Gotemba New 5th Station was added to Your Favorites!
Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
In the early Showa era, iron sleds carried downhill visitors along Gotemba’s Big Sand Run; at its peak, 15–20 operators offered rides. The popular horse-drawn version was stopped in 1931 as dangerous.
The Big Sand Run’s “sand” is volcanic ash and gravel from Fuji’s 1707 Hoei eruption. On the descent toward this station, feet sink ankle-deep and a single stride can carry a climber more than 3 m.
Each summer, this trailhead is a relay handoff in a race from Gotemba to Fuji’s summit and back: 11 legs cover 48.19 km and 3,199 m of elevation difference. Runners pass here on both the climb and descent.
At 2,050 m, Gotemba’s 1883 trail joins the older Suyama pilgrimage route. The path above that junction is part of Fuji’s World Heritage property—a much older sacred road hidden inside today’s route.
Futatsuzuka, Fuji’s twin side-volcanoes, stand about an hour’s walk from Taro-bo. Their 1,800 m and 1,900 m cones are thought to have erupted together from one fissure roughly 2,000 years ago.
A small cutbank beside Taro-bo parking has revealed roughly 10,000 years of Fuji’s eruptions: about 30 deposits lie below the 1707 Hoei layer, whose scoria is more than 5 m thick.
The Fujiazami, or Fuji thistle, bears flower heads 5–6 times larger than lowland thistles. Look for its bowed purple blooms among the black volcanic gravel near the Gotemba trail, from late July into August.
At 1,440 m, this is Fuji’s lowest 5th Station; the summit still rises about 2,300 m above it. The approach is also the mountain’s longest standard trail: 10.5 km uphill from this starting point.
Taro-bo, the name for the trailhead area, is said to come from Tarobo Gongen, a great tengu believed to dwell on Fuji. The mountain’s legendary resident gave this volcanic landscape its local name.
Since its 2013 pilot, the seasonal Trail Station has served as a locally run classroom for climbing safety and nature. Returning climbers who answer its survey can receive a personalized summit certificate.
That apparently wild parking edge has a human twist: a local survey recorded 186 plant species around Gotemba New 5th Station, but 120 were non-native. Native ash-field plants are better seen uphill near Oishi Chaya.
The trail to this station once began with a walk from Old Gotemba. After the Tokaido railway reached Gotemba in 1889, climbers’ starting point shifted to Niihashi Sengen Shrine near the station.
