Mount Ashigara, Mountain summit on the Kanagawa–Shizuoka border, Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Japan.
Mount Ashigara, also called Kintoki-yama, is the highest peak of the ring of mountains around the Hakone caldera, reaching 1,212 metres on the Kanagawa–Shizuoka border. It is built of viscous Kintoki lava, so the upper slopes are steep and bare, and the summit is strewn with rocks. From the top, Mount Fuji stands to the west and the steam vents of Owakudani and Lake Ashi lie inside the caldera.
The mountain began forming about 650,000 years ago as a parasitic cone on the flank of the Hakone volcano, along the Kintoki-Makuyama tectonic line active around 400,000 years ago. In the Edo period, the Kintarō legend placed the childhood of Sakata Kintoki in the Ashigara mountains, and the peak came to be called Kintoki-yama. The 1900 nursery song "Kintarō" spread the name widely.
The name Kintoki comes from the Kintarō legend, which placed the childhood of Sakata Kintoki (Sakata no Kintoki) in the Ashigara mountains; the mountain was called Kintoki-yama from the Edo period, and the 1900 nursery rhyme spread the story. Near the Jizōdō trailhead, the Taiko-ishi is a drum-shaped rock Kintarō is said to have jumped from, and the Yūhi-no-taki waterfall below supplied water for his first bath.
Trailheads are reached by Hakone Tozan bus: Jizodo and Ashigara Pass from Odawara, Otome Toge and Kintoki Shrine entrance from Hakone-Yumoto. Walking times run 90 to 120 minutes. Every route has ropes or chains near the steep summit, and the summit toilet, a bio-toilet installed in 2010, charges a 100-yen tip.
The Kintoki-yadori-ishi boulder on the Sengoku route is linked to the Kintarō legend; the trail past it is also where walkers most often lose their way, so the stone is a useful landmark to watch for.
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