the noodles thick and soft, exactly what my body needed in that moment.
With each slurp, the cold felt a little less sharp, the exhaustion a little less overwhelming.
It was satisfying, yes. But it also felt hurried, commercial, consumed more for the story than for the soul.
After our meal, we began the descent.
The way down was harder than the way up, five hours of zigzagging through volcanic sand, each step like skiing on ash.
The sun beat down as the sky cleared. Heat radiated from the dark rock.
My knees strained under the weight, and my stick sank deep into the gravel.
The mountain was not done humbling us.
As I stumbled down, I was not thinking of the noodles or the spectacular view at the summit. I thought of the Taiyokan Hut.
Seki’s pork miso udon had been the best food on Mount Fuji. Her matcha, poured with care, had been the true ceremony.
Her story of devotion, endurance and quiet strength gave me the energy to finish my climb.
I had come to Fuji searching for the best bowl of noodles at the top. Instead, I found it halfway up.
When I remember my climb, I do not taste curry at the summit.
I taste her miso soup.
AloJapan.com