At 877 metres, Mount Tsukuba is modest by Japanese standards but famous out of all proportion to its height. It has been celebrated in poetry since the Man'yoshu anthology of the eighth century, and on clear days the summit delivers a wide panorama of the Kanto Plain with Mount Fuji visible to the southwest. The mountain has two peaks — Nantai-san (male peak, 871m) and Nyotai-san (female peak, 877m) — with the Tsukuba-san Shrine Okumiya sitting between them.
You can hike up through cedar and oak forest from the Miyagawa or Tsukuba-guchi trailheads, or take the Tsukuba-san Ropeway from the mid-station (which you reach by cable car from the base). The round trip by foot takes about three hours. The mountain is particularly busy during the autumn foliage season in October and November, and during the February rock festival, Tsukuba-san Gama Matsuri, when frogs are celebrated as the mountain's symbol.