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An 87-year-old man died after apparently falling from a climbing trail on Mt Kayagatake near Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Tuesday.
A Yamanashi Prefectural disaster prevention helicopter spotted a man lying on the ground 300 meters west from the summit of Mt Kayagatake (1,704 meters in altitude) at around noon, Fuji TV reported. He was in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest and airlifted to hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Police later identified the man as Toshio Ishii, a resident of Nirasaki in Yamanashi Prefecture.
The site where Ishii was found is approximately 10 meters below a designated climbing trail, leading police to suspect he likely slipped and fell.
Ishii left his home by car on Monday afternoon. When he failed to return home that evening, his family contacted police to file a missing persons report. Early Tuesday morning, Ishii’s car was discovered parked near the entrance to a mountain climbing trail, prompting firefighters and police officers to begin searching the surrounding areas.
Ishii was reportedly a seasoned mountain climber with 50 years of experience.
© Japan Today
11 Comments
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papigiulio
87 years old and was still being able to climb mountains, amazing. rip
Serrano
The man died doing what he loved to do. I hope I can do that.
progressive
what do you love to do?
hooktrunk2
@progressive I don't think Serrano was being specific. Dying while doing what you love to do seems like a better way to go than let's say being murdered, or taken out by a drunk driver or dying of boredom or a broken heart inside a senior facility or countless other ways. Although, falling 10 meters doesn't sound fun. RIP
Do the hustle
It’s a shame that in the 50 years of experience he didn’t learn to never go hiking alone.
Middleoftheroad
The old lady who lives above me is 90 and I think she is half mountain goat, she is always cutting weeds on steep high embankments and climbing to the top of a very tall ladder. I asked her son who is 70 if he could stop her before she gets hurt, he said there was no stopping her. She says once you hit her age if you stop moving, you die, but in this old guys case I guess it got the best of him!
kohakuebisu
I looked it up and its a nice looking mountain, an 800m climb on the route I saw. Impressive for an 87 year old.
RIP.
William Bjornson
It could be that the cardiac arrest had something to do with the fall. Climbing at 87 yo, or at any age, asks much of the heart. In any case, he did not have to die listening to electronic alarms heralding his passage but had birds, the breeze, and, maybe most importantly, the sky to look at as his tenure here came to an end. And odd that a "seasoned mountain climber" did not start until he was 37. I suspect he had a bit more than 50 years and even maybe 70 years of tramping around mountains and may have felt his time coming and wanted it to be on his own terms and where he felt most comfortable. And I don't think mountain climbers typically have the craven fear of death so many of us have, clinging on to life even when it's worse than Hell. Climbing at 87, he was probably that kind of guy who made his own decisions. 御愁傷様でした
Do the hustle
That is just a term used in Japan because only a doctor can pronounce death. It does not mean somebody had a heart attack.
Sha
When I joined my univ's mountaineering club, the 1st rule they taught us was:
Never ever climb alone.
But damn, 87 and still genki enough to climb. RIP
William Bjornson
@Do the hustle
And that somehow rules out cardiac arrest as primary COD? An old mountain goat falls off an almost certainly familiar path and one is led to suspect an intervening issue, no? And there is even the possibility that he chose to 'fall'. Such is not foreign to the Nipponese mind when life turns to less than tolerable. We don't know anything other than he was a tough, ganko, old bird doing what he wanted to do. The Gods will treat him well, I think.