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| Above, a view of Mount Fuji from a Shinkansen train. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Thanks to COVID-19, the governments of Shizuoka and Yamanashi have packed up Mount Fuji and put it into storage for the remainder of the year.
Well, not exactly, but the mountain is now officially closed.
SoraNews 24 reported:
In an ordinary year, we’d be just a few weeks away from the start of Mt. Fuji’s climbing season, with hikers headed up Japan’s tallest mountain to rise above the summer heat and appreciate the country’s natural beauty from a one-of-a-kind vantage point.
2020 has been anything but ordinary, though, with the coronavirus disrupting just about all aspects of life. So instead of officially opening the mountain to hikers on July 10, as had been the plan, the governments of Shizuoka and Yamanashi Prefectures recently announced that Mt. Fuji (which straddles the border between the two prefectures) will be closed to visitors for the entire summer, and in effect the remainder of the year, since the climbing season was scheduled to end on September 10.
They’re serious about the restriction, too. This week Yamanashi’s Fujiyoshida City, where the Yoshida Trail (one of the most popular routes to the peak) starts, installed barricades to prevent hikers from making their way up Fuji’s slopes.
To read more, go here.
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