Breaking point at Mount Fuji

Tourists taking in Mount Fuji in Fujiyoshida. In the foothills of the mountain, the fight is on against unruly tourists; huge crowds of visitors during cherry blossom season have put a picturesque Japanese town on edge, and some residents are trying to take charge. — Kentaro Takahashi/The New York Times

JUST after sunrise on a cloudless spring day, Junichi Horiuchi, wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers cap and hot-pink gloves and carrying a walking stick, was on the hunt.

Horiuchi, the leader of a civic group, was picking up trash and looking for unruly tourists at Arakurayama Sengen Park in Fujiyoshida, an idyllic town of about 46,000 in the foothills of Mount Fuji. He was joined in his quest by a local radio personality and a professor of medicine.