It was pouring buckets this afternoon and I’m hoping to get out in the woods Sunday and Monday, so I went by REI for a map. Temptation at every turn :)
I thought I had seen the Flash pack in a catalog and passed it off as a stuff sack with straps, but I got a chance to look one over in the store and it is an interesting product.
First of all, it is $25. You can spend $25 on a pair of socks at REI, so the prospect of buying a pack for that kind of money appealed to my bargain hunter nature right away.
The pack is 16″/40cm from top seam to bottom, 10″/25cm across the bottom of the back panel and about 6″/15cm deep. Published capacity is 1050 cubic inches (or about 17 liters). Published weigh is 10 ounces and my scale showed 9.7oz.
It is pack shaped– a definite back panel and an arc shape to the bag. The top has a drawstring closure and no flap or cover. The drawstring does a figure-8 through sleeves 2″/5cm apart, helping to give the top more shape when loaded and make for a good strong means of drawing it all together. The drawstring looks like 3mm braided nylon– bright orange with a toggle. There’s a notch in the drawstring area— like the fly on a pair of pants.
According to the tag, the pack bag is 70 denier siliconized nylon with 210 dernier double ripstop nylon in “high abrasion areas” — that is the back panel and bottom from what I see. All the seams are lapped or have a binding– there are no open or raw seams anywhere. I think that is amazing on a product that retails for $25.
The shoulder straps have a base of stretch nylon with a nylon web on the top side. The edges are all bound. There is a sternum strap with a snap buckle and the shoulder straps finish with 3/4″/20mm web straps on the bottom and ladder adjusters. There is a waist belt with the same 3/4″/20mm web and a snap buckle. The top of the should straps form a yoke rather than each ending separately at the top of the bag and the yoke has an open arc forming a grab handle that I can get four fingers into.
On the outside of the pack is a daisy chain of orange 3/4″/20mm web with another strip running down the inside as a reinforcement. At the bottom of the daisy chain is a grommet with a loop of 3mm line and a toggle to form a tool loop. My guess is that an ice axe or trekking pole could go through the loop and be held to the daisy chain with a carabiner, or go though that fly-like arrangement on the top closure.
REI recommends turning the pack inside out to use as a stuff sack. Inside is a pleated hydration sleeve and two more layers of pockets inboard of the sleeve panel– one pocket about a third of the sleeve length and three mesh pockets in a row on top of the large pocket.
I would guess the pack is good for about 10 pounds. My thought was to use it as a day pack or a SUL summer overnighter. It would make a perfect day pack on a trip. It is well made and has detailing far above the $25 price.
The hydration sleeve is the touch that makes it really useable as a pack. A small pack with no external pockets leaves no way to have accessible water storage and bottles rob inside storage.
With the simple drawstring top and untaped seams this bag needs a liner to handle rain. A turkey roasting bag or a 13 liter dry bag would do the trick. There are a lot of details that add weight. The waist belt is simply for stabilization– useful for a climbing, but just extra weight for a hiker. The extra inside pockets could go– getting to them with a full pack would be difficult and I’ve never had a lot of confidence that items would stay put in such pockets I have used in other bags and packs.
Other than being a few ounces heavy in the UL world, the pack is a very useable and well made piece of equipment and well worth the price.
See REI.com for photos and details.
