Last month while I was in California, my dear friend Molly visited me from New York.  Molly and I have been friends since our freshman year of college, when we were young and could drink pitcher upon pitcher of margaritas with no ill effect.

Well, we’re not young anymore.  She’s a grown up lawyer in Manhattan, and I’m a grown up with, like, a husband and kid.  Molly and I still haven’t fully accepted our adulthood status yet, but it’s getting harder and harder to deny.  This last visit, we devised a little game.  “Do you know how I know I’m getting old?  [Insert depressing evidence here]”.

I thought I could translate this game into my blog.  So here you go, my first “How I’m Know I’m Old” post:  Mount Fuji.

Ever since we learned we would be stationed in Japan, Damon has talked about hiking Mount Fuji.  I said I would hike it with him, not because I’m a hiking enthusiast, but because every few years I have to do things like this to prove to Damon that I still love him.

Anyway.  Fuji-San is only open for hiking two months out of the year, and Damon and I had a slim window to take advantage of climbing season.  He returned home the end of August on a Thursday and we left for a vacation trip to Singapore the following Monday.  Once Damon was home and settled, we scrambled to prep for the climb.  (Scrambling includes realizing at 7PM the night before your 4AM wake-up that your hiking boots have gone missing.  Way to be prepared, Diana!)

This experience was a lesson in expectation management.  I knew it would be challenging to a degree – I mean, you are climbing up a mountain – but I figured, “I’m fairly athletic, I can handle this.”  (Not to mention all the children and little old ladies that complete this hike.)  In my head, I thought it would be a long but scenic stroll up the mountain.  Gradual inclines that would plateau into picturesque viewing points.  Warm and sunny at the bottom, chilly at top, but bright and beautiful.

HA!  As if.

This was pretty much vertical climbing all the way to the top.  Rocky stretches where I could barely find my footing.  Powerful gusts of winds that I was convinced would knock me off the mountain.  And close to the top, when we got into the clouds, sleet and rain and cold.  I am still in disbelief at how children and little old ladies do this (in the dark no less – some people hike at night!), and I blame them for my complete misconceptions about this climb.  Damn you children and little old ladies!

There are also stations along the hike where you can stop and rest, use the bathroom, and get stamps on a souvenir walking stick to commemorate your climb.  You start the hike at Station 5.  Station 9 is the final station before the summit.  But here’s the thing: there are several of each station.  So once you reach Station 8, you might think, “Yes!  I’m almost there!”  Except not.  Because there are around three Stations 8s.  And a Station 81/2.  What mind games!

As for the mountain beauty and views?  Well, the clouds obstructed any view, and after a certain point there is no beauty BECAUSE LIFE CANNOT SURVIVE AT THAT ALTITUDE!   It’s rock.  Lava rock.  I left that out, didn’t I?  Mount Fuji is an active volcano.  So I was wheezing up the side of a mountain, freezing and wet, worried that I was going to break my ankle, and oh yeah, that the volcano might erupt and kill us all.  (Damon said we would have plenty of warning about any impending eruption, but I don’t think he’s ever seen Volcano or Dante’s Peak.)  It was not the most pleasant of times.

But we killed it.  Totally crushed it.  (FYI – for those even older than I – “killing it” and “crushing it” are good things.)  Average climbing time to the top is 5-6 hours.  Damon and I reached the summit in under 4.  Yeah, baby!  And we totally could have done it faster, except the last couple hundred meters of the climb, the path narrows and becomes congested with hikers.  Hikers that stop every few feet to, I don’t know, try to breathe or something.  I found this hugely annoying and frustrating – you don’t stop right before the end!  Sprint finish, people!  But then, I am impatient, and I suppose a little mean.

After the first hour of hiking when I realized this was not going to be the scenic stroll I had envisioned, I got competitive.  The faster I got to the top, the faster I’d be put out of my misery, so I pushed it.  “Shuffle step!” Damon would yell, urging me to shorten my stride to preserve energy.  Soon Damon and I were shuffle-stepping past hiker after hiker.  One woman even said to me as I passed her, “Where did you get all that energy?  Can I have some?”

I turned to Damon.  “Did you hear that?” I asked smugly.  “I have energy.”  While rehydrating at station 7 3/4 or something, I said to Damon, “Don’t get me wrong.  I’m winded and tired.  But we are kicking butt.”

“Yea we are!” he responded enthusiastically.  And then we fist-bumped, probably because our perceived success coupled with lack of oxygen turned us into complete tools.  Then it was a game:  How fast can we reach the top without succumbing to hypoxia?  3 Hours and 57 minutes, it turns out.

It took around 40 minutes and a hot bowl of ramen at the summit before I was willing to venture back out into the rain and tackle the downhill.  But Damon and I were both anxious to get back to Elisabeth (we had never left her so long with a non-family member), and I was anxious to not be freezing.  (Gloves.  If you hike Mt. Fuji, bring gloves.  And a freaking weatherproof jacket.)

I clutched onto Damon the entire downhill hike, as not to slip and fall down/off the mountain.  (Despite losing my hiking boots, a friend graciously let me borrow hers, which also played a part in saving me from such an embarrassing/painful fate.)  We hustled down in 2 hours and 20 minutes, meaning we did the whole climb in under 7 hours.

So here Damon and I are thinking we’re all bad-ass and awesome for finishing the hike at a slightly-faster-than-average pace – and heck, we didn’t even get blisters! But then I go home and get in the shower.  And my hip pops.  And pops again.  And has continued to pop at random times for the past week-and-a-half ever since finishing that damn hike.

And that’s how I know I’m old*.

*I know I’m not actually old, in terms of years.  Far from it.  But  I’m pretty sure that my body breaking down on me after a silly little hike suggests I’m practically geriatric.