Pack that doesn’t lead to shoulder pain

"The only pack that seemed to work was the Kelty PK 50. The Kelty fit great …"

If you have a working "model", learn from it and go from there.

Take pictures of a loaded Kelty, especially the shoulder strap wrap and attachments.
Take measurements relative to how she wears the pack.
Note how the hipbelt fits, it's shape, and where she wears it.
Same with the sternum strap location, "pull", etc.

You have way more information than we can guess at. Use it. Share it. Compare it.

The pack that 'drapes' the most pleasantly across your back and has the most effective weight transfer to the hips that I have tried is still the Paradox Unaweep. Unfortunately it's not a cheap experiment to see if it works since returning it (to REI etc) is not an option. I had to buy one for my wife after she tried mine (and carried out an elk using it).

It's a bit fiddly to get set up, but once you get the torso dialed it sure is nice.

Good luck. Pack fit is Sisyphean endeavor.

I imagine it would be all about finding a pack that does a good job of transferring the load to your hips.

I have heard that the SMD Fusion series does a good job at that, maybe give them a go.

I have not ever worn one of their packs though.

Any thoughts about why the Kelty worked when the Circuit didn't? My first two thoughts when I hear stuff like this, especially with women, are shoulder straps which are too wide and frames which are too short (or not supportive enough). The PK 50 has relatively narrow straps and a fairly tall frame, usually a good combo for being able to tension the load lifters enough to get the weight off the shoulders while not pinching either the neck or armpit.

Packs are a very personal thing so it is hard for me to say what will work for your wife, but if you don't mind the money, I might look into a McHale Pack, where Dan will work with you on pack fit until you get exactly what you want, or the Paradox which has a really nice looking frame.

If you are wanting something a little cheaper, perhaps a Granite Gear UL Blaze 60 Ki?

My inclination would be to get a new Kelty pack and try again. Bring a needle and strong thread just to be safe. I don't think Kelty would be selling a pack that routinely fell apart that fast.

A possibly similar pack is the Exped Lighting 45/60. It has a single stay down the center, and a top cross bar. You can get the load off your shoulders pretty well with it.

FWIW adjustment of the pack can go along way. I really don't like carrying weight on my shoulders and so I try and adjust most of my weight to my hips. A well padded hip belt and frame pack are the most comfortable for me. I like to adjust the pack with a bit of a high riding tight hip belt cause I'm 'wicked' skinny. I will pull my shoulder straps taught followed by the load lifters but then I pop the tension on the shoulder straps. They actually ride with very little pressure down on my shoulders. The key is to balance the harness so you don't have a lot of pull back from the pack body. I also do a lot of weight shifting throughout the day to give my shoulders or hips a break but most of the time its on the hips. I'm very happy with my Exos 48 but didn't like any other osprey packs I have tried. Im also inbetween most M and S torso sizes and prefer the Mediums. Its really hard for me to recommend a particular pack as everyone's needs are so different.

Best thing would be to get the pack weight down if possible.

jimmyb

I'd love to see a photo of any of those packs that cause her discomfort – especially how wide they sit on her shoulders, how much wrap-around there is around the shoulders, and how deep the pack is (meaning how much does the pack pull back and down – force is exponentially greater the further away from the center of your body)

I used to have this problem myself in literally every pack I tried – gregory, osprey (x2), kelty, EMS. The straps were too narrow just at my neck and it was pressing down on my first rib (you have a rib tucked under your collarbone – all the nerves from your neck drape over this so if you compress from the top you pinch all of them off).

I ended up finding pack nirvana initially with a Gossamer Gear Gorilla – super wide straps and a slightly too-long torso that kept the top of the shoulder strap well off my shoulder (the contact was only at the front). Every pack I've used since I've made sure that the torso is long enough (or even too long), and that NO weight rests on the top of my shoulders to push down on that rib.

That was MY problem – so for your wife I'd love to see where the contact/pressure points are in a sample pack that causes her grief.

my 2 cents….

