Fujikawaguchiko town official says choice to erect huge barrier is ‘regrettable’ and last resort
A huge barrier to block views of Mount Fuji will be installed at a popular photo spot by Japanese authorities exasperated by crowds of badly behaved foreign tourists.
Construction of the mesh net – 2.5 metres (8ft) high and the length of a cricket pitch at 20 metres – will begin as early as next week, an official from Fujikawaguchiko town said on Friday.
Continue reading...Tom Gerbier was hiking the tallest mountain in the contiguous US in Sequoia national park when he fell to his death
A pilot from France who disappeared while hiking California’s towering Mount Whitney was found dead after falling about 1,000ft (305 meters) off a cliff, the National Park Service said Friday.
The hiker was identified as Tom Gerbier of Fontenay-sous-Bois, France, who was a pilot for Air France, the park service said in a statement.
Continue reading...Paintings from a climb that retraced an 1800s route on western Europe’s highest mountain reveals the extent of the peak’s melting ice
A British landscape artist who recreated a climb made 150 years ago to document the impact of the climate crisis on western Europe’s highest mountain says what he found was so grim it reminded him of the “dark paintings” of Francisco de Goya.
James Hart Dyke ascended Mont Blanc’s ancien passage north face, the route taken in 1786 by the first climbers to reach the summit. It was also the same one taken in August 1873 by French painter Gabriel Loppé, whose climb inspired Hart Dyke’s own.
Continue reading...Rangers say Joy Cho fell off Teewinot mountain before dawn on Friday during a hike and seven companions rescued
A woman has died after falling off a mountain during a hike in Wyoming’s Grand Teton national park.
According to a National Park Service press release reviewed by CNN, Joy Cho of Simi Valley, California, fell off the west side of Teewinot mountain before dawn on Friday.
Continue reading...Guests told to leave STF Kebnekaise mountain station and nearby campers evacuated from country’s highest peak
A popular lodge on Sweden’s highest peak has been forced to temporarily close after a stomach bug rapidly spread among hikers.
STF Kebnekaise mountain station, which lies at the foot of the 2,096m Kebnekaise massif, had quarantined several guests who had caught the bug in recent days but decided to take a more drastic measure after it was also detected in hikers camping in the area.
Continue reading...Gelje Sherpa was guiding Chinese client to summit when he saw Malaysian climber clinging to rope
A Malaysian climber narrowly survived after a Nepali sherpa guide hauled him down from below the summit of Mount Everest in a very rare high-altitude rescue, a government official has said.
Gelje Sherpa, 30, was guiding a Chinese client to the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) Everest summit on 18 May when he saw the Malaysian climber clinging to a rope and shivering from extreme cold in the area known as the death zone, where temperatures can dip to -30C or lower.
Continue reading...Nepal’s head of tourism says variable weather on the mountain has led to one of the deadliest years on record
Experts say this is likely to be one of the deadliest years on record on Mount Everest, with variable weather caused by climate change being blamed as one of the main reasons for the deaths of up to 17 people.
A total of 12 people have now been confirmed dead during Everest expeditions this season and another five are missing, presumed dead, as no contact has been made for at least five days in all cases, according to the Himalayan Database, which tracks mountain fatalities.
Continue reading...‘Strong climber’ Kami Rita Sherpa beats own record for number of ascents on world’s highest mountain
A Nepali sherpa has scaled Mount Everest for a record 27th time, beating his own record, a government official and his hiking company said.
Kami Rita Sherpa, 53, scaled the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) mountain early on Wednesday morning along the traditional south-east ridge route, guiding a foreign climber.
Continue reading...If global heating continues at current rate of 2.7C, losses will be greater with 68% of glaciers disappearing
Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen in the next 30 years.
Researchers found 49% of glaciers would disappear under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of warming. However, if global heating continued under the current scenario of 2.7C of warming, losses would be more significant, with 68% of glaciers disappearing, according to the paper, published in Science. There would be almost no glaciers left in central Europe, western Canada and the US by the end of the next century if this happened.
Continue reading...Routes that are usually safe at this time of year now face hazards as a result of warmer temperatures
Little snow cover and glaciers melting at an alarming rate in Europe’s heatwaves have put some classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits.
Usually at the height of summer tourists flock to the Alps and seek out well-trodden paths up to some of its peaks. But with warmer temperatures – which scientists say are driven by climate change – speeding up glacier melt and thawing permafrost, routes that are usually safe at this time of year now face hazards such as falling rocks released from the ice.
Continue reading...Authorities keen to avoid repeat of fatal glacier fall and avalanche but need to protect local tourism industry
The summer season was just getting into the swing in the mountain towns based around the Marmolada, the highest peak in the Italian Dolomites, when a huge mass of ice from a glacier on its north side snapped off last Sunday afternoon, causing a fatal avalanche.
Hotels, restaurants and mountain refuges were packed, and trails busy with hikers, climbers and cyclists, many flocking to the mountains in search of slightly fresher temperatures during Italy’s intense heatwave.
