February 20, 2025
TOKYO – With hiking growing in popularity, maintaining mountain trails has become a more pressing challenge. While some routes have attracted volunteers, there are still many trails that are not well maintained. These trails risk falling into disrepair, which could cause accidents.
The Lani Head Trail, a 1.6-kilometer trail leading to the 929-meter-high Mt. Mitake in Ome, Tokyo, has recently become a popular hiking route partly because it is close to Mitake Station on the JR Ome Line.
Until five years ago, the trail was overgrown and abandoned. Its revival began in 2019. Wakana Fukushima, a TV personality who serves as “Mitake health ambassador,” started to repair the route.
“I want to increase the number of climbers,” she said. She recruited volunteers to cut weeds and restore the trail in 2020.
Fukushima, who still conducts maintenance on the trail twice a month, said, “You can climb the mountain only because someone is maintaining the trail. I hope that those who hike here will help maintain it.”
In mid-October, a road was reopened on the 2,599-meter-high Mt. Kinpu, connecting to the old Mitake Kodo trail in Kofu. The mountain, which flourished as a center of ascetic practices in ancient times, is on the border of Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures.
The road had been in disrepair and the trail was hardly used, but local mountain guides planned to revive it so that local culture and history could be kept alive. The Kofu city government and other local organizations raised part of the maintenance costs through a crowdfunding campaign.
According to the city, the restoration of the old trail has shortened a round trip to the summit by two hours, and the number of climbers rose to about 30 in the first month after the trail was restored.
“I hope the restoration of the trail will encourage locals to take a fresh look at their own mountains,” a city official said.
While some mountain trails are being restored, there are still many that have no one to maintain them.
Of the 1,127 trails that run through Japan’s 34 national parks, nearly half of them have no one in charge of maintenance and preservation, according to a report released Dec. 2023 by the Environment Ministry.
This is due to concern about having to assume responsibility if there is an accident, as well as because of a lack of funds, officials said.
Even some trails with people maintaining them are not repaired in a timely manner, and 300 trails were found to have “some” or “many issues.”
Members of mountaineering groups and staff at mountain lodges, who have been responsible for trail maintenance, are ageing in many regions, and some are no longer able to take good care of the trails, according to a group that studies management of mountain trails.
There has also been a concerning rise in the number of trail accidents. In 2023, there were 3,568 accidents in the mountains, according to a National Police Agency report. “Getting lost” accounted for 34% of accidents, and “slipping and falling” and “falling down” each accounted for 17%.
“As the number of elderly climbers increases and the mountain trails continue to deteriorate, the number of lost climbers will rise, and the risk of slips and falls will also increase,” said Kenji Kubota, a member of the trail study group.
Local governments and private organizations are taking action to maintain a safe climbing environment.
At Mt. Fuji, the Yamanashi prefectural government started asking last summer that climbers pay a ¥2,000 toll in addition to a voluntary ¥1,000 conservation fee. The toll will be used for trail maintenance and other purposes. The Shizuoka prefectural government is considering collecting a similar toll from this summer.
In April 2023, groups and outdoor gear manufacturers involved in trail maintenance formed the Japan Trail Alliance volunteer group in Tokyo. The group has called on national and local governments to increase staff and budgets for trail maintenance and is also calling for cooperation from climbers through events.
“Mountain trails are in critical condition,” said Jiro Ito, 43, a representative for the group. “We need to build a sustainable system that does not rely on volunteers.”