The most popular route to the top of Japan's most famous volcano is paid and has a maximum number of visitors, partly to discourage dangerous practices
On Monday, the government of Yamanashi province, west of Tokyo, approved a regulation introducing a ticket and new restrictions for climbing Mount Fuji, which at 3,776 meters is Japan's highest mountain and the country's symbolic volcano. Due to the climatic conditions, the mountain is only open to tourism in summer, so between July and September thousands and thousands of people are concentrated on the paths every day: the decision was made precisely to manage the influx of visitors to the summit and to avoid dangerous practices both problems that have been known for some time.
The new measures affect the so-called Yoshida Trail, the most popular and best-equipped route to the summit of Mount Fuji and begins at the fifth station of the Fuji-Subaru bus line at an altitude of around 2,300 meters. According to the regulation, from July 1st, to access the trail, you will have to pay a ticket worth two thousand yen (just over 12 euros) each, in addition to the thousand voluntary contributions required by the Mount Fuji Conservation Fund to maintain the trail way clean. Mountain. A barrier will be installed at the fifth station, which will remain closed from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. the following day and will be used both to collect payments and to limit the number of visitors.
Actually, there was already a maximum limit of 4,000 hikers per day. However, there are currently no gates on the pathways and in practice it was difficult to keep track of who was coming in and out. The local administration has made it clear that once the 4,000 entries per day are exceeded, no one will be able to enter until the next day, except for those who have a reservation for an overnight stay in one of the accommodations along the way. The measures do not affect the other three access routes to the mountain, those from Subashiri, Gotemba and Fujinomiya, which are in Shizuoka Province and over which Yamanashi Province therefore has no jurisdiction.
A group of visitors climbs Mount Fuji before dawn on August 27, 2019 (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Most people who visit Mount Fuji stop at one of the stations along the route because, although the hike to the summit is technically easy, it is very long and strenuous. According to the Japanese Environment Ministry, around 221,000 visitors came to the mountain's summit in the summer of 2023, more or less the same number as in the summer of 2019, the season before the coronavirus pandemic. According to the ministry, 60 percent of them ascend via the Yoshida Trail.
The problem is that there are often people who set off to the summit without adequate preparation, equipment and clothing, which creates traffic jams and doubles the time it takes to reach the summit. In particular, many people climb the mountain at night to reach the summit at dawn and descend again during the day: a practice called “bullet climbing” which, over time, has also led to an increase in requests for help due to the arrival of bad weather, especially from inexperienced, non-Japanese tourists.
The mountain has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013, which has already recommended that the Japanese government implement measures to control the flow of visitors.
The Yamanashi provincial government said the restrictions were intended to address overcrowding on the trail and near the summit, as well as concerns about the safety and behavior of visitors. Proceeds from entrance tickets are used to build barriers to protect hikers from possible rock or debris falls from the mountain, but also to monitor dangerous or inappropriate behavior.
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