This is how France tries to protect Mont Blanc 2:02
(CNN) --
Anyone who wants to reach the top of Europe's highest peak, Mont Blanc, may have to pay a 15,000-euro ($15,300) deposit to cover possible rescue and funeral costs, according to plans. announced by a local mayor fed up with the "disdain" of climbers risking their lives.
Jean-Marc Peillex, mayor of the French town of Saint-Gervias-les-Bains, says too many unskilled climbers risk their lives on the mountain, where the recent heat has made conditions more treacherous.
Top of Mont Blanc.
Credit: Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images
"The municipality of Saint-Gervais plans to take measures adapted to the irresponsibility of some and the risks they make rescuers take," Peillex said in a statement on Twitter.
According to the mayor, the bail of 15,000 euros corresponds to "the average cost of a ransom (10,000 euros) and the funeral expenses of a victim (5,000 euros)".
"It is unacceptable that it is the French taxpayer who bears these expenses," Peillex said, adding that those who climb the mountain now will do so "with death in their backpack."
Due to "extremely dangerous" conditions along the Couloir du Goûter, a particularly challenging section also known as Death Row, Peillex said reaching the summit of Mont Blanc via a popular path known as the Voie Royale, or Camino Real, was strictly discouraged.
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The ascent of Mont Blanc has become more risky due to large rockfalls and a period of drought and heat waves, he added.
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The mayor accused some 50 "pseudoclimbers" who traveled the route in July of "playing the latest game in fashion: Russian roulette."
In his statement, he said the gendarmerie used a megaphone from a helicopter to push back a group of Romanian hikers trying to reach the top of Mont Blanc on July 30.
On the Italian side of the mountain, the mayor of the ski resort town of Courmayeur, Roberto Rota, has called Peillex's deposit plan "surreal".
In statements confirmed by his press office, Rota told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that "the mountain is not property."
"We as administrators can just report sub-optimal route conditions, but asking for a deposit to climb to the top is surreal," he said.
"The decision to close a road, a route, is made if there is an objective risk."
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