...scenes you might expect at a county fair but maybe not Mt. Fuji, the iconic Japanese mountain, a sacred source of pride in the country for its symmetrical form.

However a recent surge in inbound tourists after Japan reopened its borders has led to extreme levels of pollution and other strains on the country's tallest peak, authorities say.

Here's Masatake Izumi, an official from Yamanashi, one of two prefectures that Fuji straddles:

""Many people are visiting Mt. Fuji and we appreciate that. But that is also leading to overtourism, with garbage and problems with the toilets resulting from the large number of people. We are now in a critical situation."

Mt. Fuji was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site a decade ago, which only boosted its popularity.

Though that distinction came with conditions that Japan reduce overcrowding and environmental harm from visitors, overcrowding has only grown worse.

The largest base station on the mountain saw four million visitors this summer, a 50% jump from 2013.

Social media has been rife with posts about soiled bathrooms and mounds of litter on the hiking paths.

Authorities say they are considering drastic measures to reduce the volume:

"The biggest cause of overtourism on Mt. Fuji is that the 5th station (up the mountain) can be easily reached by car. That means we need to control that access. However, since the Fuji Subaru Line (toll road) is also a prefectural road in Yamanashi, it would be difficult to regulate it. So we want to make a drastic change to replace the road with a mountain railway."

Another strain has been the trend of whats called "bullet climbing," where climbers attempt to scale Fuji for sunrise and descend the same day, leading to a spike in rescue requests, up 50% from 2022 with over 60 so far this year, and a quarter of which have come from non-Japanese tourists.

Unless they find ways to manage the crowds, Izumi worries the world will turn its back on Fuji entirely:

"If things continue as they are, Mt. Fuji will be abandoned by people around the world in the near future. If we compare it to world-standard tourist destinations, Mt. Fuji will be near the bottom. I have a strong sense of crisis right now."