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Gate Installed on Mount Fuji Trail to Control Crowds, Governor Says More Measures Needed

Workers set up a gate at the 5th station for a trail to Mt. Fuji, in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan Monday, June 17, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)
Workers set up a gate at the 5th station for a trail to Mt. Fuji, in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan Monday, June 17, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)
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Gate Installed on Mount Fuji Trail to Control Crowds, Governor Says More Measures Needed

Workers set up a gate at the 5th station for a trail to Mt. Fuji, in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan Monday, June 17, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)
Workers set up a gate at the 5th station for a trail to Mt. Fuji, in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan Monday, June 17, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

A crowd-control gate was installed halfway up Japan's Mount Fuji on Monday ahead of the July 1 start of this year's climbing season, but the governor of Yamanashi, one of the two prefectures that are home to the mountain, said additional measures are needed to control overcrowding on its lower slopes.

The gate was completed as part of a new set of rules that Yamanashi is introducing this year to address growing safety, environmental and overcrowding problems on the mountain.

The newly installed gate will be closed between 4 p.m. and 3 a.m. to lock out those who have not booked an overnight stay at a hut along the Yoshida trail, which is used by most climbers, mainly to stop “bullet climbing," or rushing to the summit without adequate rest, considered a major safety risk. A maximum of 4,000 climbers will be allowed to enter the trail per day.

“The restrictions that will take effect this year are measures to address the problems that are putting climbers' lives at risk,” Yamanashi Gov. Kotaro Nagasaki said at a news conference in Tokyo. He said the number of climbers on the trail this year is expected to surpass last year's 137,236.

“Overcrowding near the summit could lead to a major disaster, like people falling in a domino effect,” he said.

Under the new system, climbers must make reservations and choose between a day hike or an overnight stay at one of several huts along the trail. There is a mandatory hiking fee of 2,000 yen (about $12.70) and an optional donation of 1,000 yen (about $6.35) for conservation.

A QR code is sent to climbers' smartphones to be scanned at the gate, which is halfway up the mountain in an area known as the fifth station, where the Yoshida trail begins. There are 10 stations on the mountain.

Nagasaki said he is confident that the new measures will ease overcrowding on the upper reaches of Mount Fuji, but that problems remain lower down.

He pledged to ease over-tourism on the lower levels and their surroundings, possibly by introducing a mountain railway to the fifth station, which currently can be reached by cars and buses, while promoting traditional climbing routes from the mountain's foot.

Shizuoka prefecture, which also contains part of the mountain, currently imposes no mandatory hiking restrictions. On June 10, it began an online registration system in which climbers fill in their hiking plans and are encouraged not to climb after 4 p.m.

Mount Fuji, long a symbol of Japan, was once a place for pilgrimages. Today, it attracts tens of thousands of people who hike to the summit to watch the sunrise. But the tons of trash left behind, including plastic bottles and food, have become a major concern.

Recently, the town of Fujikawaguchiko in Yamanashi erected a large black screen along a sidewalk to block the view of Mount Fuji after tourists began crowding the area to take photos of the mountain appearing to sit on the roof of a convenience store, a social media trend known as “Mount Fuji Lawson” that disrupted businesses, traffic and local life.

Overtourism has also become a growing problem for other popular tourist destinations like Kyoto as foreign visitors flock to Japan, in part because of the weaker yen.

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Nine Skiers Missing, Six Rescued after California Avalanche

FILE PHOTO: The snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains are seen from the air during a Pacific Gas and Electric snowpack survey near Nevada City, California, US April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Bob Strong/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains are seen from the air during a Pacific Gas and Electric snowpack survey near Nevada City, California, US April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Bob Strong/File Photo
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Nine Skiers Missing, Six Rescued after California Avalanche

FILE PHOTO: The snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains are seen from the air during a Pacific Gas and Electric snowpack survey near Nevada City, California, US April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Bob Strong/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains are seen from the air during a Pacific Gas and Electric snowpack survey near Nevada City, California, US April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Bob Strong/File Photo

Nine skiers were missing after an avalanche in California's Sierra Nevada mountains on Tuesday, but six others, who had been stranded, have since been rescued, authorities said.

The avalanche swept the Castle Peak area of Truckee, California, about 10 miles north of Lake Tahoe, at about 11:30 a.m. Pacific time, engulfing a group of skiers, according to a Facebook statement posted by the Nevada County Sheriff's Office.

Those rescued have varying injuries and two were ‌sent to a hospital ‌for treatment.

The sheriff's office revised the number of ‌people ⁠in the group to ⁠15 from an earlier estimate of 16, adding that no further updates were expected on Tuesday evening.

If all nine of the missing skiers should perish, the incident would rank among the deadliest single avalanches on record in the United States. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center has tallied six US avalanche fatalities so far this season.

Avalanches have claimed an average of 27 lives ⁠each winter in the United States over the past ‌decade, the center reported.

A winter storm warning ‌was in effect for much of northern California on Tuesday, with heavy snow ‌forecast in the upper elevations of the Sierra Nevada.

The Sierra Avalanche Center ‌had posted an alert before dawn on Tuesday, warning of a "high avalanche danger" in the ski region, the sheriff's statement said.

"I don't think it was a wise choice," Greene said of the decision of a ski tour company to take paying ‌customers out into the backcountry under such conditions, adding, "but we don't know all the details yet." He declined to ⁠name the company involved.

