00:00 John Daub: Clouds coming in here. Here we are at the summit of Mount Fuji. Check this out. This is the crater. I'm going to pan across it. That's snow that you can see on the left side, the bank there. I saw that from an airplane. I'm going to show you a shot when I went to Nagasaki last week of the summit. You can see some of this. It's pretty crazy. There's some green over there. Because it is a volcanic eruption, all sorts of minerals and acids and stuff came out. It's been a long time since then, but this is a timeless place. Can you go down there? I certainly wouldn't. I don't see the attraction going down inside of a crater.

00:51 John Daub: There were two English guys daring each other, how much would it take for you to go down there? It was 10,000 quid, but after I talked to them and explained, they'll probably rescue you. Like some university student got rescued twice. After he got rescued, he forgot his cell phone and went back and needed to be rescued again to get his cell phone. That right there is the post office, the back of it. This is where I'm going to be staying, the 10th station lodge. It's right next to the post office. That's great because I'm filming with the post office. And if you're climbing Mount Fuji, come and say hi. I'll be inside there for a couple of days.

01:22 John Daub: It's not normal to stay on Mount Fuji for more than one night. I'm staying here for three nights. I don't know if this is going to be really easy or really hard. I don't care. I'm just really happy to be here. And it's beautiful. Look at the clouds whispering by. Do you see that? In glorious 720p. I'm just happy that we even have a signal and the ability to live stream on the top of Mount Fuji.

01:56 John Daub: Let me put the camera down. These clips are brought to you by our good friend Patrick. Thank you so much, Patrick. This is an infamous place, Mount Fuji, on the top. You can see it's snow capped here. But this is the fifth station. This is where I started. Actually, this is the bulldozer at the other side of it. There's a special place for the bulldozer. That's where I went. I didn't need a permit because I'm riding up on the bulldozer. But it's a 4000 yen permit. You should make it in advance and you have to get a lodge reservation. They ask for that before you get the permit. You can't just bullet climb this anymore without a lodging. I'm on the summit. That's kind of cool.

03:02 John Daub: Even on Google Earth, you can go look in there. That bump on the right side is where the last eruption was in the 18th century, 1707. It's a beautiful mountain to look at. Now I promised last time I climbed this that I would never do it again. And here I am. You forget about it after a long time. And then you remember why you didn't climb it. But I'm going to be here for three nights, four days. The Fujinomiya Trail is closed. So it's really quiet on this side. I feel like I have it all to myself in many ways.

03:35 John Daub: This is the bulldozer. Now, this is not open to the public. This is the drive up to the fifth station. You'll see a lot of S curves. You'll see this if you take the bus, and you start to see the summit or the slope of it as you get a little bit closer. A lot of trees, a lot of vegetation, it changes quite a bit. All the volcanoes do. When I was climbing Kilimanjaro 24 years ago in 2001, it changed five different landscape settings. Here we are. I think this is the ninth station. And there's the bulldozer. It's basically a mini tank. In the front where they would usually push the stuff, they remove that and put in a cargo carrier. So there's cargo that's lifted up above. And then the bulldozer goes up really slowly up this trail. And I was in the back in this cargo hold. And I got to the summit by bulldozer cargo hold. And this is called cheating.

05:06 John Daub: So when I got to the summit, I wasn't like, Yay, I did it. I'm like, you know, I'm back here. Whatever. You got to earn it. The experience I showed this on Instagram. But inside of the bulldozer, it is bone jarring. It really shakes you so much that my SD card malfunctioned. So I have to try to save some of that footage when I get back. I just changed to another SD card. But see, this tenugui (Japanese hand towel) is also a purpose not just for fashion. There's a lot of dust that gets kicked up. So I use this around my face as well. And it can turn into a headband if you start sweating. This is very mystic with the clouds right behind me here, isn't it? They say a fool climbs Mount Fuji twice. And I almost failed my second climb last year. I severely underestimated Gotemba trail. Gotemba is hard. You take a step and you sink in. So you really need to have gators for Gotemba. Gators keep the stuff out of your boots.