"The straps were too narrow just at my neck and it was pressing down on my first rib (you have a rib tucked under your collarbone – all the nerves from your neck drape over this so if you compress from the top you pinch all of them off)."

Huh, learn something everyday! Jennifer, do you think the stereotypically lesser shoulder musculature women tend to have would make this issue more likely. I'm thinking of the various pack issues my wife has had over the years, and that perhaps we solved them in a different way than I thought.

+1 for the Six Moon Designs Fusion 50 or Fusion 60. It might take a bit to really get it dialed in to fit her, but once she does, these packs feel nicer than anything else out there that I have tried.

The Exped Lightning is well suited to keeping weight off the top of the shoulders. The 24" long, rigid frame allows the load lifters to be effective.

Dave

My GF has a shoulder problem that prevents her from having any weight on her shoulder.

A pack that I have seen at a GGG that was suggested for the same reason was the Luxurylite Backpack.

http://www.luxurylite.com/stackpackindex.html

It is essentially a lightweight/modular external frame pack.

The belt is hefty and has a "hook" that holds the external frame in place with the result that all the weight is carried on the hips.

Unique aspect is that the whole pack can be lifted off the waist belt "hook", which may make it easy to remove the pack (with the help of a friend) at a rest break and then put back on quickly. (The user simply keeps the waist belt on them while the actually pack is removed).

I believe it was reviewed on BPL years ago.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/luxurylite_modular_frame_backpack_review.html#.VPSyI_nF_HU

BPL User Reviews:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/reviews/display_reviews.html?forum_thread_id=1075

Hope this helps….glad to see this thread to see what options there are on the market, as I am considering buying one for my GF so she can get out on the trail to see why I love it so much.

Tony

+1 Unaweep

I hate having any load on my shoulders. I don't even like the shoulder straps *grazing* the tops of my shoulders.

I had the Fusion 60. Nice pack, but the torso was not long enough for me, and I'm pretty short (5'8" on a good day). I got shoulder pain after a few miles.

The Unaweep is a little heavy for UL, but you can get it in its lightest configuration at 2lb14oz I think, and that includes the "Talon". It can carry over 100lbs apparently, though I havent tried that ;). Waterproof. Weight can be all on hips.

Gotta go, but I would shoot them an email, they had great customer service when I was ordering one.

nm

I mentioned that the stay design on the Kelty PK is different than all the other packs we've tried. Another difference is the shoulder strap attachment. Rather than the top end of the shoulder strap itself being physically connected to the bag or the frame, the top of the shoulder strap has no connection and kind of "floats". It's the load lifter straps that connect the shoulder strap to the bag. That might be the key to the difference in how it wears.

You can kind of see it in the photos on Kelty's website: http://www.kelty.com/p-770-pk-50.aspx

Gene

"My inclination would be to get a new Kelty pack and try again. Bring a needle and strong thread just to be safe. I don't think Kelty would be selling a pack that routinely fell apart that fast."

There's a large front "flap" on this pack that makes up at least a third of the volume of the pack. It attaches to the body with a pair of clips that are under a fair amount of stress. These clips, in their attachment to the pack body, each have three prongs that stick through the material of the pack and attach them to some base on the inside of the pack. That attachment was coming loose. This doesn't seem like something that could be field-repaired. If one of these clips failed in the backcountry, it would be a huge hassle. It may have just been a defect in this one pack, but my fear is that it is a design issue, having a lot of stress and force being applied to these little attachment prongs in the two clips.

Gene

I use the Luxury Lite pack frame, with a GG pack strapped on to it, instead of the cylinders. It's an extraordinarily comfortable pack that keeps the weight off of my shoulders (why I bought it). It also carries a bear canister perfectly atop the lower 'flange'. The whole thing weighs about 2 1/4 pounds, I believe.

I didn't like the cylinders that are designed for this pack, although I didn't give them much of a test. They bounced too much; also I found that the lower cylinder slid along the bottom flange.

You can cinch this pack close to your back, or leave a bit of breathing room there, which is nice on hot days.

My Osprey EXOS 58 SHOULD be a size Medium based on my measurements on an Osprey sizing device.

