Crowded Climbers Stranded on Cliffside for Over an Hour, Harrowing Image Shows

Avid climbers seeking to summit Mount Everest have often found themselves waiting in a line to ascend the mountain as crowds of mountaineers are jammed into a small path. Elsewhere in China, climbers found themselves in a similar situation just a few days ago.

According to CNN, photos from Chinese social media have gone viral as a group of climbers attempted to ascend Yandang Mountain in eastern China and found themselves stuck on a cliffside for more than an hour. To reach the top, climbers use a via ferrata, or metal rungs secured into the mountain, but they were waiting there while other people ahead of them were holding up the line.

The photos began circulating on Xiaohongshu, regarded as the Chinese version of Instagram. Per CNN, commenters online didn't think they'd be able to keep their cool the same way the adventurers did.

“This is frightening! Someone like me afraid of heights might just wet myself up there!” one person online wrote. "I won’t even go even if I’m offered cash to do this," another chimed in.

In response to the incident, the company that manages the via ferrata, Wenzhou Dingcheng Sports Development Co., said that it didn't anticipate so many people climbing the mountain that day. It occurred over China's Labor Day holiday, which remains a popular time for locals to participate in leisure activities.

"Due to our misjudgment of how many customers would come, the lack of effective traffic controls such as a ticket reservation system, and shortcomings in onsite management, customers were blocked and trapped on the climbing route," the company explained, according to CNN. It plans to implement a traffic-control system in the future to avoid this happening again and has temporarily halted ticket sales while it sorts things out internally.

Climbing clearly isn't for the faint of heart, especially if you find yourself in a precarious spot like these people did.