Posts Tagged ‘climbing’

Mount Fuji climbing season begins

ATV reports on yesterday’s official opening of Mt. Fuji’s 2008 climbing season:

The official climbing season will last until the end of August. According to the video, Yamanashi is expecting about 160,000 climbers this season.

Police: Avoid Climbing Mt. Fuji in Winter

If you’re an inexperienced climber that thinks it would be cool to celebrate the New Year by climbing Mt. Fuji, the Japanese police are here to save you from freezing to death:

To prevent accidents among climbers aiming to see the first sunrise of the year from the summit of Mt. Fuji, police officers will be deployed at the volcano’s fifth station on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 to turn back any climbers deemed to be too lightly dressed.

An increasing number of people are nonchalantly starting their ascent of the mountain in winter in light attire, prompting the police to take such a measure for the first time. While the police will have no legal power to stop people, they will make every effort to dissuade people they believe are ill-prepared for the climb.

“We are determined not to let people who underestimate how difficult it is to climb Mt. Fuji go up,” a spokesman at Fuji-Yoshida Police Station said.

According to the National Police Agency, about 150 people climbed Mt. Fuji between Dec. 29 and Jan. 3 last winter, apparently wanting to see the first sunrise of the year.

The World’s Most Dangerous Hiking Trail

There are few mountain tourist trails as dangerous as the above pictured route on Mt. Hua in China’s Shaanxi Province. Not only does much of the trail consist of narrow footpaths and extremely steep staircases, but there are also a few sections where hikers must scale across cliffs on a rusty chain and some foot-sized holes chiseled in the rock. There’s even a place where one must descend a 20 meter chain to reach the continuation of the trail!

Here’s a video of a Japanese TV show visiting the trail:

The video report claims that sometimes about 100 climbers a year fall to their deaths on the trail. Luckily, people who don’t want to risk death can take a far safer trail on the other side of the mountain!

For more information on Mt. Hua, check out this post at BestHike and this photo gallery at Damn Cool Pics [the source of the pics in this post].