Live camera
Lake Yunoko, Oku-Nikko live camera — Nikko, Tochigi
A small lake at around 1,400 metres, ringed by old-growth forest. Autumn colour and winter ice both show clearly.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
A small lake in high country at around 1,400 metres. Ringed by old-growth forest, it shows the autumn colour and the winter freeze very plainly.
Lava made this lake. Lava that flowed out of a nearby mountain blocked the valley, and the water with nowhere to go collected behind it. The dammed water spills over the edge and falls — that is Yudaki. From the lake down to the marsh below and on to Lake Chuzenji, the waters of Oku-Nikko are connected in that order.
Yumoto hot spring rises on the northern shore. The lake held no fish originally; stocking began towards the end of the Meiji period, and it is now a fishery with a set open season. A path goes right round the water, about three kilometres for the circuit.
It was foreigners who put the fish in. From the Meiji era into the early Showa years, Oku-Nikko was where the embassies came to spend the summer, and British and Italian ambassadorial villas were built on the shore of Lake Chuzenji. Trout entered this watershed along with the style of fishing they brought with them. Both villas are open to visitors now as memorial parks.
October is the best month. Autumn colour comes early here because of the altitude, and this area turns from early to mid-October. In winter the surface freezes white and stands out sharply against the old-growth forest around it. The roads ice over and it is hard to get to in this season, so the camera is the more reliable way to know how it looks.
Mornings. Mist rises from the valleys in the afternoon and closes the view. Updates come once an hour.
About this camera
| Place | Nikko, Tochigi |
| 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 |
The operator's own page
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.
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