---
title: 'Summit Clouds and Snow'
date: '2026-03-27 07:15'
template: entry
published: true
hero_image: ''
lat: '35.5095'
lng: '138.7646'
location_city: 'Kawaguchiko'
location_country: 'Japan'
weather_temp_c: 1
weather_desc: 'Snow'
---

Nobody told me it would snow.

I took the early bus from Shinjuku at 6:45am because the forecast for the Fuji Five Lakes region said "clear morning, clouds by noon." That is the window you want — Fuji is notorious for hiding inside its own weather system, and most visitors spend an entire day staring at a blank white sky where a mountain ought to be.

I got the mountain. For about forty minutes.

By the time the bus pulled into Kawaguchiko, the first flakes were already coming down. Light at first — the decorative kind that you hold your hand out for. Then, steadily, not decorative at all. I walked down to the lake with my bag under my jacket and stood at the water's edge while the snow thickened and Fuji turned from a sharply defined white cone into a suggestion, and then into nothing.

The lake surface was perfectly still. The snow fell straight down. There were no other tourists on the path, or if there were I could not see them. It was one of those moments of completely accidental solitude that you cannot plan for and would not trade.

I sat on a wooden bench on the lakefront for longer than made any meteorological sense. The snow kept falling. A single cormorant sat on a rock offshore and did not move the entire time I was there.

Caught the bus back to Shinjuku in the afternoon. The mountain never reappeared. I do not mind even slightly.