U.S. Marines and Sailors assigned to Combined Arms Training Center scale Mount Fuji, Shizuoka, Japan, July 19, 2019. CATC personnel summited the mountain to enhance unit-wide morale and provide an opportunity for them to appreciate one of Japan’s natural wonders. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Sarah Marshall)

Transcript

It’s not easy at all. It’s a great challenging experience. It’s one of those bucket list, once in a lifetime things that you really regret if you don’t do it.

First I’m hiking Mount Fuji. It’s an amazing experience. I wouldn’t change it for anything.

This is a very challenging hike. It’s a lot of people think that they’re gonna hike Mount Fuji just like it’s any other hike. It’s really not, it’s a climb. The mountain is 12,500 feet high. And as we’re above the Marine precinct today, the weather changes very dramatically on that mountain. It can be nice and sunny at one part, and it can be windy and rainy and cold at another. So all the main hikes start at Station 5, and a lot of the Marines will have to include these sticks, and we’ll be completely clean at that point. As we start hiking up the mountain, there’s different huts. And at each one of those huts, Marines can pay to have a brand applied to their stick.

[Woman] It does bring a sense of pride because we hike with our stick because it helps us up. The way it leave the way behind. And you know regardless we stick together. We help each other through it always.