What you can see on the Iwaki cam
Iwaki is a mountain of shape and weather: up close its famous cone breaks into several summits, and cloud often catches on them while the lower slopes stay clear. The forest on the flanks is green in summer and turns copper in autumn, and in winter the mountain is white to its foot.
Tsugaru-Fuji up close, in several summits
From Hyakuzawa, at the foot of the eastern side, the mountain is close enough that its famous cone breaks into separate summits. A rounded peak stands on the left, the highest point rises in the middle with a smaller knob just beside it, and a long shoulder slopes away to the right. The lower slopes are covered in forest and scrub, green in summer and copper in autumn.
From farther away, from Hirosaki and its orchards, the same mountain looks like a single cone, which is where the name Tsugaru-Fuji comes from. Cloud often catches on the summits while the lower slopes stay clear.
A mountain, a shrine and a million apple trees
Iwakiyama Shrine stands at the foot of the eastern slope, and its origins go back more than a thousand years. Every year at the end of summer, pilgrims walk up through the night in the Oyama-Sankei procession to meet the sunrise from the summit, carrying banners and chanting; the custom is on the national list of intangible folk cultural properties. Below the shrine spreads the biggest apple-growing district in Japan: Aomori grows more than half the country's apples, and most of them come from around Hirosaki. Eruptions have been recorded here since the seventeenth century, all small to moderate steam explosions, the last in 1863.
When to watch Iwaki
Early morning is the safest bet, before cloud builds on the summit. Autumn turns the lower slopes copper. Japan is nine hours ahead of UTC.
Around Iwaki
Hirosaki, a castle town with one of the best cherry blossom parks in Japan, lies 15 km east. The Hyakuzawa hot springs sit at the base of the mountain, and a toll road climbs the southern flank towards the eighth station.
Visiting Iwaki
From the end of the toll road a chairlift carries walkers most of the way up, leaving about forty minutes of rocky path to the crater rim. The road is closed in winter.
