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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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Below the seventh station, the descent becomes the “sunabashiri,” or sand run: loose volcanic gravel lets climbers slide down a roughly 700-meter drop. It even has its own descent path, separate from the route used to climb up.
A Buddhist votive mirror dated 1384 was unearthed beside the trail near the seventh station—the oldest dated offering found on Fuji. A chronicle from 1500 also records pilgrims gathering on this eastern route.
In 1800, a special “Goen” year in Fuji worship, a reported 23,700 pilgrims came to Subashiri. By then, sacred places between Edo and Fuji had been linked into a larger pilgrimage journey.
Subashiri’s village and shrine once held a share in the coins pilgrims tossed into Fuji’s summit crater. A dispute with Fujinomiya’s shrine went to the Tokugawa shogunate, which upheld Subashiri’s claim in both 1703 and 1772.
The 1707 Hōei eruption buried and devastated the trail, its shrine, and Subashiri village. With shogunate support, the route and community were restored by the following year, and pilgrims returned to Fuji.
Near the ninth station, a level patch called Hinomi Gozen was one of the places where pilgrims paused to worship the sunrise. The trail’s records preserve its name and its role as a place for dawn devotion.
Near the sixth station, the trail passes Otainai, a wind cave that drew Fuji worshippers and pilgrims. Its place in the route’s history shows that the climb included sacred stops as well as the journey toward the summit.
In 2023, representatives of the local community and mountain-hut association joined a festival at the trailhead shrine with shrines from the sixth and ninth stations. The rite included prayers for climbers’ safety and the area’s well-being.
Nearly 70 stone monuments line the approach to the shrine at the historic foot of the route. One commemorates a Fuji pilgrim who completed 899 ascents—a tally carved into the landscape of devotion.
White-flowered wild strawberry is described as the most abundant flower along the trail, with patches blooming from the fifth station to near the sixth. Its small white blossoms make a striking contrast with Fuji’s dark volcanic ground.
At about 2,800–3,000 meters, tiny iwahige shrubs cling to wind-battered lava cracks. They creep downward with scale-like leaves and produce small, bell-shaped white flowers—a delicate detail easy to overlook among the rocks.
