en.malanginspirasi.com – A 48-year-old hiker faced intense police scrutiny in Japan after abandoning his seven-year-old son thousands of feet up Mount Fuji to continue ascending the summit with his older child.
The incident unfolded on Thursday morning along the Fujinomiya hiking route, where mountain hut employees discovered the isolated child sitting alone on a bench at roughly 07:30 local time.
Stranded near the trail’s sixth station—at an altitude exceeding 2,000 meters (6,500 feet)—the young boy was left exposed to rain and thick fog with only a soft drink and a snack.
According to reports, the child had voiced fatigue during the trek, prompting his father to instruct him to wait on the bench while he pressed forward with his older son.
By the time law enforcement tracked down the father, he had progressed all the way to the eighth station, roughly three hours farther up the volcano.
When the father eventually returned to retrieve his child, officers scolded him sternly for his actions.
Authorities emphasized that leaving a child unattended on a steep incline is entirely unacceptable, regardless of whether a family must abandon its goal of reaching the summit.
The father subsequently admitted fault and apologized for his reckless choice.
The Fujinomiya trail is one of the most frequented pathways on Mount Fuji, beginning at a fifth station accessible via public transit.
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The standard route typically requires about five hours to reach the 3,776-meter peak and three hours to descend.
Mount Fuji, an active volcano located southwest of Tokyo, holds UNESCO World Heritage status and is revered as one of Japan’s three holy mountains alongside Mount Tate and Mount Haku.
While nearly 200,000 visitors make the trek annually under regulated daily quotas, safety concerns continue to rise.
Local authorities have handled multiple rescue operations recently, including assisting a 99-year-old climber injured in a fall and a university student who required two separate rescues within four days while searching for a lost phone.
