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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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At about 2,400 m, Fujinomiya is the highest of Fuji’s 4 road-accessible 5th Stations. The summit is about 4.3 km away—the shortest route up, but a steep one.
The huge Hōei crater above the station was carved by Fuji’s 1707 eruption. It lasted 16 days, sent ash as far as Edo (today’s Tokyo), and left this dramatic scar on the mountainside.
On the older Fujinomiya route, today’s 5th Station stood at the 3rd-and-a-half station. As car roads climbed higher, their endpoints were reset as new 5th Stations.
The tiny wild berry kokemomo grows near this station, and Fujinomiya confectioner Fujitaro makes it into “Fuji no kokemomo.” Because the plant grows in a protected area, local partners have worked on cultivation.
In 1860, British envoy Rutherford Alcock became the first foreigner on record to climb Fuji, using the old Omiya–Murayama route. A popular print blamed an angry tengu for stopping him—but he reached the summit.
The historic south-side pilgrimage began at Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha and passed Murayama, a center for Shugendō mountain ascetics. The UNESCO-listed old trail continues above this station, from the 6th station to the summit.
Every 12 years, members of Iwabuchi’s Torii-ko climb the Fujinomiya trail to dedicate a whitewood torii at the summit shrine. The tradition gives thanks for Fuji timber once used to build their Fuji River ferry boats.
At roughly 2,400 m, the station sits near Fuji’s forest limit. Conifers and larch give way to a spare volcanic highland, where mosses, grasses and low shrubs manage to grow on exposed ground.
