JAKARTA - The Mont Blanc authorities on the French side plan to impose a deposit policy of 15 thousand euros, or around Rp. 22,851,079, for those who want to climb the highest peak in Europe.
The fee was levied in anticipation of possible rescue and funeral costs under the plans of a local mayor, who is fed up with the humiliation of risk-taking climbers in the region that includes the Alps.
Jean-Marc Peillex, mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, a town on the French side, said too many unqualified climbers were risking their lives on the mountain, where recent hot weather has made conditions more dangerous.
"The municipality of Saint-Gervais plans to take measures adapted to the irresponsibility of some and their risk of making rescuers flee," Peillex said in a statement on Twitter.
According to the mayor, the deposit of 15,000 euros corresponds to the "average cost of rescue (10,000 euros) and the cost of burial of victims (5,000 euros)."
"It is unacceptable that it is French taxpayers who bear these costs," Peillex said, adding that those making the ascent are now doing so "with death in their backpacks."
Due to the "extremely dangerous" conditions along the Couloir du Goûter, a particularly challenging passage also known as the Corridor of Death, Peillex says reaching the top of Mont Blanc via the popular route known as the Voie Royale, or Royal Way, is strongly advised against it.
Climbing Mont Blanc has been made more risky by large rocks and periods of drought and heat waves, he added.
The mayor accused about 50 'pseudo-climbers' who crossed the route in July of "playing the latest fashionable game: Russian roulette!"
His statement said police in a helicopter used a megaphone to dissuade a group of Romanian hikers from attempting to reach the summit of Mont Blanc using a megaphone on July 30.
Separated on the Italian mountainside, the mayor of the ski resort town of Courmayeur, Roberto Rota, described the proposed Peillex deposit as "reasonable".
In comments confirmed by his press office, Rota told the daily Corriere della Sera that "the mountain is not property."
"We as managers can limit ourselves to reporting less than optimal route conditions, but asking for a security deposit to climb to the top is reasonable," he explained.
"The decision to close the route, the route, is made if there is an objective risk," concluded Rota.
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