Oshino Hakkai: The Eight Spring Ponds of Mount Fuji, What They Are, When to Go, and How to Avoid the Coach Hour

Oshino was a lake until Fuji's lava flows and centuries of silt drained it, and the eight ponds are what remains: springs where snowmelt from the mountain, having sunk through the porous lava and travelled underground for decades, comes back to the surface at a constant 13 degrees, so clear that the carp in the deepest pond look suspended in air. The ponds were a stop on the old pilgrimage route to the summit, where climbers purified themselves, which is why they were included in the 2013 World Heritage listing of Fuji as a sacred mountain. On a clear morning the cone stands directly above the thatched roofs.

Wakuike, the deepest and clearest, sits at the centre of the village beside the shops and is the one the coaches see; Nakaike beside it is a man-made pond inside a souvenir complex and not one of the eight, though most visitors photograph it as if it were. The other seven are spread across the village within a ten-minute walk: Sokonashi-ike and Okama-ike are tiny and quiet, Choshi-ike and Shobu-ike sit among the fields, and Deguchi-ike, the largest, is a five-minute walk apart from everything and usually empty. A map at the car park marks all eight; walk to at least three.

The thatched houses around Wakuike hold stalls selling grilled dango, roasted sweet potato, freshly made tofu and soba boiled in the spring water, and the water itself, which people fill bottles from at the well by the pond. The Hannoki Bayashi folk museum, a small paid garden with an old farmhouse, contains one of the ponds and the best view of Fuji over the roofs. Lunch here is fine if simple; the tours that promise a full lunch usually mean a nearby restaurant.

Coach tours from Tokyo arrive between 10:30 and 14:00, and in those hours Wakuike's rail is three deep. Before 9:30 and after 15:30 the village is a village. Fuji is clearest at dawn, so the ideal is to sleep at Kawaguchiko, be at Oshino by 8:00, and move on to the pagoda or the lake by 10:00. Winter mornings are the emptiest and the sharpest; the best time to visit page has the visibility odds.

From Kawaguchiko station the Fujikko-go bus reaches Oshino Hakkai in about 25 minutes; from Fujisan station (Fujiyoshida) the Oshino line is quicker; both are covered by the two-day bus passes. By car it is 20 minutes from either lake town and parking is a few hundred yen. Day tours from Tokyo pair it with Kawaguchiko's north shore, the Chureito pagoda and often the Fuji Subaru line 5th station; a private car lets you put Oshino first, when it is empty and the mountain is out.