After viewing Hokusai's paintings of Mount Fuji, Hoshi wants to hike up Japan?s highest mountain!

Japan's highest mountain, Mount Fuji, is a nearly perfectly shaped volcano. It is popular among artists and has been worshipped as a sacred mountain for centuries. Some of the most famous paintings of the mountain were done by Hokusai, a Japanese artist from the 1800s, in his "36 Views of Mount Fuji" series. He lived in Tokyo and could see the mountain on clear days. After viewing his work at the Hokusai museum near Nagano, Japan Hoshi was inspired to visit and climb the sacred mountain.

There was a time when females weren't allowed to climb Mount Fuji because people thought the goddess of the mountain would get jealous, but now females are allowed. The mountain is 3,776 meters high (that is over 370 football fields up in the air!). Over 200,000 people climb the mountain per year in July and August, the two months out of the year it is open for hiking. The hike takes 5-7 hours to hike up the mountain and 3-5 hours to hike back down. The hike is divided into ten rest stations. One of the most popular hikes, and what Hoshi wants to do, is to hike up at night and watch the sun rise in the morning!

Mount Fuji is a dormant volcano, meaning it isn't erupting now, but it might in the future. The last time it erupted was in 1707, about 300 years ago. The volcano was initially formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, taking its current shape as Mount Fuji about 10,000 years ago.