06:07 John Daub: I ran out of battery pack on my Insta360. I have three batteries for my Insta360. I can charge it tonight. I hope they have power. So this is also a check because now that I can live stream here, I could probably download some YouTube stuff or Netflix so I can watch a little TV before I go to sleep perhaps. To go up by bulldozer you have to work here or you have to have a permit so it's not like something that anybody can do. What really is freaky because I just flew over this. I can pull up the image for you. I showed you there's some snow inside of there.

07:09 John Daub: Here's a vertical one, here's a wide one. Check this out, you can see the snow right, I just showed you that. I'm taking this from an airplane and here I am on the summit. I was taking pictures of the summit from an airplane just a couple of days ago. These clouds are passing through are the same clouds that go over the summit of Mount Fuji. It's pretty cool. I thought I had more but I'll be putting in the video I took a lot with the Insta360 in 8K, I have the new one. So you'll get a chance to see and the purpose of this episode is to show how Japan runs Mount Fuji, how Mount Fuji works and it's really interesting.

08:14 John Daub: There are businesses up here and they need to run. During the climbing season which is only about 40 days or so they need to get services up here, they need to change the sheets and stuff. So believe it or not they get the things, the bulldozers are running every day. For the post office the pickup for the mail is like every couple of days so they have to hold on to the mail until the next mail bulldozer. I don't know how exactly works, I'm going to ask them. I got an interview with the manager here coming up probably tomorrow but on the 10th in two days they're going to open up the post office and there's going to be a lot of people who want to buy the postcards.

09:04 John Daub: Now I brought up about 300 postcards from our Patreon supporters in the bulldozer. I was taking video of it and I'm gonna get it stamped by the post office and they're gonna give a special postmark. But it's a good thing to do if you're bringing this up to the summit with you. It's a good idea if you buy the stamp in advance at another post office and then write the address or have a label and then write your message. Do that all before you climb and then when you climb there's a post box which actually has not been installed yet. It came up on the bulldozer. You can see there's the post box they're going to put that in the ground in that cement hole on the right side. So you could bring it up on the Yoshida Trail. Don't, it won't be open until the 10th of July every year.

10:04 John Daub: But yeah, I'll put some of the postcards inside that post box but if you put the stamp and the address on there you can get to the summit take a picture putting the postcards in there and then send it back and then you'll eventually get that postcard sent to you in a couple of days. That's kind of cool. So I was able to send postcards. Patrick did you even give me your address? I would love to have sent you a postcard buddy. I'm sure I'm going to be sending postcards from weird places again. I sent it from the expo then had a very special expo stamp that they put on top of the stamp. It's kind of a fun thing to do. So I might take some of the postcards like up to the very north of Hokkaido and send them there or take the postcards down to like the southernmost tip of Okinawa and then send them from there. That's kind of like a fun way to do it and I put a QR code on it so you can see the video of it being sent. They said that I can film inside the post office since I got a permit to do it and I'll be able to make a small video for you guys to show it being stamped. Yeah I think that's kind of fun right.

11:31 John Daub: I'm going to pan around so you can see the crater. It's cool just bring some food or a bento sit here it's quiet unless there's a YouTuber talking too loudly. I think I'm talking at a reasonable amount. And you can walk around the entire thing I think it takes about an hour or so depending on how fast you go and the summit I believe is up there. I don't think I've actually ever been to the summit summit so I'm making a couple of episodes maybe one of the episodes will be going to the summit summit. What is that interesting to you? If you want to go to the summit in a live stream I can try to do that tomorrow which look at the steam the clouds going by it's cool.

12:20 John Daub: If that's something that's interesting to you we could try to do a live stream tomorrow and walk around the crater. I was supposed to stay on the Yoshida Trail on the seventh station which was a two-hour hike down and then it's a four-hour hike to get back up here like commuting because the Fujinomiya Trail is not open yet. But I was able to get a spot in this lodge because somebody cancelled and now I get to stay right next to the summit. So I want you to understand how much trouble I just saved myself. I'm going to be here for three nights and I was going to have to commute now I don't even have to leave the freaking summit. This is amazing because you hike up and you see so much stuff. I didn't see anything I feel like I really do feel like I cheated. It really does feel like I cheated. You do feel a sense of achievement by doing it. That's crater baby.

