A climber airlifted with altitude sickness from near the peak of Japan’s Mount Fuji teh previous week came back to the slope and was rescued for a second time just four days before, authorities said last Monday. On Saturday, he returned to the mountain’s Fujinomiya trail nearly 10,000 feet above sea level to look for his cell phone and other belongings left behind, Shizuoka prefectural police said. Another climber found him there no having the possibility of moving after he apparently got sick for a second time, police explained. Many events occur in sporting situations that are out of the norm. Read on to find out everything that happened and learn a little more about the curiosities of Mount Fuji.
The beginning of the story: an emergency phone call
The climber was identified only as a 27-year-old. He was a Chinese student who was back in that time in Japan. He made an emergency call on April 22 and was airlifted after developing symptoms of altitude sickness, police said, adding that his climbing irons also were damaged. The situation was somewhat delicate and had to be resolved as soon as possible.
On Saturday, he went back to the mountain’s Fujinomiya trail almost 10,000 feet above sea level to look for his cell phone and other belongings left behind, Shizuoka prefectural police said. In addition, another climber found him there not capable of moving after he apparently got sick for a second time, police expressed.
“He was suspected of having altitude sickness and was taken to hospital,” a police spokesman in the Shizuoka region told Agence France-Presse on Monday. It was not known whether he was able to find his phone at the end, local media reported.
When the hiking trails are officialy open to climbers
The mountain’s hiking trails have an official date for its visit, and they must be respected in order to not risk your live and be safe during the hiking. About mountain’s hiking trails, their officially date to open is only from July to early September, but there is no penalty for hiking off-season. More over, there is no charge or penalty by the time a climber must be rescued, but the Chinese student’s case prompted an uproar on social media and generated calls for him to be charged, at least for his second rescue.
Following the man’s rescue, police in Shizuoka prefecture reiterated its advice against climbing the mountain during the off-season as the weather could be change yet, making it hard for rescuers to respond, the BBC reported. Medical facilities along the trails are also closed. It must be highlited that police urged all climbers to use caution, noting that the mountain has low temperatures and is covered in snow even in spring. The safety of climbers is always called into question so that any issues can be avoided.
All you must know about Mount Fuji
The 3,776-meter-high (12,388-foot-high) mountain was designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2013. A symbol of Japan, the mountain called “Fujisan” used to be a place of pilgrimage and is increasingly popular among hikers these days.
To control overcrowding and risks from rushed overnight climbing through rocky slopes to witness the sunrise, local authorities the previous year presented an entry fee and cap on the quantity of entrants on the most popular trail and will introduce likely rules on other main trails this year.
But exactly how many tourists visit Fuji — and how many is too many — is up for debate, Thomas Jones, an investigato of sustainability and tourism at Japan’s Ritsumeikan University, told CBS News in 2023.
“You would have to find consensus” for what constitutes carrying capacity, he said, “and at the moment there isn’t really anything like that. So, there isn’t really a kind of concerted effort to limit the number of visitors there.” In 2023, more than 220,000 people climbed Mount Fuji between July and September, according to the BBC.
