Lake Kawaguchi: Skip the Convenience Store, Find Fuji at Oishi Park

The picture of Mount Fuji that took off on social media here is not of the lake at all. It is the mountain rising above a convenience store near Kawaguchiko Station, and so many people crowded the narrow pavement and stepped into the road to take it that the town hung a black screen in front of the shop, to keep residents and visitors safe from the traffic.

So skip it. Take the first loop bus of the morning to Oishi Park on the north shore instead, where Fuji stands straight across the water and, on a morning without wind, can appear upside down on the lake.

The local tourism federation says people start to gather from around ten, so an early bus gives you a good chance of having the park before the busiest part of the day.

Asked to take pictures quietly

What moved me most was how the town explained the screen. It calls the decision a painful one, made with great regret, and says it would like to take the screen down once visitors keep to the rules and stop crowding the pavement.

The local tourism federation, meanwhile, writes that taking a photograph quietly is a form of respect, for Mount Fuji and for the people who have looked after this landscape. Do not block the paths or walk onto private land, it asks, mind the people passing your tripod, and take your rubbish home.

The federation’s advice for photographs is simple: come early, or on a weekday morning, when there are fewer visitors.

Where a life of photographing Fuji began

People have been taking pictures of Fuji from this lake for a long time. Okada Koyo, whose photographs of the mountain went onto an old banknote and onto stamps, took his first picture of it from Ubugasaki on Lake Kawaguchi at the age of 19, the lake’s art museum says, and went on to spend his life photographing it.

Knowing that a lifetime of pictures of Fuji began on this shore makes me want to take mine slowly, and early in the day.

Oishi Park, across the water from Fuji

Lake Kawaguchi, itself part of the Mount Fuji World Heritage Site, has the longest shoreline of the five lakes. Oishi Park sits on its north shore, and from it you look across the water to Mount Fuji with little in the way.

Walk the park’s flower road, a path of about 350 metres beside the lake, and stop on a bench to watch the mountain.

Come in early summer and Fuji rises behind purple lavender, whose sweet scent, the federation says, drifts along the path; come in autumn and the kochia bushes turn red. The park never closes, so if you are staying on this side of the lake, you can be there as early as you like.

Back across the lake by boat

For the crossing back across the lake, take the boat instead of the bus. The Oishi Park Line crosses to Funatsu pier in about a quarter of an hour, and on a clear day you watch Fuji from the lake as you go, with the shore you have just left falling behind you.

If you are here when the maples turn, stay for the evening: during the town’s autumn leaves festival, the maple corridor is lit up after dark.

Before you go

Checked 8 October 2026.

What I would do

The chance of seeing Fuji reflected in the lake is what draws me to Oishi Park. I would catch an early bus there and sit on a lakeside bench, waiting for the water to go still.