At least one person died climbing Mount Fuji days before the official start of the climbing season, and three bodies were found on the mountain, police and local media said.
Among them was a professional climber, Keita Kurakami, according Patagonia, where he was an ambassador. He lost consciousness while climbing the mountain, Japan’s highest, on Wednesday and was declared dead at a hospital, local police said, according to public broadcaster NHK.
The three bodies were discovered about three-quarters of the way up the 12,400-foot mountain, all near its crater but in different locations, local police said Wednesday, according to NHK. It is unclear when the bodies were found. The three are believed to have been climbers who ascended separately, the station said.
During all of last year, seven deaths were reported on Mount Fuji.
Police in Shizuoka prefecture, where some trails to the summit begin, began searching after a woman in Tokyo reported Sunday that she had lost contact with her 53-year-old husband who had gone to climb Mount Fuji, police said. He left Friday afternoon and sent his family a photo taken near the summit on Saturday but then lost contact, NHK said. The man was identified as one of the dead, Eriko Takahashi, a spokeswoman for the Shizuoka police department, said in an interview Thursday.
Police were still identifying the other two bodies, but suspected they were a man in his 30s who was reported missing in December and a man in his 50s who was reported missing in January, Ms. Takahashi said.
As Mount Fuji’s popularity has increased in recent years, officials have become more concerned about overcrowding and dangerous climbing practices.
There are four trails leading to the summit. The one in Yamanashi Prefecture opens on July 1 and the three in neighboring Shizuoka Prefecture open on July 10, according to the mountain’s official climbing site. website.
Outside the summer climbing window, Mount Fuji experiences violent gusts of wind and snowstorms, and climbers can fall due to wind or slip on ice, according to the official Mount Fuji climbing site. website. Restrooms and mountain huts where climbers can rest are closed out of season, according to the website for Yamanshi Prefectural Police.
Authorities have long been concerned about climbers who attempt to ascend to the summit without resting overnight in one of the cabins that dot the trails. Climbing without rest at night can cause altitude sickness and hypothermia, authorities have reported. warned.
Mr. Kurakami, the professional climber, ascended the mountain from the Yamanshi trail, NHK reported. Patagonia said in a social media post who suffered a heart attack in 2021, received treatment and continued climbing.
Although the number of people reaching the top of the mountain has remained stable over the past decade at between 200,000 and 300,000 each year, the number of people visiting the trailheads (and who could climb part of the way) has increased about three million in 2014 to five million in 2019, according to data from Yamanashi prefecture.
This climbing season, Yamanashi Prefecture is for the first time limit the daily number of hikers and require hikers to pay a fee equivalent to about $12.50. It has also installed a barrier at the beginning of its route, which will remain closed from 4:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.