What you can see on the Haku cam
Hakusan is a long summit ridge above forested slopes, and the interest is the snow: the mountain sits in one of the snowiest regions on earth, and the snow line creeps down through autumn and retreats again in early summer. Mornings often show the ridge through haze as a soft grey outline, and autumn turns the lower slopes gold while the summit is already white.
The long summit ridge from the valley
From Shiramine, a village in the valley below, the camera looks up at the summit ridge of Mount Haku over a forested slope on the left. The ridge runs across the middle of the frame: a broad, rounded top on the left, a sharper rocky knob to its right, and a long crest continuing towards the right edge. In the morning the mountain is often seen through haze, as a soft grey outline.
Hakusan, 2,702 m high, lies in one of the snowiest regions on earth, and the snow line is the main thing to follow here: it creeps down these slopes through autumn and retreats again in early summer.
Snow, water and a thousand-year record
The name means «white mountain», and it is literal. Moist air off the Sea of Japan hits this first high ground and unloads, burying the valleys for months. That snow feeds the Tedori, Kuzuryū and Nagara rivers, which is why the mountain was worshipped by farmers downstream long before it became a hiking destination. The monk Taichō is said to have made the first ascent in 717. Eruptions were written down from the Heian period until the seventeenth century, all of them steam-driven explosions from craters near the top, and the last was in 1659. A debris avalanche came down the eastern flank in the middle of the Holocene, long before any of that.
When to watch Haku
Clear winter mornings show the ridge at its best, white against a low sun. Summer afternoons cloud over early. Autumn turns the foothills gold while the summit is already white. Japan is nine hours ahead of UTC.
Around Hakusan
Shiramine is known for steep-roofed houses built to shed snow, and for its hot springs. The Hakusan Shirakawa-gō White Road climbs towards the historic farmhouses of Shirakawa-gō, a short drive north.
Visiting Hakusan
The usual route starts at Bettōdeai and takes two days with a night at the Murodō mountain hut, which opens from early May to mid-October. Outside that window the mountain is a serious winter climb.