Continue reading...From the return of wildlife to the pressures of tourism and the climate crisis, Steven Fuller has seen it all in his nearly 50 years watching over America’s oldest national park
• Read more: Native Americans are at the heart of Yellowstone. After 150 years, they are finally being heard
As “winterkeeper” at Yellowstone national park, Steven Fuller lives in a rustic cedar-shingled cottage, built in 1910, set on a hill a short walk from the majestic Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
On balmier days, with the windows open, he can hear the roar of the 308ft Lower Falls tumbling into the chasm. In autumn, he is treated to the sound of bugling bull elk in rut or, in the middle of night, the howls of wolves.
Continue reading...As my family were neither middle class nor white European I didn’t venture into the bush until I was an adult – I’ll never forget my first time
Nothing beats the New Zealand bush. The writer Ashleigh Young once tweeted: “Sometimes NZ writers say ‘the forest’ instead of ‘the bush’ (and they definitely mean ‘the bush’) because they are nervous about saying ‘the bush’. Bring back the bush. If everyone does it, we will be fine.”
So here I am, proclaiming, “I love the bush!” Perhaps this is my opinion as an outdoor enthusiast and bisexual, but “bush” is the more accurate descriptor for the native flora of Aotearoa. Our bush is dense and scratchy, inured to the trample of boots. Our bush is thick and lush all year round, as few native plant species are deciduous. Our bush is not some wan forest: it is wild and overgrown, it does not encourage easy passage.
Continue reading...Connemara has inspired film crews, writers and maharajahs with its wild mountains and endless expanses of sky and sea
When I was 20 and straight out of teacher training college I took a job in a school in Connemara for a year. My friends were heading for the bright lights of Dublin, but after a childhood of caravan holidays along Ireland’s west coast I was drawn to the “wild mountainous country” of west Galway beloved of Oscar Wilde and countless other artists and untamed spirits.
Instead of the indoor excitement of city life, I spent the year knee-high in bogs, scrambling up the Twelve Bens, island-hopping to Inishbofin and Inishark and pedalling along deserted roads to the show-stopping beaches at Glassilaun and Rossadillisk. A sign on the road for Rossadillisk beach read “Welcome to Paradise”. I learned to ride on Connemara ponies at Errislannan and on weekends I’d hitch lifts to random events in Letterfrack, involving local poets, map makers and sculptors who breathed life into this quiet corner of Ireland. With no advance planning, I’d find myself at the summit of Diamond Hill or spotting porpoises at Renvyle beach with a gang of newfound friends.
Continue reading...Two decades ago Richard Stiles escaped an avalanche in New Zealand, but friend Steve Robinson wasn’t so lucky. Now the mountain has given up some of its secrets
When mountaineer Chris Hill found a backpack with an old camera in it on the Hooker Glacier – an 11km chunk of ice on New Zealand’s South Island – he was intrigued and decided to get the film inside developed.
Hooker is at the base of Aoraki (Mount Cook), in a national park of icy peaks where hundreds of climbers have died, dozens of them never to be found.
Continue reading...Satellite images confirm snow decrease spurred by climate crisis as glaciers recede and communities reliant on mountain water face shortages
The Andes mountain range is facing historically low snowfall this year during a decade-long drought that scientists link to global heating.
Scant rain and snowfall are leaving many of the majestic mountains between Ecuador and Argentina with patchy snow cover or no snow at all as dry, brown earth lies exposed.
Continue reading...Decision to allow expeditions to go ahead dealt blow after outbreak on world’s seventh highest mountain
Nepal’s decision to allow people to continue to climb its Himalayan peaks as a vicious Covid-19 wave sweeps the country was dealt a further blow after 19 more climbers tested positive for the virus.
Last month it was reported that the pandemic had reached Everest base camp and though officials later denied it, climbers have reported a wave of infections that were being covered up.
Continue reading...Accelerating retreat of glaciers in Lombardy and Trentino Alto-Aldige reveals preserved history of ‘White War’
The soldiers dug the wooden barracks into a cave on the top of Mount Scorluzzo, a 3,095-metre (10,154ft) peak overlooking the Stelvio pass. For the next three-and-a-half years, the cramped, humid space was home to about 20 men from the Austro-Hungarian army as they fought against Italian troops in what became known as the White War, a battle waged across treacherous and bitterly cold Alpine terrain during the first world war.
Fought mainly in the Alps of the Lombardy region of Italy and the Dolomites in Trentino Alto-Adige, the White War was a period of history frozen in time until the 1990s, when global warming started to reveal an assortment of perfectly preserved relics – weapons, sledges, letters, diaries and, as the retreat of glaciers hastened, the bodies of soldiers.
Continue reading...The red list of species at risk is well-known, but the list for protected sites is quietly helping to ‘paint the planet green’
When Kawésqar national park was formed in the Chilean part of Patagonia in 2019, just one ranger was responsible for an expanse the size of Belgium. Its fjords, forests and Andean peaks are a precious wilderness – one of the few remaining ecosystems undamaged by human activity, alongside parts of the Amazon, the Sahara and eastern Siberia.
Chilean officials hope that Kawésqar will, one day, meet the high standards for protected areas laid out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and make it on to the organisation’s “green list”.
Continue reading...Prevented from travelling abroad by the Covid pandemic, locals are instead visiting the magnificent glaciers of the Tian Shan mountain range near Kazakhstan’s biggest city, Almaty
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