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British couple in shorts, T-shirt call for rescue from Japanese mountain, say it’s too cold for them to move

Casey Baseel May 16, 2025
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Once again, foreign nationals need help after taking the risks of mountain hiking too lightly.

We recently discussed the story of a 27-year-old man who had to be rescued from the side of Mt. Fuji because he’d gone back alone to look for his smartphone, which he’d dropped on a different solo off-season Fuji hike he’d taken five days earlier and also needed rescue personnel to help him get home from. It was tempting to just go ahead and declare it the dumbest mountain rescue of the year, but there’s still a lot of 2025 left, and now a new contender has emerged.

On May 13, at around 6:10 p.m., a call was placed to Japan’s 110 emergency help number**. The caller was a 30-year-old British man who, along with his 29-year-old British girlfriend, had departed for a hike on Mt. Yotei**. The man said that they had been walking the trails but were now unable to move because of the cold temperatures on the mountain, and couldn’t make it to any mountain hut or other shelter structure under their own power.

Though we’re into late spring and most parts of Japan are enjoying pleasantly mild temperatures, Mt. Yotei is located in the town of Kucthan in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost, and coldest, prefecture. The mountain regularly still has snow on its upper section at this time of year (the photo at the top of this article showing Mt. Yotei was taken on May 20 in 2005), and the couple had hiked up to a point at an elevation of roughly 1,750 meters (5,741 feet), about 90 percent of the way to the summit. So when the police helicopter that had to be dispatched to save the couple up arrived, the rescue team was surprised to find that the man was dressed in shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. The woman at least had long pants on, but paired them with a short-sleeved shirt, so between the two of them they had the components for maybe one outfit that’d provide a modicum of protection against cool weather.

▼ Even this woman in her pajamas is dressed more sensibly for a spring Mt. Yotei hike than the couple that needed to be rescued.

After being taken back into town, the woman was examined at the hospital, but it was determined that she didn’t require any medical treatment to recover from her exposure to the elements while on the mountain. The rescue workers say that the couple appeared to have little knowledge of or experience in mountaineering, which doesn’t seem like a particularly wild guess.

It is worth noting that on the day of the incident the town of Kucthan itself had a daytime high of 20.5 degrees Celsius (68.9 degrees Fahrenheit), which isn’t exactly “Take a sweater or you’ll catch your death of cold”-class weather. The nighttime low, though, got all the way down to 5.8 degrees Celsius (42.4 degrees Fahrenheit), and things would obviously be even colder high up on the mountain, far below temperatures you’d want to be hiking around in with exposed legs or arms. And while it’s possible the couple’s choice of attire presented no problems at the time/elevation they started their hike from, it seems like there should be plenty of leeway between realizing you should turn back because you’re uncomfortably underdressed and becoming so cold that you’re unable to move from your present position without getting a ride in a helicopter.

Thankfully neither the man nor the woman appears to have suffered any injuries or other adverse health effects from the experience. With this being the third easily preventable rescue situation involving foreign nationals within a month, however, frustration is no longer mounting among policymakers, and if one Japanese mayor gets his wish, some stranded hikers might have to start footing the bill for their rescue operations.

Source: FNN Prime Online via Yahoo! Japan News, Tenki.jp
Top image: Wikipedia/Alpsdake
Insert image: Pakutaso
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