In seven years living in Japan, this may be the most amazing thing I've seen yet.

It's not just hyperbole, get ready to experience Japan at it's finest on this episode of Life in Japan.

Yeah! Yahoo!

All right! Let's do this! Let's do this.

[Life in Japan Theme Song]

We've come out near Lake Kawaguchi to climb a nearby mountain peak at the height of fall.

Lake Kawaguchi is one of 5 main lakes around Mt Fuji, famous for its' fall colors and views.

Look at this!

Fall colors galore.

We waited for the best weather, and we sure got it.

There it is, our peak right in front of us, huh?

We were super excited to hike, but had no idea how awesome it really was going to be.

Oh that's nice!

We've got some nice little walkways here. Yes, they do. This is awesome here.

I've never been over here. Kawaguchiko, I'm your fan.

Enjoy it while you can.

It's gonna be off this way. Oh, yeah.

In researching for this trip, we found an ideal parking lot on the other side of the mountain,

and from there we would hike a 10k loop, up to the main ridge facing Mt Fuji,

climbing to Kurodake, the tallest peak along the ridge,

and then swinging back around to a peak that promised 360 degree views of the whole area.

Look at that! Oh yes.

Oh dude, look at that helicopter. A helicopter up here. What?!

That would be a cool place to take off and then you go and see Mt Fuji on the other side of this mountain.

Here we are. We made it to the parking lot.

Yes! It is a beautiful [day].

Oh dude, let's just drive to the top. Ha, yeah. What is that?

There it is.

Alright, so we are parked at the top at that red place.

And so the peak we can go right to the top and then we come back down the left side.

And down that red trail. Right?

Yeah.

Well we've hit our trail head here and we're about to take off and it's chilly.

It's only a couple degrees out so, we're ready for this though.

I think we are at the middle peak. Yeah.

Look at that path, it just beckons! It says "Common, let's go!"

Well, we've started and is it ever just perfect, gorgeous.

And the toilet. That is important.

So John, what time do we got here? What's the plan?

Yeah, we got going a little after 8:30, now we're gonna head up. The first peak we're gonna get to is Kurodake.

Oh yeah.

Beautiful views of Fuji looking over Lake Kawaguchi.

Oh yeah. Let's do it! There's the trail.

So we had a bit of a detour here because the path we were going to take had all kinds of signs on it.

Yeah, earthquake recently so there was a land slide.

Yeah, so look out

Proceed at your own risk, it's dangerous so we were like, ah, I think we'll just take the street.

Look at that.

We've reached the top of the road, only to find there's a parking lot here. We could have parked here!

Look at this. This is going to be awesome.

There's the peak we are going to head over to.

But, we gotta climb up here. We're going to get an awesome view in just a moment.

We're reaching the ridge.

What?! Look at that!

What in the world!

Holy cow. How awesome is that.

Oh man. How about this?

God's country up here. This is God's country here.

The lake is gorgeous.

Right down there, that's where we drove up before we went in the tunnel.

And this is totally doable with the kids. It was right on that...

This right here, yeah. It wasn't dangerous.

That's the bridge we went over.

Oh yeah, and up there you can see Yamanakako where we like to go

That mountain right there, that's called Mt Fuji.

The fall colors.

Yes.

This is just awesome. We've got another couple views, we're going to go to, is it Kitadake?

No, before that its Kurodake, for some great view there.

Then we are going to swing back around to Kitadake. No, no, no.

First we are going to Kurodake, then Shakagadake

So, we've made it to the top here then we are going to Kitadake.

Ok, so we're up here with this amazing view. We are going to continue to hike up the ridge to. . .

Kurodake!

Then after Kurodake, its.. Shakagadake.

Wow. I tried saying it a couple times and was like, forget it.

Wide angle.

If we just had some Starbucks and some wifi up here.. Hahaha.

Put a Starbucks here and it will make a killin'.

There it is. 1.8 km to Mt. Kurodake.

Dude, let me tell you what. The wind is sure different on the ridge, huh?

