Unkai So

Mountain lodge at 2,493m at the sixth station of the Omote-Fujinomiya route up Mount Fuji, in Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture. A Japanese-style hut carried on through three generations and more than ninety years, it is the lower of the two buildings standing side by side at the fork for the summit and the Hoeizan crater, 15 to 20 minutes up a broad gravel path through dwarf pine from the Fujinomiya fifth-station car park at 2,400m. Benches line the open ground in front, looking down on the summer sea of cloud. Up a cypress-plank staircase, the first floor holds numerous private rooms and roomier three-person shared rooms, each space curtained off at the entrance, while the ground floor has large group rooms separated by sex; every room has a down futon. The hut sleeps 60, meals are served between 7:00 and 19:00 and lights go out at 21:00. Walkers leaving for sunrise on the summit rise at 22:00 or 23:00 and set off with a home-made bento in place of breakfast. Check-in is by 18:00 for guests taking dinner and by 19:00 otherwise, and payment is in cash (yen only) on the day. In summer it draws both climbers bound for the summit and visitors walking the Hoei nature path.