13:42 John Daub: Considering the prophecy this is perhaps not the safest place to be in the world but I really don't mind. Do you see it right now do you see here the snow and the discoloration and then on the video from the airplane you can see it at the summit too that's so cool. I saw this from the airplane five days ago and now I'm here it's too cool travel. I had to take the shinkansen yesterday. The hardest part of this trip was packing like what do you bring what don't you bring do you pack too much. I thought I was gonna have to hike a lot more than I am my bag's a little bit heavier. The Shimoda X40 is an amazing backpack for camera or videographers I can't feel the weight at all.

14:38 John Daub: The most recent eruption was 1707. It's been about 300 years but from the crater and that blew from the side of it. JKO Adventures is writing in here asking the questions good question uh they're not there. You have a Google Earth here that shows you that's the fifth station where we started. The bulldozer is on the left side and the climb up would be on the right side it's so easily marked you can't get lost just follow the crowds. That hump there you see it Hoeizan (eruption site) is where the last eruption took place it erupted out of the side and then it kind of destroyed that beautiful perfect cylindrical look. So you can tell because a lot of the ukiyo-e woodblock prints look like a beautiful cone, but that cone, on the one side you don't see it, but if you're looking from like Numazu, you see that hump right there, and it kind of ruins it. You can also see one side gets a lot more cold air and wind and snow than the other. I think the north side gets a lot less, which is funny. This might be the southeast side.

16:08 John Daub: If anyone was wondering, I went with the gray-blue. Team Lava lost, and I'm happy with my choice because I don't really have to leave the summit. That should be an episode. I lived on Mount Fuji's summit for four days. I got to eat two meals a day at my mountain hut. And again, I'm sure somebody will be watching this and come and say hi. Then I got to eat lunch. I learned a lot about my cameras as well. That Insta360 X4 is really good, and I'm finding myself using that over my Sony a7S III. And my Alpha 1, which I don't bring anymore, the X4 is just so good. And I don't really need to blur the background. It's all about the story. You don't need background blur everything. Oh, look, I got a prime lens. Look at me. I'm a YouTuber. You don't need to do that anymore. It's more impressive. You use certain shots when you need to stand out, but for the most part, you want to just have a really good story.

17:39 John Daub: You can hold a 360 camera. You can reframe the shot. You can get super wide. You can get really close in. I'm super impressed. And so far, it didn't malfunction, but the Sony camera malfunctioned. The other camera malfunctioned. Here it is right here. This is the X4, which I got. And the audio is pretty good. You want to get a cover for it because it's easy to scratch it, but not too bad. I forgot the replacement lens, so if I do scratch it, I'm screwed. Just be careful. It's not too windy. The wind just picked up, so that's probably why.

18:20 John Daub: Any questions about climbing Mount Fuji? I bring sandals with me because it's a quality of life thing, and you can see how rocky it is. You definitely don't want to walk around barefoot. It's a good idea, if you haven't already, to break in your hiking boots. Wear them around for a while before you go hiking. The worst thing you want to do is to get brand new hiking boots and then go on a hike like Mount Fuji. Japanese news is laughing at foreigners because some of them are coming in tank tops, shorts, and sandals. Like they just got out of the bathtub, and they plan on hiking. The fifth station is pretty warm, okay? Humidity is lower, but it's pretty warm. When I arrived here this morning, I needed a jacket. Tonight, I've got a down jacket I'm going to be wearing in July. It's going to be like 90 degrees down in Tokyo, maybe 35, 38 degrees Celsius or something. There's still snow up here, all right? There's still snow. You see there's a spot right there, and there's a couple of all-year snow in the crater. It is cold.

