How to see Mount Fuji in a new light, from kayaking to wine-tasting

“If Fuji-san is wearing his hat,” says canoe guide Shinji Toizumi, as we paddle out across Lake Kawaguchi, “it means rain is on the way.” He points to the distant outline of Mount Fuji, silhouetted against the rose-pink sky. Sure enough, a disc of cloud is drifting around its summit. It’s so common, Toi says, it even has a name here: kasakumo, the umbrella cloud.

In his tinted shades, checked shirt and feather-fringed hat, Toi looks like Japan’s answer to Indiana Jones, and I’m inclined to trust his forecasting skills. He goes on to tell me that he used to be a florist, but his second passion has always been canoeing. We drift into the lee of a wooded island, where he sets out camping chairs and brews a pot of coffee. As the rising sun turns Fuji’s slopes red, we sip from enamel mugs, then paddle back to the mainland. True to Toi’s prediction, drizzle begins to fall. An hour later, the mountain has vanished from view.

Every year, around 220,000 people come to climb Mount Fuji, mostly packed into three hectic months between June and August when favourable weather conditions allow for summits. Thousands more come just to get a quick snap, take a selfie and hashtag the view. The mountain is a deeply sacred site in Japan. Since 2013, it’s been a UNESCO World Heritage Site — listed not just for its aesthetic beauty, but also its spiritual significance as the dwelling place of deities and nature spirits known as kami. However, in some places, the overcrowding has become so bad, councils have introduced climbing permits and erected barriers to stop sightseers from blocking traffic.

So I’ve come north to Yamanashi Prefecture, on Fuji’s northern flanks, to find a more tranquil side to Japan’s holy mountain. Specifically, I’m in the Fuji Five Lakes, two hours’ drive from Tokyo, an area popular with city-dwellers in search of nature. “Glamping is very trendy in Japan,” says Keiji Sato, who’s travelled up from Tokyo for a weekend under canvas with her boyfriend. “It’s good to spend time outside and escape the noise of the city.” Sheltered from the drizzle by pine trees, I’ve spent the afternoon trying archery, chopping firewood, balancing on a slack-line and boiling myself in a barrel sauna. Now I’m bedding down in a bubble-shaped tent called a pao. As night falls, I barbecue my supper over smouldering coals and sip a homemade cocktail, chilled with ice made with Fuji-filtered water.

Fertile slopes

If you mention Yamanashi to most Japanese people, however, they’ll probably hand you a corkscrew. The sheltered, gently sloping foothills around Mount Fuji provide the perfect volcanic terroir for wine-growing. The next day, I take a road-trip past riverside villages and rice terraces into a landscape more reminiscent of Tuscany than Japan. Vines carpet the slopes, mostly growing the local Koshu grapes, plump and purple as cherries. Traditionally, the vines are trained over pergolas to ensure the grapes get plenty of sun; however, each bunch wears a dainty paper hat to stop sunburn and prevent any subsequent mould.

At Haramo Wine, I meet Shintaro Furuya, whose family has been making wine here for three generations. “Most people outside Japan don’t even know we make wine,” he says. “That’s changing, but it’s a slow process.” Like most of Yamanashi’s vineyards, the winery is open for tastings. He uncorks his favourite white: it’s crisp, fruity and acidic, the perfect partner, he says, to sushi and salty, miso-based broths. As I leave, he insists on giving me a bottle and a bunch of grapes for the road.

On the way back to Kawaguchi, I stop at Shunnoten, one of Yamanashi’s top sake distilleries — so famous, it’s mentioned in a haiku by feminist poet Yosano Akiko (1878-1942). For 230 years, it has fermented its sakes using rice harvested from the surrounding hillsides. “The secret of our sake is the mountain water,” says Nagasawa Ikuko. “It’s naturally filtered, which makes the taste clean and pure.” She pours me a selection from sweet to super dry, then shows me around the distillery’s garden, filled with clipped topiary and karesansui (a dry area of raked gravel dotted with a few rocks). It’s as orderly as a Zen temple.

The next day, I e-bike across to Kawaguchi’s neighbour, Saiko. Crumpled hills rise along the skyline, a reminder of the restless geological forces that rumble, unseen but omnipresent, under Fuji’s crust. Kayakers scull across the lake and fishermen cast lines for trout. I borrow a standup paddleboard and glide under Fuji’s looming shadow, then plunge into the lake, which is fed by meltwater from the winter’s snowfall. It’s bracingly cold and crystal clear.

The most striking thing about Yamanashi is its greenness. Aokigahara Forest — also called Jukai, the Sea of Trees — sprawls for 12sq miles around Mount Fuji. Parts of it may be a millennium old. It sprouted after Fuji’s last major eruption in 864 CE; beneath the forest floor lies petrified lava, hard as granite and black as coal. On a misty afternoon, I walk into the forest and find trees contorted into weird, cartoonish forms as they compete for light, like a still from a Tim Burton film. Deep caves burrow into the rock, some said to be bottomless. Ghosts are also believed to stalk Aokigahara — partly due to the forest’s unwelcome reputation as a suicide spot — but it’s also an oasis for nature. Nihon kamoshika, a type of goat-antelope, roam wild here, and sometimes hikers encounter elusive Japanese black bears.

On the western fringes of the forest, beside the shores of Lake Motosu, I meet up with local hiking guide Shinobu Sato. “Everyone wants to climb Fuji,” he says. “I’ve done it many times and it’s beautiful, but it’s too crowded.” Instead, he suggests summiting one of its sister mountains. “Most people ignore them,” he says. “And the views are better.”

There are dozens to choose from — his favourites include Settogatake, Ryugatake and Mitsutoge — but he’s brought me to Nakanokuratouge for a special reason, he says. We trek up the hillside in the early evening, stopping occasionally to examine lichen, moss, lizards and tree frogs. After half an hour, we reach a clearing, and there, framed against the orange twilight, is Fuji’s conical profile.

It looks like one of Hokusai’s works: ringed by lake and forest, streaked by reds, pinks, umbers and ochres, topped by a diamond-white kasakumo crown. Grinning, Shinobu pulls out a ¥1,000 note and holds it up: the illustrated image perfectly mirrors the one in front of us. He was right — the views are better up here.