Rescue ⁠ski teams were dispatched to the avalanche zone from the Boreal Mountain Ski Resort and Tahoe Donner's Alder Creek Adventure Center.

The survivors had taken refuge in a makeshift shelter, constructed partly from tarpaulin sheets and communicated with rescuers via radio beacon and text messaging.

Greene declined to say how many of the ski guides and how many of their customers were among the missing.

Weather conditions remained hazardous in the Sierra backcountry slopes, with additional avalanche activity expected through Tuesday night and into Wednesday, according to the sheriff's statement.

California Governor Gavin Newsom was briefed on the avalanche, and state authorities were "coordinating an all-hands search-and-rescue effort" in conjunction with local emergency teams, his office said in a posting on X.

Varieties

Surprise Shark Caught on Camera for 1st Time in Antarctica’s Near-freezing Deep

In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)
In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)
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Surprise Shark Caught on Camera for 1st Time in Antarctica’s Near-freezing Deep

In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)
In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)

An ungainly barrel of a shark cruising languidly over a barren seabed far too deep for the sun’s rays to illuminate was an unexpected sight.

Many experts had thought sharks didn’t exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica before this sleeper shark lumbered warily and briefly into the spotlight of a video camera, researcher Alan Jamieson said this week. The shark, filmed in January 2025, was a substantial specimen with an estimated length of between 3 and 4 meters (10 and 13 feet).

“We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there’s a general rule of thumb that you don’t get sharks in Antarctica,” Jamieson said.

“And it’s not even a little one either. It’s a hunk of a shark. These things are tanks,” he added.

The camera operated by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, which investigates life in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, was positioned off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula. That is well inside the boundaries of the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, which is defined as below the 60-degree south latitude line.

The center on Wednesday gave The Associated Press permission to publish the images.
The shark was 490 meters (1,608 feet) deep where the water temperature was a near-freezing 1.27 degrees Celsius (34.29 degrees Fahrenheit).

A skate appears in frame motionless on the seabed and seemingly unperturbed by the passing shark. The skate, a shark relative that looks like a stingray, was no surprise since scientists already knew their range extended that far south.

Jamieson, who is the founding director of the University of Western Australia-based research center, said he could find no record of another shark found in the Antarctic Ocean.

Peter Kyne, a Charles Darwin University conservation biologist independent of the research center, agreed that a shark had never before been recorded so far south.

Climate change and warming oceans could potentially be driving sharks to the Southern Hemisphere’s colder waters, but there was limited data on range changes near Antarctica because of the region’s remoteness, Kyne said.

The slow-moving sleeper sharks could have long been in Antarctica without anyone noticing, he said.

“This is great. The shark was in the right place, the camera was in the right place and they got this great footage,” Kyne said. “It’s quite significant.”

The sleeper shark population in the Antarctic Ocean was likely sparse and difficult for humans to detect, Jamieson said.

The photographed shark was maintaining a depth of around 500 meters (1,640 feet) along a seabed that sloped into much deeper water. The shark maintained that depth because that was the warmest layer of several water layers stacked upon each other to the surface, Jamieson said.

The Antarctic Ocean is heavily layered, or stratified, to a depth of around 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) because of conflicting properties including colder, denser water from below not readily mixing with fresh water running off melting ice from above.

Jamieson expects other Antarctic sharks live at the same depth, feeding on the carcasses of whales, giant squids and other marine creatures that die and sink to the bottom.

There are few research cameras positioned at that specific depth in Antarctic waters.

Those that are can only operate during the Southern Hemisphere summer months, from December through February.

“The other 75% of the year, no one’s looking at all. And so this is why, I think, we occasionally come across these surprises,” Jamieson said.

Varieties

17th Century Wreck Reappears from Stockholm Deep

The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
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17th Century Wreck Reappears from Stockholm Deep

The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)

A 17th century Swedish Navy shipwreck buried underwater in central Stockholm for 400 years has suddenly become visible due to unusually low Baltic Sea levels.

The wooden planks of the ship's well-preserved hull have since early February been peeking out above the surface of the water off the island of Kastellholmen, providing a clear picture of its skeleton.

"We have a shipwreck here, which was sunk on purpose by the Swedish Navy," Jim Hansson, a marine archeologist at Stockholm's Vrak - Museum of Wrecks, told AFP.

Hansson said experts believe that after serving in the navy, the ship was sunk around 1640 to use as a foundation for a new bridge to the island of Kastellholmen.

Archeologists have yet to identify the exact ship, as it is one of five similar wrecks lined up in the same area to form the bridge, all dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

"This is a solution, instead of using new wood you can use the hull itself, which is oak" to build the bridge, Hansson said.

"We don't have shipworm here in the Baltic that eats the wood, so it lasts, as you see, for 400 years," he said, standing in front of the wreck.

Parts of the ship had already broken the surface in 2013, but never before has it been as visible as it is now, as the waters of the Baltic Sea reach their lowest level in about 100 years, according to the archaeologist.

"There has been a really long period of high pressure here around our area in the Nordics. So the water from the Baltic has been pushed out to the North Sea and the Atlantic," Hansson explained.

A research program dubbed "the Lost Navy" is underway to identify and precisely date the large number of Swedish naval shipwrecks lying on the bottom of the Baltic.