Hasta La Gadget!

With the Tokyo Marathon just round the corner and the climbing season about to begin, retailers are still hoping to capitalize on the growing boom in all things outdoors and the so-called yamagaaru mountain-loving young females trend.

This is best represented by the North Face, who next month is opening its first store aimed at women. Located bang on prime Meijidori, the store is set to be designed in a chic white and black wooden decor, a blend of the cool and the natural. Clearly these kinds of yamagaaru like to remain stylish when they are outdoors.

The American brand is not alone. Sankei reports that in the spring Asics is reviving its outdoors range Mescalito, which it had originally suspended in 2006, only this time switching the focus to women consumers. Descente is also adding outdoors goods to its sports products and Marmot is planning to raise sales of outdoors gear from 65 billion yen last March to 80 billion by 2013.

There are implications for tourism as well. Chichibu City in Saitama hopes to regenerate its fortunes through girls-only mountain tours in collaboration with travel agency JTB. The area has suffered, like many parts of Japan’s regions, from depopulation and the aging populace, and an injection of fully costumed, fashionable mountaineering urban girls might be just the trick for boosting the local economy.

And just because you apparently love the outdoors does not mean you even need to leave the house to indulge your hobby. Yamagaaru now have their own niche digital community site called, perhaps not surprisingly, YamaGirl.net, which recommends products and shares fashion snaps of women in snazzy outdoors wear.