The Japanese refer to her as “Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration”.  It’s a 2-hr drive from Tokyo.  She is shedding her winter snows – the runoff creeks and lakes & ponds are rapidly filling. I got up to the 5th station (drove, eh ) where there was still some snow.

Visiting Mount Fuji is like a dream. Here is a video of an Ozzie making the dream come true.

From Wikipedia:

The fifth station of Mount Fuji is located at an altitude of over 2000m. The temperature drops by about 0.6 degrees for every 100m increase in altitude, so the fifth station is about 12 degrees cooler than the plains. For example, the average temperature at the fifth station in summer is 15C.

Yep, it was chilly up there.  It’s the starting point for people planning to climb to the peak 5km away.  It’s a very popular trek and supposedly a 104 yr old did it – he probably just looked 104.

Also from Wiki:

Approximately 200,000 to 300,000 people climb Mount Fuji each year during the official climbing season (July to August). The number of climbers peaked at around 235,000 in 2019, and in 2023, the total number of climbers was over 221,000. Due to the short climbing season, this translates to more than 3,000 climbers ascending the mountain each day.

It’s a very majestic  volcano that last erupted in 1707. It is considered “dormant” because it could erupt sometime in the future.