Golite Jam or Osprey Talon

I have never used the GoLite pack so cannot compare but I do have a lot of experience with the Talon 44.

I really like it up to 30 lb. or so. Besides backpacking I hauled a bunch of snorkel gear and food and water (a lot of water) around Hawaii with one for 6 days. I also used it for hauling climbing gear on four trips.

I have both packs and prefer the Jam2 by far over the heavier talon 44. The jam2 fits me absolutely perfectly, and I often forget it's there. The shoulder straps on the talon 44 are less comfortable for me and the 'frame' doesn't do too much. It has hip pockets if you're into that, and you can take off about 5 ounces if you have a pair of scissors around.

I think a more relevant comparison would be jam2 vs exo 46? I don't know much about this new pack, but i think it's like the talon only way cooler. I haven't tried it other than in a store though.

Love my jam2. They're ridiculously cheap too.

My wife has been using a talon 44 for a few years and loaded it up to 12kg wich is a limit for the shoulder straps comfort range for her.
Usually with 5 days of food she is close to 10kg including water, food etc.. and find it very comfortable
i had a jam2 lended to her for a try, she didnt like it at all, the pack having no frame need some skill to load to remotly transfer the charge as a talon 44.
I bought her for our next long hike with winter gear and 2 weeks of food a ULA catalyst and she likes it, but this back also have a very stiff load transfer structure.

( she weights barely 50Kg so a 12kg load is already 24% of her mass )

I tried the jam 2 too, i liked the lack of useless stuff, but i didnt found it comfortable, but i am not agood reference for comparison as i dont like the talon 44 either i cannot bear the contact between backpack and spine.
Only backpack i use without a tensed mesh back is my ion for smaller loads.
I just changed my atmos 50 to an exos 58 for winter gear.
Talk about features that i wont use with that one too.. im giving myself a few hikes to see what i remove or not :)

As the above anecdotes show very well, when it comes to pack selection the top three selection criteria are fit, fit and fit. We can live with or work around other backpack shortcomings but with an ill fit it's pretty much all window dressing.

I've not had the opportunity to give the Jam a tryout and comparison, but do like the Talon 44 for trips up to five days or so. I'll echo sentiments that its weight capacity shouldn't be exceeded–things start sagging all over (and I don't strictly mean myself).

Cheers,

Rick

I've got both, Jam2 requires more careful packing and over a certain weight your shoulders start to do a bit of work. Talon 44 is more comfy with heavy loads due to it's internal frame (my experience doesn't agree with the poster who said the frame doesn't do much), and it matters much less how stuff is packed. Talon also has more useful rear pocket, good hip belt pockets… and of course is nearly twice the weight. Finally Jam2 is probably more durable.

I picked up a Talon 33, and have loaded it up with about 25lbs of gear (mostly water) for a long dayhike, I had no complaints with the pack. The hipbelt was very supportive and didn't slip on me throughout the day. The lightweight framesheet hugged my back quite well and load transfer to my hips was good, I was able to highstep and scramble some Class 3/4 pitches with the pack on and have no complaints about impeded mobility. I have not used the Talon 44 though so I don't know about it's load carrying ability, but the suspension system is the same with larger volume of course.

My brother has the Talon 44 and used it for our May 08 SHT Thru-hike; base weight was about 11 lbs for him. It carried very well and he liked the exterior shovel pocket. The lid is nice to have and the top of the pack bellows out to allow for easy packing. The pack also collapses nicely as volume decreases.

That said, Osprey packs are a little heavy and have lots of extraneous straps. Make sure you try it on with weight to see if the top two corners of the frame bothers your shoulder blades.

Here is my brother on the last day (morning) of our hike. He has only about 500 calories of food weight/volume in there.

Thanks for the info.