I wanted one more big effort this year and this has been in the back of my mind for a few years now. I went self-supported just by nature of this being a solo trip. Having done it, supported could save someone a lot of time as you'd never need to carry more than a one bottle aside from the summit section. The day before I stashed 3 bags with gear and bottles along the route to make for 6 refill spots (3000 ft, 5400 ft, 7800 ft). Each of these contained a few bottles of Maurten, a couple plain water bottles, and the lower one held trail shoes, poles, a brighter headlamp, and two extra shirts. The highest one had a long sleeve, gloves, and a beanie in it as well. It rained ~3" the 24 hours before I started and the storm end was delayed such that I started in heavy rain that continued until I climbed high enough to be in the cloud/fog. Saw footprints once I hit the Fujinomiya trail and then met two hikers at the 8th station on their way up, only pedestrians I saw all day. Pretty unpleasant conditions all the way up (rain to fog to wind with blowing fog above treeline) that finally right as I hit the crater rim. Did two clothing swaps and summited wearing all my rain gear and thicker gloves for warmth. Then the clouds burned off quite quickly and remarkably the rock on the trail dried off such that I opted to take the steep way down rather than the bulldozer road. I feel like a I nailed the descent all the way down back to the road at ~3300 feet; dropped about 5400 feet in the first hour off the summit and 4600 feet in the second hour. Once I changed back to road shoes for the last 10 miles to the sea I came a bit unglued through. Part fatigue, part the bottle of water I grabbed instead of Maurten at my last back, I ended up shuffling it in and not feeling much at all bothered each time the little red man stopped me for a few more minutes at a crosswalk.
In my opinion, a great route. Yes there's 10-11 miles of pavement each way, but overall the route is so clean--3.5 miles flat then uphill more or less along the same fault line all the way to over 12,000'. You go from road to dense forest to steep volcanic terrain in a matter of hours. I believe the trail has had substantial work since Tyler ran, as he went quite a bit off-trail in a couple spots and apparently followed stream beds for some sections whereas I found the full thing to be ribboned. The ground was so saturated too that it would begin to feel spongy underfoot if I drifted off trail. I did have to mind that I didn't stray, but I could always spot the next ribbon if I took a second to scan. I never saw Simon's file so I'm not sure what he did.