What you can see on the Hachijōjima cam
Hachijōjima's landmark is Nishiyama, a cone that rises in one even sweep, dark green with forest and scrub, above pasture at its foot. Cloud catches on the summit for much of the year, especially from June to October, and watching it form and clear is most of what happens. In the clear spells the shape is unmistakably a young volcano: smooth, unbroken, with a crater you cannot see from below.
The smooth cone of Hachijō-Fuji over open pasture
Nishiyama, the young volcano that islanders call Hachijō-Fuji, fills the frame from this camera on the low ground at its foot. Pasture and scattered trees cover the lower slopes, with a few white buildings at the bottom right and a dark hillock in the corner. Above them the cone rises in one even sweep to a rounded summit, dark green with forest and scrub.
Nishiyama is 854 m high, and its summit crater cannot be seen from below. Cloud often sits on or above the summit, especially from June to October, and the clearest spells come in autumn and winter.
Exile, silk and a lot of rain
For most of the Edo period Hachijōjima was a place of banishment, and several thousand people were sent here over two centuries. What they and the islanders made was Kihachijō, a yellow silk dyed with local plants that became prized in Edo and is still woven on the island. Nishiyama last erupted in 1707; Higashiyama has been quiet for tens of thousands of years. The island gets a great deal of rain and the vegetation shows it — tree ferns, palms and dense green right up the slopes.
When to watch Hachijōjima
Japan is nine hours ahead of UTC all year. Autumn and winter give the clearest air; the rainy season and the typhoon months from June to October bring long spells of cloud, and the summit is hidden more often than not. Mornings are usually better than afternoons.
Around Hachijōjima
The island has hot springs on the Higashiyama side, a coastal road that goes all the way round, and the Nanroku Furusato Village. Aogashima, the island inside a caldera, is 70 kilometres further south and reached from here.
Visiting Hachijōjima
It is the easy one of the southern Izu islands to reach: about an hour by plane from Haneda, or eleven hours overnight by ferry. The climb up Nishiyama follows a stepped path and takes a couple of hours return, ending at a crater rim with the whole island below.