But I opted for a size Large so the shoulder straps would not wrap around my shoulder and put weight on them. This is because I have two herniate lumbar discs and need virtually all the weight on my hip belt and not on my spine.

So look at sizing again and maybe a "wrong" size will turn out to be the right size.

After years and thousands of $$ invested to remedy the same problem:

Make sure the torso length is too tall

Make sure the hip belt wraps the hips well with no gaps at all

Keep the weight and therefore the center of gravity as close to the back as possible, between the shoulder blades or higher.

My really tall McHale sucked in to be tall and shallow was the best solution. A Paradox/Unaweep works too. Ospeys are nice but that trampoline back set up is unhelpful. Most of the lumbar style packs have hipbelts that are not helpful.

If on a budget I'd be looking for an external with a great hip belt. Or, morphing a Paradox hipbelt to her favorite pack, may require major surgery but doable if your handy and not intimidated by hacking gear.

Good luck

Jeffrey,

Humm, creative use of the Luxurylite frame.

How are you attaching your pack securely to the frame of the Luxurylite pack?

Tony

Tony: it's surprisingly easy. Unbuckle the straps; place the top half over the top bar of the LL frame, bring up the bottom half under the bottom bar, connect and cinch until tight. I use a Gossame Gear G4–an ancient version with a useless hip belt that's very light. I continue to buckle the hip belt strap around my waist for attachment purposes, but there's no need, I do it out of habit. The G4 weighs 16 ounces; of course all of the structure is provided by the LL frame and the packed contents.

An unusual arrangement but I like it. All of the weight is on my hips and man, the LL 'belt' is really comfortable. Again, the frame carries a bear canister sideways on the bottom of my pack like a dream. (You could carry it vertically as well).

I've never tried the Unaweep or the Exped Lightning, which both look to transfer weight to the hips very well. They both look intriguing.

One other thought that hasn't been mentioned: try buckling the hip belt higher and tighter than you intend to wear it.

My approach is to fasten the hipbelt right below my ribcage; as I'm walking it settles at about the level of my bellybutton. If I buckle over my bellybutton, the pack ends up sitting down on my hips, and then I start to feel the weight in my shoulders. And seriously–cinch that waistbelt; most tend to loosen up once you're moving. YMMV, of course.

Jeffrey,

Thanks for the tip….duh, amazingly easy! :)

Nice thing about the Luxurylite is that squarely drops all the weight onto the hip belt.

I just wonder if going "back to the future" is the best solution vs. modifying internal frame packs to function like an old type external?

Any negatives about the Luxurylite that you can think of?

You did mention that the cylinders tend to slide around a bit.

Tony

Tony: I'm in Berkeley, so if you're interested I can show you my set-up; you can borrow it (briefly!) if you'd like. I also have the cylinders which I'd be happy to let you try. As I said, I only used the cylinders on one brief trip. Could be that with more experimentation they could be made to work just fine (i.e. pack them tighter).

I lucked out and bought mine used here; it's a pricey pack off the shelf. But if you just buy the frame and belt, it's not too bad.

Yeah, it seems to me that there would be a market for external frame packs using lightweight materials–back to the future! It's all about load transfer to the hips and with externals you get weight solidly on the frame and frame on the hips, where your leg muscles, which are by far the most powerful in your body, do the work. I wonder if, given equivalent weight, people wouldn't prefer externals. But then, I grew up with externals so maybe it's just my personal thing. I imagine that most backpackers have never used an external.

But all of this has been well hashed out over the years. HYOH, and all that.

I can cinch this LL pack very close to my back for off trail balance; not an issue.

Some people complain that the belt, which is large, doesn't work for them. I suppose it's about body type.

I never found an internal that gave solid load transfer off my shoulders and onto my hips the way an external does; that's why I put together this pack. Could be that the Unaweep and Exped are the exception in a relatively light weight internal.(But aren't stays etc. just a way to half back into an external design? Anyway, I think that my pack weighs less than either of those, although I'd have to check, and I'm lazy.)