'Only a fool climbs Mount Fuji twice,' an old Japanese saying goes. High on its slopes, beneath swirling evening mists and the occasional rain shower, stands a small hut with a sign outside that reads 'Ikeda'. It is warm inside, and under the glow of a gas lamp a kettle boils over a kerosene heater.
In a hushed voice, Ikeda-san, its elderly caretaker, stands at the door in a brown hapi, or traditional Japanese cotton jacket, ushering climbers inside. For two months of the year, during the official climbing season, which lasts until the end of this month, he and his wife run a modest shelter, charging climbers 5,000 yen (HK$333) for a bunk bed to rest in before they make their final assault on the summit in time for sunrise.
Chatting amiably over a cup of green tea and with a background chorus of contented snores coming from the bunk room, all seems calm on Japan's most sacred mountain, which is known simply to its citizens as Fuji-san. Yet, when I mention the word funka, which means 'eruption', and the possibility of one altering Mount Fuji's exquisitely shaped cone forever, Ikeda-san's expression turns pensive. 'Nothing in this world remains the same forever - not even a 100,000-year-old mountain,' he says.
Speculation that the largest of Japan's 86 active volcanoes, which lies at the junction of three tectonic plates, is about to blow its top is rife as it reaches the completion of what scientists are calling a 300-year volcanic cycle. The last time Mount Fuji erupted was in 1707, during the Edo Period: 300 years ago.
Those who monitor the mountain's moods have been encountering increasing amounts of activity, namely in the frequency and intensity of tremors beneath its peak. In 2000, seismologists received a jolt when the monthly average of about 20 tremors leapt to 200. Earthquakes are a prelude to magmatic pressure being released.
Mount Fuji is classified as an active volcano but the official government line is that any risk of eruption remains low. Yet comments by Masaaki Kimura of the seismology department at Ryukyu University, in Okinawa, about the recent build-up of magma inside Mount Fuji having already reached critical levels have provided those living in Tokyo, 100km away, with food for thought.
So if you want to climb Fuji, now could be the time. Approximately 200,000 people from around the world make the ascent every year. Thousands of Japanese attempt to reach the summit of their most revered mountain every day during the climbing season. Most climb to witness the rising sun, others just to be able to say they did it, some to contemplate their existence.