Bivyback concept solo system

You might want to reach out to James from Helium Hiking Equipment as he had a very similar idea combining a backpack and a bivy system.

Not sure if he ever produced them full time but the prototypes in the link below are interesting. I'm sure you could gather some ideas from them and will give you a better idea of what it might actually look like.

https://m.facebook.com/HeliumHikingEquipment/posts/527992684009383

Cool idea Russell, hope this helps a tad!

I’ve looked at this problem as well, and I don’t feel there’s much win in it.

Combining pack and bivy is a win in multi-use, but having a pack that always carries the same bivy, and a bivy that can only be carried in one pack may eventually seem less of a win. That’s a lot of design variables to fix in one place.

The thing that really makes a pack a pack is the harness. With out that it’s just a stuff sack. And there’s not much else you can use a pack harness for. Hammock suspension, maybe? So what you’re really doing is sticking a pack harness on a bivy. And that can be done in flexible, non-permanent ways.

Have you considered something like the ULA Epic? It’s just a harness with a compression system. With out a frame, this can be made extremely light and allow you to use anything at all as the pack body (bivy, ground cloth, etc), and a pad for structure.

In other words, instead of going for constrained multi-use, strip it down to the essential single use and then mix and match to suit.

I think you're right, thanks for the reality check, I don't know how obvious it is but I have all day at work to think up ideas about hiking because I can't hike until fall anyhow.

I'm constantly trying to simplify one step out of everything I do in life but you're right there is a huge amount of design flaws that may occur trying to make this thing, and in the end I only use a torso pad and knee to heel pad. It would probably add up to more weight with all the angles of fabric below the waist, for only the gain of not having to keep my backpack in my tent and carrying a smaller poncho. Plus once the external ground cloth side is worn out, the whole backpack will leak.

hope this spurs a good idea out of someone.

Believe me, I've been there :)

But now you've got me thinking. If you're light enough, I wonder if there's a way you could roll all your gear up in your bivy or ground cloth, tie the ends of it together, and then some how sling it like a bandolier or something.

Maybe arrange it so you've got a portion going horizontally across the back of your shoulders w/ half your gear in it, then it wraps forward over the top of both shoulders, down and back like traditional shoulder straps, and finally connecting horizontally across the small of your back w/ the other half of your gear in that area.

Then you'd *really* have turned your bivy in to a pack :)