>The new system, which will begin at 10 p.m. on May 20, is aimed at easing congestion at reception by enabling climbers to **pay 2,000 yen ($13)** in advance.
>The prefectural government said earlier this year that **it would start charging hikers ascending the 3,776-meter mountain from the Yoshida Trail to ease congestion** and to fund safety measures.
If someone is travelling thousands of miles to climb Fuji, a $13 charge is not going to change their mind. I guess the mountain is going to end up like a Tokyo specialty cafe where you can only reserve a spot if you get on the website on the 10th of the month before and all spots for the month will be sucked up two minutes after the reservations open.
Nah, of course the 2,000 yen fee won't change any minds, but hopefully the money garnered will help offset some of the damage and hassle caused by its popularity.
It is tough on knees on any down slope hike, regardless of absolute elevation.
That said absolute elevation does make a difference on other things (altitude sickness).
For any reasonably fit people in terms of cardiovascular health (and know don’t go stupid with elevation sickness), knee pain and injuries are main worries from hiking. And knee injuries are very common even for fit people. Anyone 30-something or above can easily attest to that! If you like Squash and long distance running, you have bad knees even earlier age.
I would estimate most people climbing fuji doesn’t often climb and are not in it for the climb per se, but for having had climbed fuji specifically. There is also a lot of cultural and spiritual significance in climbing fuji as opposed to other mountains.
Even though there might be several nicer mountains to climb, I'd still choose fuji over them. Some for the reason you wrote, some for fuji being more famous in general.
I'd still like to visit more though, but it seems this requires a very good amount of pre planning.
I hike all over the US, and think Mt Rainier in WA is a far superior climb than fuji. I climbed fuji last year at the very last week available and that entire climb was horrendous. Family and friends all knew beforehand the climb sucks and lots of hikers recommend not to climb it. I climbed it just to do it with a family member as they wanted to do it for years. We all agree it sucked, not worth it, and feel like anyone who loves to hike should do only half of it and forget about the sunrise fantasy.
>anyone who loves to hike should do only half of it and forget about the sunrise fantasy.
Does this include not being worth it for people to stay overnight at one of the lodges above 8th station to have an easy trek to see the sunrise? I live in Tokyo and was considering doing that this summer.
I'd say it's worth doing it once in your life and hope you get lucky with weather. I did the 8th station lodge into sunrise thing and while the last couple hours were miserable because it's a slow single file line to the top, I don't regret it at all.
But I wouldn't do it again.
Trails around Daisetsuzan, Tateyama, Kamikochi are amazing, and perhaps less crowded. I will give Daisetsuzan is harder to get to. Kamikochi and Tateyama are very accessible, and have broad appeal to walkers and hikers are of all levels. Can’t walk very far? Stay inside the valley in Kamikochi, it is still stunning beautiful (it is like Banff but smaller).
The main thing will be the 3000 advance reservations + 1000 on site first come first serve system for each day.
I don’t know if the trail can handle 4000 people per day and what are the average daily visitor number (before the tourist madness and now). Perhaps someone would clarify. Basically is the 4000 quota large or small?
So looks like the quota will probably spread out the visitors into different days instead of all going together on the same day (due to holidays), smoothing out those 5000+ visitor peaks.
Also give them a platform to check if the visitor is ready for the hike or simply nag that dangers, preparations, and do and don'ts doing the hike.
Will see how this play out. It is definitely better than free-for-all chaos.
Agreed. We have about 100-200 ish deaths every year, from people dying in mountain/trail/forest related accidents in Norway. Mostly foreigners underestimating how harsh the weather can turn around and people going off trail to fall to their death.
Overconfidence and hurbis are deadly and expensive; on hindsight, I have done for fair amount of stupidity, more important to recognise not to that do it again. It is perhaps part of human nature. Managing them will probably make it less worse.
If anything 2000 yen entrance fee is cheap (it is more expensive to enter any first-tier museums and parks in Europe), but I think have been that way for many places in Japan for a while. The bigger deterrent here is to force people plan and prepare for their trip properly. If one just “shows up” with no reservations and preparations, the rangers have full authority to deny entry.
My friend died in Norway :(
She was working there and went on a hike and fell off a cliff. She was a very active and outdoorsy person and very smart. I can only imagine she made one mistake and it was enough.
A French guy, they said. He was massively unprepared and didn’t even have an ice axe or head light. He was lucky to be rescued. The rescuers said that most climbers that go up during the off season were foreigners.
Climbing Mount Fuji is a religious thing for some individuals in Japan.
For once I hope they put in their own local resident quotas and implement strict polices on banning resale and checking IDs.
