Mount Ashigara (足柄山), also known as Mount Kintoki (金時山), is the northernmost peak of the Hakone caldera, on the border of

Kanagawa is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanagaw ...

and Shizuoka prefectures, in the

Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park is a national park in Yamanashi, Shizuoka, and Kanagawa Prefectures, and western Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. It consists of Mount Fuji, Fuji Five Lakes, Hakone, the Izu Peninsula, and the Izu Islands. Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park covers . Rat ...

in Japan. Ashigara is not a remnant of the collapse of the old Hakone volcano itself, but rather a

parasitic cone A parasitic cone (also adventive cone or satellite cone) is the cone-shaped accumulation of volcanic material not part of the central vent of a volcano. It forms from eruptions from fractures on the flank of the volcano. These fractures occur ...

growing from its flank. Mount Ashigara is the legendary birthplace of

Kintarō is a folk hero from Japanese folklore. A child of superhuman strength, he was raised by a yama-uba ("mountain witch") on Mount Ashigara. He became friendly with the animals of the mountain, and later, after catching Shuten-dōji, the terror of ...

Etymology

The

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

of the mountain's name mean "Leg Handle Mountain", but the written form is ''

ateji In modern Japanese, principally refers to kanji used to phonetically represent native or borrowed words with less regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to in Old Japanese. Conversely, also refers to kanji use ...

'', meaning that the kanji were applied phonetically, and not for any symbolic representation of the mountain's characteristics or history. In old songs it is spelled out phonetically as ''asigari'' (阿之賀利) or ''asigara'' (安思我良).

Access

Hakone is a List of towns in Japan, town in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had a population of 11,293 and a population density of 122 persons per km². The total area of the town is . The town is a popular tourist destination due to its many o ...

side * 90 minutes' walk from Sengoku bus stop

Gotemba is a city on the southeastern flank of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 88,370 in 36,096 households, and a population density of 450 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography ...

side * 120 minutes' walk from Otome Toge bus stop Minami Ashigara side * 90 minutes' walk from Ashigara Pass * 120 minutes' walk from Jizodo bus stop

Etymology

Access

See also