What you can see on the Hakone cams
Hakone is a forested caldera with hot spring villages inside it, and its liveliest sight is Ōwakudani, where thick white steam pours out of a bare, grey hillside without pause. Cold, still mornings give the thickest plumes, sometimes enough to hide the slope behind them. Mornings and winter days are also the clearest for the wooded peaks of the caldera.
Steam pouring from the Ōwakudani hillside
Pointed straight at Ōwakudani, this camera is close enough to watch the steam leave the ground. Thick white plumes rise from vents across the bare, grey slope and drift up the hillside, often hiding part of it, while smaller jets show further to the left. On the right, stepped concrete walls built into the slope reach the edge of the frame, and dry grass and bare shrubs fill the foreground.
Ōwakudani formed about 3,000 years ago, when a steam explosion brought down part of Kamiyama. Cold, still mornings give the thickest plumes, and the paths near the vents open and close with the gas readings.
Wooded peaks of the caldera from the valley floor
From Miyagino, down in the valley, the view climbs to a pair of wooded summits with a pale gash of bare ground in the hollow between them. Forest runs almost unbroken across the slopes, from the lower ridges on the left to a rockier spur on the right, and a few buildings show at the foot of the frame. The caption reads Hakone-yama (Miyagino).
This is the quieter of the two Hakone cameras: where the Ōwakudani view shows the vents up close, this one shows the setting, the forested inside of a volcano with hot spring villages in it. Mornings and winter days are usually the clearest.
Ōwakudani, the great boiling valley
Ōwakudani opened about 3,000 years ago, when a steam explosion brought down part of Kamiyama's northwest side. What is left is a hillside of sulphur, fumaroles and hot springs that has been a sightseeing stop for more than a century. Eggs boiled in the sulphurous pools come out with black shells and are sold as kuro-tamago; local tradition says one adds seven years to your life. In 2015 a small steam eruption threw ash over the valley, and the area was closed for months while the vents settled. Everything recorded here in modern times has been of that kind: steam and ash, never lava.
When to watch Hakone
Cold, still mornings give the thickest plume, so winter is the best season for the Ōwakudani view. Hakone is also famous for days when Mount Fuji appears behind Lake Ashi, and those come most often from December to February. Japan is nine hours ahead of UTC.
Around Hakone
Lake Ashi fills the southwest corner of the caldera, with the red torii of Hakone Shrine standing in the water. The old Tōkaidō road and its checkpoint, the open-air sculpture museum and dozens of hot spring inns are all within the same bowl.
Visiting Hakone
The ropeway crosses directly over Ōwakudani, and the walking paths near the vents open and close with the gas readings. When the alert level rises, the section above the valley is the first thing to shut, so it is worth checking before going up.