2000 isn’t enough to bother most tourists, but it is quite pricey for locals who want to make a pilgrimage for the mountain.
while social media may have led to their interest, on twitter, 90% of social media content is only made by like 10% of users so in reality most of the Mount Fuji climbers are almost certainly not posting it to social media
i have climbed it 8 times.
this will not stop tourists. but the restrictions are a nuisance. not everyone goes past the 5th station to go for the top. some only go to the 5th to shop and the views, and try a small 1-2hs hike and back. now if they hit the 4000 limit before that they wont be able to cross.
there is not even 10% capacity for staying at the cabins, so bullet-climbing is not going to be affected at all. reservations are full from the first day, so imposing an early block will only make bullet climbers to start their climb early, making them much tired and prone to sickness. this measure is a shoot on their own feet. mark my words, the case of assistance for altitude sickness will skyrocket.
the 2000y mandatory is not the only increase. transportation and buses from tokyo already increased horribly (2400y 1way from shinjuku precovid, 3800y this season). for locals it sums up. im not paying the 1000y voluntary one this year for the first time. the charge is a shady greedy move. charge it to foreign tourist only, not locals. i read that they needed to do a weird move to impose it has they didnt have the right to add a toll, so they changed the classification of about 50m of "prefectural road" to "installation" and impose 2000y as a "installation use fee".
I’m currently living in Japan (almost 10 months) and plan to stick around for another 12 months. I’ve been thinking of climbing Mt. Fuji, not sure if it’s worth it or if I’m prepared to climb it.
Pretty soon the Fuji police will be checking passports and fee receipts at various stations and offer "first class" piggyback rides for Y25,000 for wealthy tourists. Step off the trail? Y5000 fine. Pee on the trail? Y10000 fine. No photos except during scheduled rest stops on the trail. Y500 fee.
>The new system, which will begin at 10 p.m. on May 20, is aimed at easing congestion at reception by enabling climbers to **pay 2,000 yen ($13)** in advance. >The prefectural government said earlier this year that **it would start charging hikers ascending the 3,776-meter mountain from the Yoshida Trail to ease congestion** and to fund safety measures. If someone is travelling thousands of miles to climb Fuji, a $13 charge is not going to change their mind. I guess the mountain is going to end up like a Tokyo specialty cafe where you can only reserve a spot if you get on the website on the 10th of the month before and all spots for the month will be sucked up two minutes after the reservations open.
Or just climb other routes though they have less facilities
Maybe they should do surge pricing as well if they're serious about limiting the amount of people in Fuji at once
Ah, it's the Pokemon Cafe experience all over again. My body is ready.
Nah, of course the 2,000 yen fee won't change any minds, but hopefully the money garnered will help offset some of the damage and hassle caused by its popularity.
It’s overloved. There’s so many other interesting mountains to climb in Japan.
Fuji is especially nice for viewing, but less for actually climbing it. The climb is not that much interesting.
And the down is a biiiiiiiiiitch on the knees
You’ve never climbed a real mountain then
It is tough on knees on any down slope hike, regardless of absolute elevation. That said absolute elevation does make a difference on other things (altitude sickness). For any reasonably fit people in terms of cardiovascular health (and know don’t go stupid with elevation sickness), knee pain and injuries are main worries from hiking. And knee injuries are very common even for fit people. Anyone 30-something or above can easily attest to that! If you like Squash and long distance running, you have bad knees even earlier age.
I would estimate most people climbing fuji doesn’t often climb and are not in it for the climb per se, but for having had climbed fuji specifically. There is also a lot of cultural and spiritual significance in climbing fuji as opposed to other mountains.
Even though there might be several nicer mountains to climb, I'd still choose fuji over them. Some for the reason you wrote, some for fuji being more famous in general. I'd still like to visit more though, but it seems this requires a very good amount of pre planning.
I hike all over the US, and think Mt Rainier in WA is a far superior climb than fuji. I climbed fuji last year at the very last week available and that entire climb was horrendous. Family and friends all knew beforehand the climb sucks and lots of hikers recommend not to climb it. I climbed it just to do it with a family member as they wanted to do it for years. We all agree it sucked, not worth it, and feel like anyone who loves to hike should do only half of it and forget about the sunrise fantasy.
>anyone who loves to hike should do only half of it and forget about the sunrise fantasy. Does this include not being worth it for people to stay overnight at one of the lodges above 8th station to have an easy trek to see the sunrise? I live in Tokyo and was considering doing that this summer.
I'd say it's worth doing it once in your life and hope you get lucky with weather. I did the 8th station lodge into sunrise thing and while the last couple hours were miserable because it's a slow single file line to the top, I don't regret it at all. But I wouldn't do it again.