I'm about ready to put gloves back on. And maybe the hat.

Let me tell you what. This ridge is windy and it's chilly.

I might need to put a hat back on and some gloves back on.

It sure is beautiful.

Perfect fall colors right now.

We're out enjoying some beautiful fall views.

In a little place near Mt Fuji.

This is just absolutely beautiful. You couldn't ask for a better fall day here.

Beautiful fall colors. It's chilly, but perfect.

When you're on the trail you get to just have awesome conversations with the guys.

Can look at the awesome scenery as you go. Its just super special. It's really cool.

There's the trail guys that we almost came up, and someone's coming up it!

There's the sign we saw

The river was washed out. There's a little bit of a dangerous spot.

We probably would have been ok, but we didn't know, so.

So we took a detour but... The detour gave us some amazing views of Fuji.

So yeah. It was well worth it.

We have wife and kids at home, so.. That's right. We don't need Kurobe part 2 here.

Look at this. There you go Ben.

Its a walking stick. Yeah, really huh?

John, are you going to pull your pants back up now you think, or?

It's a little chilly, huh?

I had to zip up the chest hair though.

The man factor went down a little bit, but hey, staying warm now.

Awe dude. Sorry, as I jump in front of your view.

The wind was fierce on the ridge making us glad we brought our warm clothes.

But the views kept getting better and better.

In fact, the views we were about to get would be even more epic as we pushed to the summit of Kurodake.

That right there is the top of Kurodake. I think so.

Yes! And I think we are going to have an awesome view up there.

I just gotta ganbaremasu a little more.

A little more. Ganbate.

Oh! Hallelujah-gozaimasu!

We made it!

Well, there's a place to launch the drone here.

We've reached the summit of Kurodake.

And, what time is it? 10:42?

And now we are going to go, grab a bite to eat, and early lunch/snack and look out at Fuji.

Maybe fly the drone a little bit before heading on the trail.

Oh, here we go.

Common now.

Beautiful.

Wow. Wonderful.

I only brought 2 bottles of water. What???

Man, this is like a gorgeous view man.

This is awesome.

Gotta do a selfie. Yeah, this is the selfie location man.

Those are the southern alps way over there. You see they have a little snow on them too.

There's the whole ridge we hiked up there.

Looking over to Fuji and on down, wow.

Time for the giant lunch I brought up.

The detour gave us beautiful views, but also set us back about an hour in our hike.

It was time for us to decide if we could still do the rest of the planned hike or not.

Thirty? So I don't think we'll have any problem getting back to the car by 3:00 or, even if we took our time, 4:00.

Rock and roll.

4:00. But then we'd be home by 6:00.

So we had an awesome lunch here and I got to fly the drone and now we are going to Shatagadake. Did I get it?

Yeah? Shakagatake.

Ok we had a great lunch and now we are going to go to Shakada...hahahah.

ShakaGA.. Here, you guys say it.

Shakagatake. We are going to Shakagatake.

It's the behind the scenes, bro. That's right.

Shatagadake.

No, did I say it wrong again? yeah.

Shakagatake.

Yeah, its this way. That's the way we are going.

Trying to figure out. Yeah, that's where we are going.

Wow. That washed out sign.

Another change for me to mess it up. I mean, get it right.

As if this helps.

Yeah really. Oh yeah, well seeing that I know exactly how to say it.

Oh, that's how.

Our decision to push on and do the rest of the hike turned out to be a great one,

for even though we thought we had seen the greatest views, the best was yet to come.

The path there would not be easy though, especially after already hiking so much with all the weight in my backpack.

Doesn't help that I slightly overpacked.

I have enough food for probably 3 days in here.

Enough water for 2 days.

And enough cameras here to last the rest of the week.

Feeling good?

Oh yeah. Actually it's pretty flat.

How are those legs after that long descent? It felt good going down. Mine are shaking a little bit.

You're shaking? After all the downhill, yeah.

Yeah, me too. My legs are like, whoa. Not used to that.

We are looking back to what we did and it is, it almost looks like a wall from this angle. Just straight down.