Since 2011 the Japanese hiking brand Yamatomichi has been trying to answer that eternal question; “What do we really need?” 

While the ultralight community can sometimes veer into Top Trumps-level weight-wars, this lot approach the concept at a much deeper, almost spiritual, level. Rather than mindlessly trimming the fat to score a few karma points on Reddit, Yamatomichi applies real-world hiking experience to make clever, thoughtful clothing and equipment built to heighten the experience of being outside in nature. This isn’t just about jackets or packs, it’s about a freer way to live. 

With the brand arriving at Outsiders imminently, we talked to co-founder Akira Natsume about Yamatomichi’s unique approach to outdoor clothing and how ultralight principles can extend far beyond lightweight gear.

Can you tell me about how you got into the outdoors in the first place? What are your early memories of hiking?

It goes back to a month my wife and I spent in Brighton. We’d pack picnics and head out to Devil’s Dyke and the Seven Sisters, and somewhere in that time I began to feel drawn to the mountains. That feeling followed me back to Japan. I visited Oze National Park, in the mountains north of Tokyo, and the landscape stayed with me.

Before 30, my idea of “getting outside” was stepping into night air between clubs. Then there was one moment that changed everything: a ridgeline in the Northern Alps, around 2,500 meters. The weather was brutal—everything sealed in grey cloud. And then, out of nowhere, a gust tore through, like a curtain being pulled open. The clouds slid away in seconds.

Watching the world rewrite itself like that felt exactly like the moment a DJ flips the atmosphere on a dance floor and the whole room changes. The wind turned into music—I felt this urge to run, like I could go forever. I remember thinking, the mountains are just one huge club. Walking is dancing. From then on, I was in the mountains every week.

When did you first encounter ‘ultralight’ hiking? What was it that captured your attention?

Back around 2007 to 2009, when I first heard about ultralight, it looked like an endurance game—basically a contest to see who could suffer more. It didn’t appeal to me.

The turning point came on a five-day traverse in the Northern Alps. The scenery was unreal, but my body couldn’t match what my mind wanted. The heavy pack decided the pace. I came down from that hike with that frustration still in me, and decided to try ultralight for real. I bought just two things: a tarp and an alcohol stove. I cut my kit down as far as I could, packed everything into a 25-liter daypack, and headed for the Yatsugatake range in central Japan.

I’ll never forget how that felt. Sleeping under a single tarp—with nothing between me and nature—filled me with a raw, almost primitive happiness. My body moved the way my mind wanted it to, and I felt like I could walk forever. Ultralight gave shape to what I’d been looking for all along: the distance between me and the universe disappeared.

You started Yamatomichi back in 2011. What was it that made you want to start the brand? What were you trying to do differently?

At the time, I was involved with GASBOOK, a graphic art publishing project. I was searching for new forms of expression—ways to open up people’s sense of freedom. Somewhere in the middle of that, I became convinced that the source of human creativity lives in the mountains—and that ultralight is a practical, modern way to live the self-reliant life Thoreau wrote about. The work was different, but what I’d been trying to express through art, and what I wanted to explore out on the trail, were ultimately the same.

The problem was, making hiking gear was completely unknown territory. The catalyst was moving from Tokyo to Kamakura—a small coastal town. My wife was doing costume-making, and we decided to make the gear we truly believed in—by ourselves. It started with something simple: we wanted to make the gear we truly wanted to use. We wanted to make what we felt was best, share it, and build a life—and a way of working—that we could walk through together. With nothing but imagination and obsession as fuel, we started Yamatomichi in 2011.

For us, gear is also a kind of media. A product isn’t just something you carry—it carries an idea, a way of moving, a way of thinking. That’s why we use our product pages and web journal to share the thinking behind the tools and deepen understanding of ultralight. And through events and stores, we’ve built community.

To protect that freedom, we also chose a different path from existing manufacturers. If what we wanted didn’t exist, we’d make it. And to keep that purity intact, we decided to deliver directly to hikers—so we could decide what to make, when to sell it, and keep control of the whole cycle.

