Komagane Ruby no Sato

This camera sits at Ruby no Sato, a display garden in Komagane, and is run as a weather camera looking out over the Ina valley.

Komagane occupies an unusual position. The town lies on the valley floor with the Central Alps rising to the west and the Southern Alps to the east — two three-thousand-metre ranges facing each other across a single valley. Kiso-Komagatake, at 2,956 metres, is the peak that dominates the western skyline.

The ropeway from town reaches Senjojiki Cirque at 2,612 metres, the highest ropeway station in Japan, so weather down here on the valley floor is often a poor guide to conditions at the top. Watching cloud build against the western ridge is the useful part of this camera.