19:54 John Daub: And you will have a headache. People get altitude sickness all the time, and you have to be helped down. They don't bring helicopters up here anymore. According to the news, you go up, you go down the way you came up. If you get hurt, break a leg or something, you might be shuttled to the doctors. There's one or two doctors' offices, I think. A couple of doctors on the mountain. But you'll be shuttled down on the bulldozer. It means they're going to carry you to the nearest bulldozer extraction point, and you'll be carried down by bulldozer, and that is not a comfortable ride. So go slow. Be careful. Don't try to be a hero. If you've got a heavy load, just make sure you remember that as you climb over the rocks and stuff. It's a lot harder to navigate. The weather here changes so fast. And it's actually quite cold right now without the sun. Ooh, it's bitterly cold. The temperature dropped about 15 degrees.

21:10 John Daub: I do feel like I'm a member of the post office. I'm really glad that I came to do this. And I go back to the U.S. on Saturday. Yeah, I've been hiking at 12,000 feet. It was hard to breathe. Somebody said breathe in through your nose deeply, then out through your mouth. Do that a few times, and then just sit and relax, and you'll acclimatize. Your body will adjust. But I didn't have to hike up here. I came by bulldozer, so I think I'll be okay acclimatizing. Here's the bulldozer. That's the ride I came in. We stopped a couple of times. This is the 8th station, yeah, I think so. We had some bulldozers that were coming in. We were delivering. We delivered some goods for repairs for one of the stations. So there's some wood on the roof of the bulldozer, so they used the whole bulldozer. The inside of it was full of stuff, as well as people and the cargo hold, and then they used the roof to carry timber to repair some of the trails or some of the huts here.

22:34 John Daub: Some of the people that are working at the mountain huts can come up by bulldozer. So you see a guitar, that's probably one of the people who are working at the mountain huts. The staff come up here, they get the supplies, they come up by the bulldozer. The bulldozers are constantly running. There's more than one. I thought there was only one. There's like five or six or more that are running and there's different courses too. We had a bulldozer behind us and then we did a switchback, a turnaround going to the left and that bulldozer did a switchback but he went to the right. So there's an established network of chaotic trails which is just crazy. I saw a guy who broke his ankle descending down on Fuji and he got a horse ride back down. That could be, if he's up to the 7th station, you can do that. This is not a place where you want to get injured at the summit of Mount Fuji.

23:40 John Daub: Scotty is here. I can't believe I caught a live feed. It's been a while. Welcome. It's nice to see you here. Yeah, we are live. They're doing some repairs at the hut here. Again, this is my accommodation for the night. This is the post office on the summit. I'll be sleeping on the summit for three nights. I was going to have to go down to the 7th station but I swung it where they had a camp. I talked to the owner and I said, I'm going to be filming with the post office, the post office manager. He was there and they were joking around and I said, yeah, I have to go all the way down to Tomoe-kan. You know, I love it, it's a nice place, but I can go all the way down to Tomoe-kan. And he goes, you know, you could stay here. I'm like, sold. It's a little bit more, but you'll notice the price of the drinks go up like 300 yen, 400 yen, 500 yen. So I get to not walk, but also have to pay an extra 200 to 300 yen for drinks and dinner. But I ain't going to walk. You know what? That's a good, I'm okay with that.

24:37 John Daub: I don't really have to do it, but I promised myself this. I'm going to climb down on the 10th. So I'm going to be going down and then I'll be filming another episode about Mount Fuji for the main channel. So I should get two or maybe three episodes out of this. Be really careful. This is no joke. I've seen a lot of tourists, they start off at the fifth station and it looks like a joke to them. This is no joke. You get altitude sickness after 3000 meters. My head really hurts right now, but I'm taking it easy. So I'm going to be able to acclimatize. But I felt drunk, like lightheaded, you know, but I noticed that over time, as long as I sit and not move around too much, that's why I'm not trying to get to the summit. I'll acclimatize and the headache isn't so bad. I'm also drinking a lot of water. I came up with about three liters of water.

25:41 John Daub: I'll tell you what, when we get to the fifth station, or maybe tomorrow, I'll show you my bag. How I packed for Mount Fuji. I think that might be an interesting live stream and that might help you plan. I can talk about that with some Q and A. So if you're thinking about climbing Mount Fuji, this could be your definitive guide. How much water should you bring up? How should you dress? Should you bring a down jacket? Which trail is the best trail to come up? Which lodge is good? How much food should you bring? There's lots of questions. I really do have some answers.

