Pilgrims Climbing Mount Fuji

All that spreads across the picture is reddish-brown rock and white clouds rising from underfoot. The viewer is not looking at Fuji from afar but standing inside the mountain. People in white garb and round hats climb with staffs, bent at the waist, hands on the rocks. The sky is shaded indigo above and a pale color below, conveying the clear air high on the mountain.

At lower left, a person climbs a ladder set against the rock. The hollow in the rock at upper right is a stone hut for climbers to rest, in which many are packed close together, crouching to rest. The posture of each person on the slope differs, and the hardship of the climb comes across as it is.

Those depicted are members of Fuji-ko, who worshiped Mount Fuji and aimed for its summit. This print, which depicts Fuji without showing Fuji's form, is placed last of the 46 prints in the arrangement at the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum. It is one of the ten added after the 36, with the lines printed in black ink. Fuji-ko were confraternities of people who worshiped Mount Fuji and climbed it in pilgrimage, and they spread in the city of Edo.