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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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Fuji usually absorbs meltwater underground, so permanent waterfalls are rare. For a few weeks around May to mid-June, snowmelt escapes over a lava break near Subashiri 5th Station, creating the aptly named Phantom Falls.
At the 2 lodges beside the trailhead, mushrooms star in soba, pasta and rice porridge—and visitors are often offered mushroom tea. The forest’s variety of mushrooms has become Subashiri’s signature mountain-lodge flavor.
Kofuji is not simply a lookout hill: it is a small side volcano on Fuji’s flank. A short walk from the station reaches its 1,979-meter gravel summit, where the forest opens to views of Fuji, Lake Yamanaka and Hakone.
The wider Subashiri area—not this high station—hosted Japan’s first bird-watching gathering in 1934. A memorial to the pioneering outing stands on the road leading toward the Subashiri trail.
At the 7th Station—not here at the 5th—a Buddhist hanging mirror engraved with the date 1384 was unearthed, the oldest known dated offering to Fuji. A chronicle also records pilgrims gathering on the Subashiri route by 1500.
When women were barred from climbing Fuji, the former 4th-station Muro Sengen Shrine was a place to worship and gaze toward the summit. That shrine has since been joined to Komitake Shrine at today’s 5th Station.
Several shrines once scattered below were moved and joined at Komitake Shrine here in 1979. On August 17, a local rite also honors shrines higher on the mountain and prays for climbers’ safety.
Subashiri’s forest limit reaches higher than anywhere else on Fuji. Near the 5th-station parking area, local records list Japanese leaf warblers, red-flanked bluetails and goldcrests—just some of the birds found along this route.
The 1707 Hōei eruption buried the Subashiri village, shrine and trail in volcanic sand. They were rebuilt the next year, and by 1800 the revived pilgrimage route drew a reported 23,700 pilgrims in one auspicious year.
Subashiri’s current 5th Station was established in 1959, when the Fuji-azami Line reached about 1,970 meters. Creating this new road-end station also led to changes in the numbering of stations farther up the trail.
