The well-known Japanese outdoor brand has brought its fun Snow Peak Way camp program to America.
There’s an incredibly famous “Calvin and Hobbes” comic from August 1987 in which Calvin’s father takes the family to the park. At first, Calvin is excited. Canoeing, fishing, and sleeping in the tent? Sounds amazing! Then the sky begins to open up, and it starts to pour down. Everyone gets soaked. “If we live to get home, I’m never going to set foot outside again as long as I live,” Calvin complains.
The scene was like this the weekend before, in Callisto Farm in High Falls, New York,. This was among the hottest weekends in the most humid month recorded with temperatures in the 90s even outside the city. While it was not an outdoor sauna, there it was raining. But over 100 people attended to take part at Snow Peak Way, a two-and-a-half day camping adventure that the outdoor brand started in 1998 in Japan to bring together staff members and its most loyal customers. (Seventeen events will be scheduled this year, with 300 people each, selected through a lottery system, and three reserved for long-time customers.) In 2018, Snow Peak brought the event to the West Coast; the brand’s US headquarters is located in Portland, Oregon. Then, the brand held its first East Coast equivalent in the summer, just at the right time to experience a heating season.
Established in 1958 by the enthusiastic climber Yukio Yamai of the Niigata prefecture of Niigata, Snow Peak is adored by menswear and serious campers alike. My friends who are fans of the brand go foraging to climb, hike, and forage in Salomon shells and Arc’teryx sneakers and place any mushrooms they come across into compact Snow Peak baskets and sip from Snow Peak water bottles. The brand offers gear and clothing that are a must for those who appreciate the great outdoors, style, and the best things in life. They believe you don’t need to sacrifice these things to take pleasure in the former.
On a Saturday afternoon, Noah Reis, Snow Peak America’s vice-president and chief operating officer, thought of his childhood memories of the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic as dark clouds began to roll in. According to Reis, it wasn’t so much a reflection of the situation happening at the moment–though the back of his Snow Peak chair sank slightly into the mud when he spoke–but rather an expression of the American attitudes towards camping generally. In this case, Calvin admits that being in the wilderness can be a way to (allegedly) develop character. If you’re not risqué, you’re not doing the right thing. (Or even at all, depending on the person you are asking.) “But at Snow Peak, our style is about making it elevated and comfortable,” Reis said. Reis. “How do you bring the comforts of home to the campsite so you can enjoy your time outside together?”
The weekend proved to put this question to the test. Even though it was a very uncomfortable day, I was delighted to find not one bug nor a drop of rain in the borrowed Snow Peak Amenity Dome; I also slept comfortably on the Snow Peak sleep pad and half in an overnight sleeping bag on Friday night. (If you’re a fan of you, this shocks me. My mother dropped me off at a sleepaway camp for a week; I felt so overwhelmed that I had to throw up. Until I received my Snow Peak invite, I’d decided against joining a group of friends.) The weather didn’t deter campers from tying dye, exploring the area gri, telling yakitori, and burning wet logs with stylish Flame blowers branded with Snow Peak.
The majority of campers were prepared. “The scale of people’s setups here is really on point, compared to what we would typically see on the West Coast,” said Mike Andersen, Snow Peak America’s brand manager, and Reis, located in Portland. The New Yorkers are certainly awed by their homes, and as I was enthralled by the tall ceilings and the vast space of the Snow Peak Living Lodge, I was told that the cost is roughly the cost of a month’s rent. Campers, who traveled not only from the city but all over the East Coast, also rolled in mobile stainless steel kitchens that were more attractive than my house, futon couches, and coffee-making equipment rivaling Blue Bottle.
Can’t Live Without
“If you go to a normal campground, everyone just throws stuff on the picnic table; with Snow Peak, everything is hyper-intentional,” Andersen explained. A Snow Peak signature is to have your tent and then a small, well-organized living-room-slash-kitchen outside your tent, which you might extend with the help of a tarp.