Live camera
Lake Towada from Hakka Pass live camera — Kosaka, Akita
The double caldera lake seen whole from the pass overlook. The water shifts from blue to lead grey with the angle of the light.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
The double caldera lake, seen whole from the observation point on the pass. The colour of the water moves from blue to lead grey with the angle of the light.
"Double" means that inside the basin left by a large eruption, a later eruption opened another hollow. That is why the lake contains a peninsula pushing out into it and a deeply gouged inlet. From the height of the pass, that nested relationship fits into a single frame. The lookout stands a little over 200 metres above the water.
The lake is 327 metres deep at its deepest, third deepest in the country. It originally held no fish at all; Wainai Sadayuki stocked it repeatedly through the Meiji years and established the kokanee salmon in 1903. What is caught here now is the continuation of that work.
Mid to late October, when the leaves turn, is the main event. Beech and maple cover the slopes around the water, so a band of colour forms along the lake's edge. Winter brings deep snow; the lake does not freeze over entirely, but ice forms along the shore. Dark blue water left in the middle of an all-white picture is a sight of this season alone.
Of the eruptions that made this lake, the last large one came in the year 915. It is reckoned the biggest eruption in Japan of the past two thousand years, and ash from it fell over a wide part of the northeast. In the valley of the Yoneshiro river the debris that came down buried a forest where it stood; the buried trees kept their roots upright, and some have since been dug out again.
Mornings. Updates come once an hour.
About this camera
| Place | Kosaka, Akita |
| Format | Still, hourly |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | Nature |
| Operator | Ministry of the Environment — Internet Nature Institute |
| Terms of use | PDL 1.0 |
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The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.