This 102-Year-Old Man Just Became the Oldest Person on Record to Summit Japan’s Mount Fuji

Kokichi Akuzawa is an experienced climber who trained for his journey up the mountain by walking for one hour every morning


Sonja Anderson - Daily Correspondent
August 22, 2025


     

The 102-year-old climber was assisted by his 70-year-old daughter on the journey. Guinness World Records 

A 102-year-old Japanese man just became the oldest person ever to climb Mount Fuji. With the assistance of his friends and daughter, Kokichi Akuzawa recently scaled the 12,388-foot peak—the tallest in Japan.

Akuzawa is an experienced mountain climber. As the honorary chairman of the Gunma Mountaineering Club, he has climbed mountains almost weekly, according to a statement from Guinness World Records’ Masakazu Senda. In 2022, to celebrate his 99th birthday, Akuzawa climbed Mount Nabewariyama, a 4,177-foot peak outside Tokyo.

Quick fact: Mount Fuji’s last eruption
The mountain is considered an active volcano, though it hasn’t erupted since 1707. 

Akuzawa had already scaled Mount Fuji a few years earlier, when he was 96. Since then, he’s suffered a fall, heart failure and a case of the shingles. Still, Akuzawa decided to climb Fuji one last time.
On the morning of August 3, Akuzawa started up the easiest of the mountain’s four routes—a journey that takes the average climber six hours. As Backpacker’s Emma Veidt reports, the least challenging route still features some 5,800 feet of vertical elevation gain. Known as the Yoshida trail, it is the mountain’s most popular route, and it’s equipped with many mountainside huts, five shops and three first-aid stations. Akuzawa stretched his journey over three days, spending two nights on the trail.

 
Akuzawa stayed in huts for two nights during the journey. Guinness World Records

“It was tough, and it felt a lot different to the last time I climbed it,” says Akuzawa in the statement. “I’m amazed that I made it to the top.”
In the months before his climb, Akuzawa got in shape by waking up early each day to walk for an hour, as well as climbing other mountains, according to Guinness World Records. During most of his actual climb, the weather was fair. But the temperature got colder near the top of the mountain, where atmospheric pressure and oxygen also decrease. Akuzawa wanted to give up on the third day, but his daughter Motoe, 70, encouraged him to keep going, one step at a time. Akuzawa reached the summit at 11 a.m. on August 5.

Mount Fuji is 12,388 feet tall. Midori via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 3.0

“I couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help,” Akuzawa says in the statement. “I’m feeling pleased now.”
Located southwest of Tokyo, Mount Fuji is “considered the sacred symbol of Japan,” per Encyclopedia Britannica. The mountain features in many iconic artworks, such as Hokusai’s woodblock print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji; it also occupies the background of The Great Wave, the most famous image from that collection.

Mount Fuji can be seen in the background of Hokusai’s The Great Wave. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The record for the oldest climber to summit Mount Fuji has been set several times in the past few decades. Teiichi Igarashi, 99, became the oldest person to summit the mountain in 1986. In 1994, Ichijiro Araya summited the mountain at 100 years and 258 days old. Now, Akuzawa has done it at the age of 102 years and 51 days.
Akuzawa was awarded an official Guinness World Records certificate. He says he has no interest in climbing the mountain again in the future.
“If you ask me next year, maybe you’ll get a different answer,” he adds. “But for now, I’m happy with that climb.”



https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-102-year-old-man-just-became-the-oldest-person-on-record-to-summit-japans-mount-fuji-180987223/