How Snow Peak Challenged Americans to Experience the Outdoors Differently

In 1999 Japanese outdoor outfitter Snow Peak quietly entered the North American market, establishing operations and wholesale distribution in a Portland, Oregon garage. For decades the brand built a loyal but modest following among ounce counting backpackers and premium gear nerds with feathery-light titanium sporks, mugs, and camp stoves, largely relying on REI and other core retailers to spread the good word. In 2013, a brick-and-mortar store was opened in Portland and apparel was introduced. Still, it wasn't until Snow Peak opened a substantial US headquarters and flagship store in 2020 that the average North American outdoor enthusiasts’ awareness really began to grow.

Now firmly planted in Portland, Oregon—and the global outdoor industry at large—the upscale camping equipment brand has expanded its reach and invited Americans to experience a Japanese style of spending time outdoors that directly opposes the conventional “roughing it” mentality pervasive in the West.

This looks like bringing the comforts of home to the campsite. Titanium cookware and tableware only fills a small sliver of space in the 15,000-square-foot industrial corner building in Portland’s posh Nob Hill neighborhood. Meanwhile, spacious tents, comfy camp furniture, stylish fire pits, and full outdoor kitchen systems make up the rest of the store’s footprint, all designed as an integrated system, allowing people to customize a camp setup to their needs and aesthetic preferences.

For the full rundown of how Snow Peak became the best known Japanese outdoor brand in America, read on.

The History of Snow Peak

Originally called Yamai Shoten and then renamed Yamako, Snow Peak was founded in 1958 by Yukio Yamai. The spirited young climber sought solace in the mountains after the trauma of World War II, and his favorite peak to climb with friends was Mt. Tanigawa. Like Patagonia’s Yvon Choinard, Yukio couldn’t find gear suitable for the demands of the super technical terrain. He’d return home from a climb and ask local metalsmiths who specialized in samurai swords to craft him pitons.

Spending time meticulously testing and comparing equipment convinced him he could do it better—and he was right. His highly refined products, especially crampons, quickly became popular in Japan.

In 1980, Yamai’s son, Tohru, succeeded his father as CEO. His experiences camping and fishing while studying in the U.S., along with an economic golden era in Japan, informed his leadership decision to evolve Snow Peak from a mountaineering brand into one more focused on camping.

For Tohru Yamai, much like his father, spending time in nature relieved the monotonies and frictions of modern life—like the very American expectations to produce and be efficient. Outside though, he could just exist. “I started a camping brand because I enjoyed camping with my friends, but along the way, I realized we were healing humanity,” Tohru is quoted as saying.

Tohru’s daughter, Lisa, joined the brand in 2014 to spearhead the introduction of Snow Peak apparel, a pre-curser to the Gorpcore movement that merged outdoor aesthetics and function with fashion, seamlessly transitioning from home to the outdoors.

The Japanese craftsmanship that Yamai took seriously remains core to every product—as do the values of family time and good cooking—even as the company matured. Today it is the largest and most recognized camping brand in Japan, and its international presence is growing.

The Snow Peak Philosophy

Out of all 600 SKUs, four foundational products give Snow Peak campers the most leeway with mapping out their system: the Alpha Breeze Tent ($500) with a vestibule that converts into a living room; the Iron Grill Table (IGT) Camp Kitchen ($713) a tabletop with endless configurations; the Takibi Fire and Grill ($320) for cooking and staying warm; and the Hexa Takibi Tarp ($550) for gathering underneath.

“In Japan, the number one activity when you go car camping is cooking, forest bathing, and basically just hanging out and belonging in the outdoors,” Noah Reis, Snow Peak Vice President and Chief Operating Officer tells me.

The style of camping that this gear unlocks is best experienced, not described. After five years of readying a plot of wetlands in southern Washington State, the brand opened Snow Peak Campfield in June 2024. Camping and cooking are the main activities there, where a Camp Store with an on-trend Japandi aesthetic serves donuts, coffee, and snacks. But perhaps the most appealing part of the campground is getting to visit the onsen-inspired Ofuro Spa with a sauna, cold plunge, and hot pool that overlook a quiet pond and grove of trees. When nobody is talking, you can hear the ducks and water.

“For us, the campsite is the destination, not the platform for the activities,” says Mike Andersen, senior brand manager of Snow Peak USA. “It is the activity.”

As for Snow Peak’s style of cooking, it is best tasted. Another of its experiential concepts is the Takibi restaurant, attached to the Portland headquarters. The lunch and dinner menus feature traditional Japanese dishes like ramen, donburi, karaage, oysters, and sushi.

The Snow Peak Aesthetic

In February, Snow Peak hosted a warehouse sale at one of its distribution centers in Portland. Even as it started to sprinkle, local customers like me lined up for hours alongside devoted brand fans who traveled from British Columbia and Southern California to collect pieces of coveted gear at a discount. We were rewarded for the wait in the rain with racks of discounted Takibi jackets, bins of discontinued knit sweater and legging sets, and stacks of IGT bamboo camp tables and folding chairs.

A similar fanaticism exists at Snow Peak Way events, which Tohru started in the 1990s to bring like minded people together at a time when interest in car camping stagnated in Japan. After hosting events in Asia for two decades, the brand debuted its first Snow Peak Way in the U.S. in 2018, and now fittingly uses the Campfield, equidistant from Portland and Seattle, as the event’s home base. These events bring brand fans together for a weekend of connection, workshops, activations, cooking, and camping.

Once people see Snow Peak products in person, Andersen says they can more fully understand that they are investing in carefully crafted products. He says they can appreciate that Snow Peak tables are the same height as its chairs, and adjustable. The cookware fits together. The furniture packs down into small spaces. And the colors are muted in tones reminiscent of fog, sand, bark, and moss.

As well as integrating together, items coalesce with the environment—emphasizing the Eastern philosophy that we are one with nature, not separate from it.

A past version of myself winced at spending $40 on a camp mug. But as I’ve come to learn more about Snow Peak, and as I’ve reframed my shopping habits around “collecting” rather than “consuming,” I find the timelessness and versatility of the brand’s pieces worth the investment. I use a pair of Mesh Folding Chairs (bought at the warehouse sale) while camping and also as extra seating inside my house.

Snow Peak may be first and foremost a car camping brand, but its products are so beautiful and enduring that you’ll inevitably end up using them for more.