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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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In 1895, Itaru Nonaka and his wife Chiyoko tried to observe Fuji’s winter weather from a tiny 6-tsubo (about 20 m²) hut on Kengamine. Illness forced them down after 82 days.
Pilgrims once cast coins into Fuji’s crater: in 1609, Tokugawa Ieyasu gave Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha first claim to them. After the Meiji government nationalized the summit land, a 1974 Supreme Court ruling favored the shrine; the land was returned in 2004.
The 1959 Isewan Typhoon helped spur a radar dome on Kengamine to spot Pacific storms early. It began full operation in 1965 and closed in 1999; the original dome is now displayed at the Radar Dome Museum in Fujiyoshida.
The summit crater circuit was once an act of worship: pilgrims imagined its peaks as a Buddhist mandala, prayed at small shrines below Kengamine, and drew water from summit wells called Kinmeisui and Ginmeisui.
Kengamine’s name has a sumo connection: Japan’s transport ministry links it to the outer edge of a sumo ring. The peak also marks the highest point on Fuji’s caldera rim.
Since 2007, researchers have used the old summit observatory for summer atmospheric studies. Kengamine’s high, isolated site helps them measure background air and investigate pollution transported from Asia.
Fuji’s survey marker sits below Kengamine’s highest rock. Under Japan’s 2025 satellite-based height system, GSI lists the triangulation point at 3,775.56 m—5 cm above its former value—while the summit still rounds to 3,776 m.
