Learn how to choose a backpacking backpack for specific types of trips based on design, materials, and use cases.
Large outdoor retailers typically offer more than 100 models of backpacks for backpacking from several dozen brands. Add to this: an additional 200 models from more than 50 smaller brands that distribute online in the US market alone.
Sorting out all of these choices is an exercise in frustration due to inconsistent specs and lack of understanding of the broader market by those who are trying to sell you packs.
In Backpacks for Backpacking: Design, Materials, and Use Cases, we focus on the salient design features and materials of interest to ultralight backpackers.
In addition, we identify categories of backpacks by specific use cases, including ultralight backpacking, thru-hiking, long-distance hiking, fastpacking, packrafting, mountain and desert scrambling, and load-hauling.
Keynote: Backpacks for Backpacking: Design, Materials, and Use Cases (Member Q&A) (~30 minutes)
- Overview of the US backpack market
- Ultralight vs. conventional backpacks
- Backpack design considerations – suspension, materials, and configuration
- Use cases – ultralight backpacking, thru-hiking, long-distance hiking, fastpacking, packrafting, mountain and desert scrambling, load-hauling
Q&A (~ 30 minutes)
- Functionality of rear/side pass-through pockets on Nashville Packs Cutaway?
- ECOPACK EPX200 vs. ECOPACK EPL200 vs. X-Pac VX21? Comparison of materials, DWR, tear strength, weight, waterproofing, and abrasion resistance?
- McHale Packs – who needs one vs. who doesn’t? What makes them unique? Fit, customizability, load-carrying comfort/suspension performance, modularity?
- Bombproof pack fabrics: Cordura vs. DCHW (Dyneema) vs. ECOPAK Ultra 800?
- Is it true: ‘buy your backpack last’?
- New Gossamer Gear Ultra backpacks?
- Water bottle holders on chest straps/shoulder straps/hip belts?
- Recommendations if you’re new to backpacking and are overwhelmed by backpack choice fatigue?
- Recommendations for backpacks that are ventilated for hot, humid, or tropical climates?
- Recommendations for an all-around pack that is modular, light, can carry moderate weight, and is $200 or less?
- Frame vs. frameless for off-trail hiking?
- Ideas for adding compression systems to a large pack if I don’t have sewing skills?
- Options for packing items that don’t do well in extreme cold (water filters, batteries, etc.)?
About the Event & Access Info
- Event Description: Backpacks for Backpacking: Design, Materials, and Use Cases (Member Q&A)
- Livestream Date and Time: Friday, April 29, 2022, 7 PM US Mountain Time
Backpacking Light Member Q&A Sessions are Hour-Long Members-Only Live Events – they are recorded and the recorded session will be made available below after the live event has ended.
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Discussion
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Our research indicates there are over 300 backpack models available for backpackers at the moment – 200 of which come from 50 small-ish brands in the direct-to-consumer space.
So which one to use? If you’ve got questions about which ultralight backpack material, frame style, closure type, pocket design, or more is best for your use case, we’ve got answers. Ask us in the comments and we’ll share our knowledge in the Backpacks for Backpacking: Design, Materials, and Use Cases member Q & A coming up on Friday April 29th at 7:00 pm mountain time.
I’ll start – Suppose I wanted a frameless pack that would also work well for bikepacking? What features should I look for?
I’m interested in knowing more about packs with very light frames to increase comfort into the low 20-pound range where I don’t need a fully structured hipbelt or load lifters. For me, there’s a weird gap between frameless packs (nice below maybe 18 pounds) and more substantial packs like the ULA Catalyst I have carried in the past.
I am specifically interested in the details of frame design and hipbelt. I have recently acquired an Atom+ and my initial impression is the simple carbon fiber & Delrin frame is going to be a good solution for my use case.
Companion forum thread to: Backpacks for Backpacking: Design, Materials, and Use Cases (Member Q&A)
Learn how to choose a backpacking backpack for specific types of trips based on design, materials, and use cases.
Curious to hear more about the new “Ultra” fabric from Zpacks (or other versions).
I’m thinking about internal frame design also. The Atom and DD40 have the bottom of the hoop set at the bags edge, close to where the hip belt is sewn on. Most other packs , i.e. Gossamer, OV, have a smaller distance between the verticals that terminate at the lumbar area. Other pack companies that use bendable stays also seem to have them at a narrow vertical dimension so as to be in line with the top of shoulder strap and rest on the hip belt at the lumbar area. And then there’s Zpacks. External, but wider spread for the vertical supports. I’ve been beating up on a DD40 for a coupla years without issue. Inquiring minds would like to know of the ins n outs for best weight distribution on a sub 30 lb total pack weight. ~RL
I think new materials MAY beget some new design advances. Possibly new frame designs in part carbon fiber from 3D printer sources.
However I still feel any advances from this point will be incremental, as they have been since the KELTY external frame pack and first The North Face internal frame pack (which I once owned).
I buckle when I think of the ~4# JanSport external I had back in the early nineties.
> Curious to hear more about the new “Ultra” fabric from Zpacks (or other versions).
“Ultra” would be “Ultra 200”, right? In the Q&A, Ryan states it’s the ECOPAK EPL 200 by Challenge Sailcloth, and he compares with XPac VX21 and ECOPAK EPX200.
strap configuration and adjustments. theory and practice of type of straps, where they sit, how the adjust, etc.
things that come to mind related to this
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