Rivendell Jensen Pack

It does look kind of interesting. From what I read, the packs are frameless and made out of a predominantly cotton material. How about water bottle pockets?

I borrowed one of the original Jensens for a winter trip about 25 years ago. It was my first use of anything other than big frame packs or small day packs. Packing was tricky since the main compartment is divided into two vertical tubes- each of which needed to be packed snugly in order to transfer weight to the hips. The sleeping bag compartment likewise needed to be packed full.

I probably carried about 30 pounds for a several day trip. As I recall it seemed the load was mostly hanging from my shoulders.

In all, it didn't impress me. They have limited volume adjustment. I think ensuring your sleeping bag keeps dry would be challenging wet weather.

That said, more experience packing it would probably result in better performance than I saw.

The Jensen pack excelled at activities; off trail scrambling,climbing,and cross-country skiing.
The back never breathed very well and I would have a huge sweat stain when I took it off. Somewhere there's a photo of this being covered in mosquitos when I went up the Mountaineer's Route at Mt. Whitney.The hip belt never seemed long enough just catching the end [and this was before my waist expanded], also the buckle was metal but so were the majority of the packs at the time.
That said I really liked my Rivendell because it forced me to think about what I was going to take and how I was going to pack it. It definetly has a smallish bag compartment but I used a pied d'elephant then so it didn't much matter. Jansport made a frameless copy around then that had a zip out divider panel.
I will go out on a limb and say that it only required the same level of packing smarts as any ultralight pack of today.

Here – read at your own risk – http://www.oregonphotos.com/Rivendell-1.html

In fact, you can spend hours looking at the web pages, if you're an old gearhead.

I liked mine ok. Carried it for a couple years in the late 70s.
I liked being able to drop the pack in the mud and muck and be able to have full access to the contents.
But I don't like zippers on packs. Just don't trust the things. A zipper failure on this pack could be trouble.
Tim

Thanks Gentleman.

Thanks Joe for that link to the gear of yesteryear. Kind of the forebearer to the UL movement. Neat stuff.