Kiso Town
About the Kiso Town Camera
This camera looks over Kiso town from Hotel Hilltop, high on the side of the Kiso valley in southwestern Nagano.
The Kiso valley is a deep, forested corridor that carried the Nakasendo, the inland highway between Edo and Kyoto. Kiso-Fukushima was one of its most important post towns and held a barrier station where travellers were checked. The valley's cypress forests were so valuable to the Owari domain that felling certain trees was punishable by death.
Rising to the north is Mount Ontake, at 3,067 metres the second-highest volcano in Japan and a mountain of long-standing religious significance. It erupted without warning in September 2014 with substantial loss of life among climbers, and access to the summit area has been restricted and staged in the years since.
Highlights & Nearby
- •Watch for: the forested valley, mountain weather, Mount Ontake to the north on clear days
- •Nearby: Kiso-Fukushima, Narai-juku, Kaida Kogen, Mount Ontake
- •Note: deep valley and heavy forest — cloud settles here readily and lifts slowly
