Japanese design and South Korean engineering collide in Snow Peak's and Helinox's seriously clever new camping chair
The Noga Chair takes Helinox’s iconic Chair One formula and makes it wider, sturdier and considerably more comfortable
Snow Peak knows a thing or two about making a campsite feel less like somewhere you are temporarily surviving and more like an outdoor living room, while South Korea’s Helinox has spent years figuring out how to make furniture disappear into a surprisingly small bag.
Putting the two together makes a lot of sense, and that is exactly what happened with the Snow Peak x Helinox Noga Chair, the first collaboration between the two outdoor brands.
Snow Peak says that the Noga is based on the Helinox Chair One, the model which originally launched in 2012 and helped popularise the now-familiar combination of a shock-corded aluminium frame and fabric sling seat.
However, the Japanese company has altered the formula considerably, prioritising the sort of long, leisurely sitting that makes more sense around a campsite than when shaving every gram from a hiking pack.
A bigger Chair One built for staying put
The most obvious change is the frame, which uses DAC aluminium alloy tubing with a thicker diameter than the standard Helinox design, giving the Noga a more planted feel while retaining the familiar collapsible construction.
The seat has been widened, too, and Snow Peak has also adjusted the height to fit the brand's preferred low-style camping setup.
The finished camping chair measures 590mm wide, 520mm deep, and 700mm tall, so it offers noticeably more room to settle into, while padded sections around the arm contact points are designed to take some pressure off during longer periods of sitting.
At 1.4kg, this certainly isn't chasing the ultralight crowd, but it still packs into a reasonably compact 380 x 120 x 140mm bundle.
The carry bag is permanently stitched into the seat, so you have one less piece of camping equipment to lose, and once the Noga is assembled, that same bag becomes a storage pocket.
Mesh pockets on either side can accommodate a 500ml water bottle, and are equally handy for a phone, torch, or whatever else you want within grabbing distance.
By the way, the name Noga comes from the Japanese word nogake, meaning heading out into nature and spending time there, which neatly sums up a chair designed to encourage you to stop moving for a while.
The Snow Peak x Helinox Noga Chair costs £150 (~$202 / €175 / ) in the UK and is available now directly from Snow Peak.
