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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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About 200,000 tonnes of water flow from Wakutamaike into the Kanda River each day. Rain and snowmelt filter through the roughly 10,000-year-old Ōmiya lava flow before emerging here; the spring stays a cool 12–13°C year-round.
For centuries, Fuji pilgrims purified themselves in Wakutamaike before climbing and chanted Rokkon shōjō, “purity of the six senses.” The shrine’s treasured Fuji Mandala painting shows pilgrims performing the rite.
Fujinomiya’s Gojinka Festival began in 1979 with a sacred flame brought from Fuji’s summit and extinguished using Wakutamaike water. By 1984, its lively finale had become fire-lit mikoshi surging up the nearby Kanda River.
A local tradition says poet Taira no Kanemori saw the bubbling spring in 979 and praised the “jewels” welling up beneath Asama’s Mitarashi stream. The image of water sparkling like pearls also inspired the name Wakutamaike.
The shrine’s position beside Wakutamaike is thought to reflect a belief that water could calm Fuji’s eruptions—a striking pairing of the mountain’s feared fire and the life-giving spring at its foot.
Local legend says a dragon deity travels upriver from Ryūganbuchi via the Urui and Kanda rivers to worship at the shrine. If the river stirs on a summer day, the story says, the dragon is passing—and people should stay out of the water.
Wakutamaike and the Kanda River were named among Japan’s “Heisei 100 Famous Waters” in 2008. Local people help keep them clear: about 450 joined the 2024 cleanup, removing invasive plants to protect the stream-loving baika-mo.
In 1984, the pond’s water was only 15 cm deep; by 1986, stones normally hidden at the shallows were exposed. A local history records how dramatically the spring’s level can respond to dry or rainy years.