We take the time we need and keep sharpening until it feels right. That’s how we end up making lightweight gear with a sharply focused purpose—the kind of things many brands won’t touch because the risk is too high. For me, it connects directly to what I was chasing back then: trying to change the world through art.

Josh at Outsiders was telling me you’re a big fan of Thoreau’s writing. That seems to be a common theme for people who are interested in life outdoors. What is it about it that strikes a chord with you?

What Thoreau is asking in Walden is simple: how do we become self-reliant and free inside this beautiful world? What’s remarkable is that it isn’t just a philosophy or a lecture—it’s rooted in practice. He spends those opening pages laying out his finances in detail: how he dealt with money, and how he thought about “the house,” which is often life’s biggest expense. He shows, concretely, how he freed himself from dependence. And from that freedom, he writes about how he faced the beauty of nature.

It’s rational, deeply human, and at the same time imaginative—almost dreamlike. That attitude resonates with how we think about ultralight today. I love it. For about three years before starting Yamatomichi, it was a book I carried everywhere.

What else inspires the brand? It feels like you’re looking out a lot further than just the outdoor industry.

I’ve been influenced by pioneers who changed how the world works—well beyond the outdoor industry. Apple—Steve Jobs and Jony Ive—making design central to technology. Google—Larry Page and Sergey Brin—building tools like Maps and Street View that changed how we navigate and see the world.

And avant-garde artists who challenged existing values and pushed the idea of “freedom” forward—often at real cost. Different fields, same spirit. I have enormous respect for all of them. Their stance—the way they work and the risks they take—is the source of my ideas.

Talking to you it’s clear the concept of ‘ultralight’ goes far beyond just making lightweight gear for you. It’s not just some gimmick or marketing bullet-point. What does ‘ultralight’ mean to you?

For me, ultralight isn’t just light gear, or techniques for cutting weight. What we care about first is comfort on the move—how the gear feels while you’re hiking. When your pack gets lighter, your mind has more space. You can take in the landscape and its changes as they are. And light, comfortable gear helps you recover something basic: the feeling that you’re standing on your own feet—your own freedom.

That overlaps with Thoreau laying out his finances at the start of Walden and carving out freedom through economic independence. Ultralight also begins with a rational, grounded step: knowing the weight of what you carry, down to the gram.

What do you keep? What do you let go? By thinking, choosing, and refining, vague anxiety turns into real confidence. And when you step out with a sharpened, minimal kit, the distance between you and the world disappears. You feel yourself standing in this world again, on your own feet.

That’s what ultralight is for us: a creative, practical way to rediscover the self-reliant freedom people already have.

Great answer. How has the Ultralight community grown since you first discovered it—and where do you see it going?

To be honest, I feel a sense of urgency about where things are right now. In Japan, the word ‘ultralight’ has become a label—something a bit fashionable. That may be fine as an entry point, but it isn’t what we’re aiming for.

What we want is something deeper—less trend, more passion. A deeper culture will probably grow from here. Just as Thoreau didn’t remain a record of one person’s mountain life but became a source for many countercultures, ultralight practice should also move beyond hiking.

I believe it can be a real first step for anyone trying to live freely and independently—taking back control of life and of one’s own choices. Not just buying light gear, but thinking, choosing, and standing on your own feet. Alongside people who can share that creative process, I want to cultivate something with depth—something that isn’t swept away by trends. It feels like we’ve only just begun that long journey.

How do these ideas extend into the gear and clothing you make? Can you explain some of the details of your products and how your adventures have informed their design?

My making doesn’t start from design. It starts in the mountains—with a realization, a short phrase, a small concept. Then we make a prototype, take it back outside, test it, and rebuild it. Over and over. I don’t chase a look first. I let function do the shaping. At the beginning, things can be awkward—even ugly. But with repetition, the unnecessary falls away. The function sharpens, and the form follows. That’s how our gear takes shape.

