Mount Fuji, Japan
CNN
—
Crowded traffic, trash-strewn foothills, and inappropriately dressed hikers (some even attempting to climb in flip-flops) are scenes few would associate with Japan’s highest peaks.
But for Miho Sakurai, a veteran ranger who has been patrolling the slopes of Mount Fuji for the past seven years, these scenes are all too familiar.
“There are definitely too many people on the mountain at the moment. The numbers are much higher than they were before,” Sakurai lamented to CNN Travel.
When Mount Fuji was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2013, UNESCO’s advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), urged mountain officials to manage crowds.
But the number of visitors to the mountain’s popular fifth hiking station has more than doubled, from 2 million in 2012 to more than 5 million in 2019, according to the Yamanashi Prefectural Office.
Provided by: Yamanashi Prefecture
Experts say the congestion has led to a sharp drop in climbing experiences on Mount Fuji.
And since the annual climbing season began just a few months ago in July, about 65,000 hikers have reached the summit, an increase of 17% from 2019.
Officials say a post-coronavirus tourism boom has brought thousands more visitors to the mountain, which straddles Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures. And as this year marks the 10th anniversary of Mt. Fuji’s UNESCO inscription, there are concerns that the environmental situation has reached a “crisis state.”
“Overtourism and all its associated effects, including trash, increased carbon dioxide emissions, and reckless climbers, are the biggest problems facing Mt. Fuji,” said Izumi, a Yamanashi prefectural official and expert on the famous mountain. Mr. Masatake says.
Yasuyoshi Okada, chairman of ICOMOS Japan, told CNN Travel in an email that “overtourism must be addressed” to protect Mount Fuji’s “sacredness” and value as a world heritage site.
“It’s like Disneyland.”
Provided by: Yamanashi Prefecture
Thousands of tourists head to the top of Mount Fuji to watch the sunrise.
The 5th of 10 hiking stations on Mt.Fuji (called “Gogome”) It is located almost halfway up the mountain at an altitude of 3,776 meters (12,388 feet). According to Izumi, 90% of the climbers visit, and most of them use buses, taxis, and electric cars that travel from Tokyo through the Fuji Subaru Line mountain path.
“Constructed nearly 60 years ago, at the height of Japan’s motorization era, the Fuji Subaru Line gave tourists and families direct access to the mountainside. “I am now,” Izumi says.
Today, when hikers take this route from Tokyo to the 5th station, they can hear folk songs briefly playing as the car passes a series of sensors on the road.
“Mount Fuji,” written by Konami Iwaya in 1911, praises the popular tourist destination. The lyrics emphasize the majesty of Mt. Fuji, which is “dressed in a snow kimono” and “sticks its head above the clouds,” calling it “Japan’s highest mountain.”
Provided by: Yamanashi Prefecture G
The 5th of 10 hiking stations on Mt.Fuji (called “Gogome”) Accepts 90% of the mountain’s visitors.
These lyrics are in stark contrast to the reality on the ground, with experts saying that the number of climbing experiences on Mt. Fuji is drastically decreasing due to crowding.
According to Izumi, a Yamanashi prefectural official, tourists are no longer able to drive their own cars to the 5th Station unless they are fully electric, but as a result, the number of buses that carry large groups of tourists to the station has increased. .
The large number of hikers is also increasing the strain on the mountain’s limited toilet facilities and four medical stations, he added.
At the crowded Fifth Station, amid busloads of hikers headed for the Yoshida Route, the most popular of Mt. Fuji’s four routes, Tomoyo Takahashi, an employee of the Mt. dollar) to donate.
“It’s like Disneyland here because there are so many people,” she told CNN Travel. “It’s sad that people don’t pay 1,000 yen. A much higher entrance fee should be mandatory so that only visitors who truly understand the heritage of Mt. Fuji come.”
According to Seitatsu Yamamoto, an expert on national parks and Mount Fuji at the University of Tokyo, climbing experience is decreasing, especially among experienced hikers.
Provided by: Yamanashi Prefecture
Officials say a post-coronavirus tourism boom has brought thousands more tourists to the mountain this year.
“Congestion and traffic jams on mountain trails are a major cause of dissatisfaction among climbers.Climbers gather near the summit to watch the sunrise, and it takes four hours to climb a section that used to take two hours. Because it will take,” he says.
Vito Fung Yuting, a hiker from Hong Kong, said he booked a night at a mountain hut at least three months before visiting Fuji.
“I was very lucky to get a spot,” he told CNN Travel after returning from the summit of Mt. “He watched some YouTube videos before coming, so we knew it would be very crowded at the top, but it was still worth it.”
But not everyone plans well enough in advance. For example, the risk of altitude sickness and hypothermia has increased due to a trend known as “bullet climbing,” in which hikers start climbing at night and continue climbing until dawn, without staying in a hut to acclimatize their bodies to the air. It’s pressure, says Mt. Fuji ranger Sakurai.
Yamamoto added that some inexperienced hikers sleep in washrooms to beat the cold, abandon their climbing gear on the trail, or camp in prohibited areas.
Measures have been taken over the years to protect Mount Fuji.
For example, from 2004 to 2018, volunteers from the Fujisan Club, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting Mt. Recovered.
Last year, the group began conducting trash patrols with electric bikes equipped with cameras that capture GPS data and create maps showing the type and amount of trash in an area.
“This is the world’s first attempt at garbage patrol using electric bicycles and AI,” Tatsuo Minami, a volunteer with the Mt. Fuji Club, told CNN.
Kyodo News/Getty Images
The 2023 Mount Fuji climbing season ended on September 10.
To improve the tourist experience, authorities have limited the number of climbers on the popular Yoshida route to 4,000 per day, said Yamamoto, the national park expert.
In practice, however, this goal is difficult to achieve.
Unlike the United States, Japan’s national parks and World Heritage Sites do not have gates to keep visitors out. Barring hikers requires legislation and local ordinances, he said, and progress on this front has been slow.
Yamamoto proposes creating a system that would only allow tourists who have reserved a parking space or climbers who have booked a reservation at one of the nine mountain huts to climb Mt. Fuji.
Izumi, meanwhile, says the local government wants to fundamentally change the way people access the mountain.
Possible options include building a light rail transit system on top of the Fuji-Subaru Line road, preventing cars and buses from traveling along the route to the fifth station.
Izumi feels that crowd control would be easier if people didn’t have to buy train tickets and local governments set departure and arrival times. He also suggests organizing a course on the train where people can learn about Mt. Fuji and the correct way to climb it.
“Mt. Fuji is screaming in pain. We can’t just wait for improvements. We need to tackle overtourism now,” he says.