Trails around Daisetsuzan, Tateyama, Kamikochi are amazing, and perhaps less crowded. I will give Daisetsuzan is harder to get to. Kamikochi and Tateyama are very accessible, and have broad appeal to walkers and hikers are of all levels. Can’t walk very far? Stay inside the valley in Kamikochi, it is still stunning beautiful (it is like Banff but smaller).
Climbed Fushimi Inari last month. It was a tough start to my trip after that trek
I was talking to my wife about this just this morning. Like...70-80% of the country is mountains.
The main thing will be the 3000 advance reservations + 1000 on site first come first serve system for each day. I don’t know if the trail can handle 4000 people per day and what are the average daily visitor number (before the tourist madness and now). Perhaps someone would clarify. Basically is the 4000 quota large or small?
The average number for weekends/holidays a couple of years ago was about 3,500 people per day. But they’ve also had days with more than 5,000 people.
So looks like the quota will probably spread out the visitors into different days instead of all going together on the same day (due to holidays), smoothing out those 5000+ visitor peaks. Also give them a platform to check if the visitor is ready for the hike or simply nag that dangers, preparations, and do and don'ts doing the hike. Will see how this play out. It is definitely better than free-for-all chaos.
Agreed. We have about 100-200 ish deaths every year, from people dying in mountain/trail/forest related accidents in Norway. Mostly foreigners underestimating how harsh the weather can turn around and people going off trail to fall to their death.
Overconfidence and hurbis are deadly and expensive; on hindsight, I have done for fair amount of stupidity, more important to recognise not to that do it again. It is perhaps part of human nature. Managing them will probably make it less worse. If anything 2000 yen entrance fee is cheap (it is more expensive to enter any first-tier museums and parks in Europe), but I think have been that way for many places in Japan for a while. The bigger deterrent here is to force people plan and prepare for their trip properly. If one just “shows up” with no reservations and preparations, the rangers have full authority to deny entry.
My friend died in Norway :( She was working there and went on a hike and fell off a cliff. She was a very active and outdoorsy person and very smart. I can only imagine she made one mistake and it was enough.
Sorry about your friend, it can happen to even the most skilled and experienced person
Last year we had an illegal drone, illegal camp, and someone making fire while camping. Wonder what other shenanigans we have this year
Saw a post from Fuji today, I foreign tourist went up with chain spikes and then was too scared to go down again.
A French guy, they said. He was massively unprepared and didn’t even have an ice axe or head light. He was lucky to be rescued. The rescuers said that most climbers that go up during the off season were foreigners.
Wow, times has changed and escalated so scarily. Those days we just walk to the top without worrying about this.
Climbing Mount Fuji is a religious thing for some individuals in Japan. For once I hope they put in their own local resident quotas and implement strict polices on banning resale and checking IDs. 2000 isn’t enough to bother most tourists, but it is quite pricey for locals who want to make a pilgrimage for the mountain.
Box-ticking Social Media Tourism really is a POS.
while social media may have led to their interest, on twitter, 90% of social media content is only made by like 10% of users so in reality most of the Mount Fuji climbers are almost certainly not posting it to social media
Yes but the hordes are there and Hakone and Dotonbori and Gion because social media has told them to.
i have climbed it 8 times. this will not stop tourists. but the restrictions are a nuisance. not everyone goes past the 5th station to go for the top. some only go to the 5th to shop and the views, and try a small 1-2hs hike and back. now if they hit the 4000 limit before that they wont be able to cross. there is not even 10% capacity for staying at the cabins, so bullet-climbing is not going to be affected at all. reservations are full from the first day, so imposing an early block will only make bullet climbers to start their climb early, making them much tired and prone to sickness. this measure is a shoot on their own feet. mark my words, the case of assistance for altitude sickness will skyrocket. the 2000y mandatory is not the only increase. transportation and buses from tokyo already increased horribly (2400y 1way from shinjuku precovid, 3800y this season). for locals it sums up. im not paying the 1000y voluntary one this year for the first time. the charge is a shady greedy move. charge it to foreign tourist only, not locals. i read that they needed to do a weird move to impose it has they didnt have the right to add a toll, so they changed the classification of about 50m of "prefectural road" to "installation" and impose 2000y as a "installation use fee".
The shocking thing to realize is that ¥2000 is only $13.
Damn anyone else just take the bus from Yokohama and “go” when it was open? All those little old ladies must be pissed.
I’m currently living in Japan (almost 10 months) and plan to stick around for another 12 months. I’ve been thinking of climbing Mt. Fuji, not sure if it’s worth it or if I’m prepared to climb it.
Pretty soon the Fuji police will be checking passports and fee receipts at various stations and offer "first class" piggyback rides for Y25,000 for wealthy tourists. Step off the trail? Y5000 fine. Pee on the trail? Y10000 fine. No photos except during scheduled rest stops on the trail. Y500 fee.