The UL Pad, our first product, came out of a winter trip to Yakushima. We were pinned down by nearly a meter of snowfall, and I was using an early back-pad prototype at the time. In that freezing weather, its warmth surprised me. 

And the waist belt on the THREE backpack came the same way: over a weeklong hike, I kept switching between a thick padded belt and a simple tape belt, testing them back to back until it was obvious what I could do without—and the belt became what it is now.

In the end, it’s always the same process: you try to make something that doesn’t exist, and time on the trail forces it into reality. New function brings new forms. We’re not designing shapes—we’re designing the hiking experience, and the gear is what that becomes.

How does hiking in Japan differ from other countries? Are there any specific features you need to add for the Japanese terrain?

Japan is steep, the weather changes fast, and above all it’s extremely humid. That’s fundamentally different from the dry long trails on the U.S. West Coast.

In those harsh, wet, constantly shifting conditions, ‘light’ alone isn’t enough. To stay safe and comfortable, you have to balance breathability, wind protection, and warmth. We’re obsessive about that balance because in Japan, the chain reaction of wetness and cold can become dangerous very quickly.

You can’t rely blindly on specs. You need layering as a skill—making small, constant adjustments on the go. Stop moving and an icy wind cuts straight through you. Start again and humidity builds inside your shell. The whole day becomes a balancing act. And the skill you build this way carries to other trails, far beyond Japan—it holds up on the UK’s moors, and anywhere else you have to read weather on the fly.

Do the ‘Ultralight’ principles extend beyond hiking too? How does this ‘less is more’ considered lifestyle fit into the rest of your life? Do these principles apply to work or cooking or your home too?

Absolutely. More than that, I think the essence of ultralight is a life skill—how to take your life back into your own hands—beyond hiking. 

For example, our HLC director Toyoshima discovered ultralight and it opened his eyes—so he applied it to life itself. He simplified what he could, took a hard look at spending, and cut down the amount of time he had to work just to live. With that time back, he connected deeply with people all over Japan—making things, travelling, and having fun—and building a community money can’t buy.

He puts it this way: when you take the time to do things yourself, you raise your “experience performance.” If you hand off something like building a house, it costs a lot. If you do it with your own hands, you can cut costs—but more importantly, you gain something no one can take away: real experience, skills, and judgment. It’s the same with cooking. It’s the same with work. It shows up everywhere.

The question is what you do with your time—and what you want that time to turn into. Thoreau treated time as a real resource, something to spend deliberately. For us, that’s where ultralight leads: toward self-reliance, and a freer way of living.

Your website is a real treasure trove of information—on everything from the correct way to layer your jackets. How important is this ‘education’ aspect of what you do? You’re not just selling clothes—you’re really going above and beyond to explain the concepts and culture around it.

If you hand someone tools without the wisdom to use them—what’s the point? Without knowing the culture—and the wisdom to use that gear, you can’t really expand the possibilities of hiking.

That’s why we share through our online journal and HLC workshop programs. We want more people to experience ultralight hiking, to share that experience, and to grow the connections and community that can form around it.

We’ve inherited a cultural baton, and we want to pass it forward in our own way. Sharing new values and knowledge through gear as ‘media’—that’s as important a mission for us as making the best gear we can.

Finally, why is hiking so important to you? What does it give you?

Hiking is where I return to myself. There was a time when I spent hours dancing on club floors—lost in the music, my imagination running free. Hiking brings me back to that same bare self, the self that exists before all the social roles.

When I walk in the mountains, I can feel the overwhelming beauty of the world directly. At the same time, I feel clearly that I am connected to it—that I belong within it. Hiking always brings that vision back to me.

The anxieties and problems of society may be temporary when seen on a long timeline. Through solitary dialogue with nature in the mountains, I’ve come to believe that change can begin with the way each of us lives—and from there, the world itself can change. Hiking holds that kind of power.