26:32 John Daub: That's it from the summit here. I'm going to try to take you around just a little bit before I put on my boots. And then I'll see you in a minute. I'm taking it real slow. So I was hiking just a little bit around the post office. I haven't left this area too much because I'm lightheaded. My mother wants a Mount Fuji rock. She said, bring me a rock. I said, I don't know. I'm going to have to ask the shrine if that's okay, because this is a sacred rock. I mean, you could probably just put it in your pocket, but you have to be very mindful of the environment and what's around you. I don't want to mess around with the gods here. There's a higher power on Mount Fuji. These rocks are sacred. I don't know if you'd want to take it, but some people do.

27:54 John Daub: It's because this trail does not officially open until the 10th. So about 36 hours away, maybe 9:00 AM people will come up, but people are walking around now on the Yoshida Trail and those that stay up and everyone comes through the sunrise and then they leave. So if you follow the herd, you're going to have a more crowded experience. If you do it like off peak and you decide that you don't care so much about the sunrise, it's slightly overrated. You can have this place almost all to yourself in the afternoon, like at this time, but be mindful that it takes about three hours to get back down to the fifth station and make sure that there are still buses to take you back to the station. But if you time it right, you can have a Mount Fuji all to yourself. You can bring a bento, have your lunch, really chillax.

28:51 John Daub: For me, Mount Fuji, this is officially my third time climbing Mount Fuji and it'll be my last time unless Leo says Dada. And he probably wouldn't say that when he can do it. He goes, Dad, I want to go climb Mount Fuji. Then I probably will do it. Guy, no drones. Please don't bring a drone. This is a national park. There are no drones in national parks unless you have a permit. And they ain't going to give you a permit unless you have something special. You're not going to get a permit here. So don't bring your drone. You're going to get fined. You're going to get in a lot of trouble. There are rangers that are also patrolling the Yoshida and they will be there from the 10th. You've been warned. In fact, the moment you come to Tokyo at Haneda Airport or Narita Airport, they have signs that say no drones. Basically you can't really fly it in the cities. You have to register your drone and then you have to follow the rules. But this is a national park and it's a no fly zone.

30:24 John Daub: I wish I could fly a drone, but alas, I have a three meter Insta360 selfie stick and that kind of looks like a drone. So I'm going to be up and above all the heads with that thing. Current temperature in Tokyo is 35 degrees Celsius. It feels like about maybe 14 degrees Celsius with the sun and about freezing without the sun. When the sun goes down, it gets really cold. I would recommend a down jacket. Uniqlo has those ultra lights. That's what I brought with me. It doesn't take up much space in my bag. I can't check into the lodge until I guess 4 or 5 o'clock. I'm going to eat dinner and I'm going to bed like at 8. I feel like I'm 80 years old and wake up at 4 for the sunrise. Might as well. I don't got to go too far for it. Tomorrow the Fujinomiya Trail is not open. This will be the last day that the trail will be empty. I'll be able to watch the sunrise from here without a lot of people. It might be pretty cool to live stream that. I don't know. I'll think about it. We'll see what happens.

31:48 John Daub: Alright guys, there you go. I could talk all day but I better preserve my energy. We'll see if we can go up there tomorrow. Go check out the crater. If you want more information, you just can't get enough of the live stream here. You can go check it out at Google Earth. They did a pretty good job of scanning this and see every single rock. Then you can go around this virtually like I am right now. It's pretty cool. An ant just bit my toe. Sometimes it's not always good to have... How did it get through my self-defense force socks? Something bit me. This is self-defense force socks. You're not supposed to be able to get through them. Anyways, it's good out here. Take care. I'll see you in another live stream tomorrow to share with you this Fuji experience. You know, I like this channel. It's different from my main channel. But after you've seen the live stream, you see the main episode, it's like you've been here. Matane. It's my home. Four more days.