Pack Cover Weight?

Thats about right for a sil cover. It probably won't keep everying dry without a liner too though, they leave the back of the pack open.

A pack cover should weigh zero. It is something that doesn't truly waterproof the contents of your pack.

But please know, a pack LINER is far superior, providing 100% waterproofness to everything inside the bag.

The very best I have ever found is a white HEFTY trash COMPACTOR bag sold at every grocery store. Cheap and foolproof. Weight: 2.2 oz

Zero— use a liner :)

3oz is fair, depending on the material. I see that Zpacks is making Cuben versions in the 0.9-1.2oz range. That's {{{{{{{{light}}}}}}}}.

http://www.zpacks.com/accessories/pack_cover.shtml

Anyone know of a Cuben Fiber pack liner?

Check out http://www.mountainfitter.com I think Lawson made some before his Cuben dry bags. You might want to try contacting him to double check. He only has the dry bags listed currently.

The ultimate solution is to switch to a durable cuben pack and dispense with pack covers and liners all together :)

The ultimate solution is to switch to a durable cuben pack and dispense with pack covers and liners all together :)

Joe at Z-packs says his cuben packs' life span is one full thru-hike. Not my definition of durable.

For a lot of people it would take them many years to hike 2500-3000 miles.

What would a durable pack last for? How long would you say a pack like the gg gorilla last?

Nick:

I bet after 2-3K miles, even "traditional" backpacks will show significant battle scars.

I agree, have a waterproof pack

Better than fiddling with cover or liner

Silnylon works, but you have to coat the 1.4 ounce version of silnylon with diluted silicone or the equivalent. This may loose it's effectiveness at some point – like 100 trips and 1000 miles.

> I bet after 2-3K miles, even "traditional" backpacks will show significant battle scars.

Agree.

But there is a difference between life span and battle scars. Somewhere in my garage is a old Kelty D4 that has 1,000s of miles on it, not to mention ape-handling by airlines. This pack once survived a fall of several hundred feet down a rocky slope I could not navigate wearing the pack. I was lowering it to a ledge with a rope and the knot came undone. No damage done. A cuben pack would have been ripped to shreds. I can still use this pack. I also have a monstrosity of a pack, an external frame Kelty Serac, that has a ton of miles on it too. It looks almost new, except a couple of the nylon gear tie patches have disintegrated with age.

Here is a question: We see threads in Chaff about "saving the environment," but many of us have no qualms about purchasing "disposable" equipment, that will survive for centuries when buried in landfills. Why do we do this?

So this is why I bought a full dyneema pack last year. Not necessarily to save the environment, but to last. Last year I had to replace a GG Mumur because it got ripped up going cross country. Nothing wrong with the construction, but the material was not up to the conditions, which I knew. But I needed to take a short-cut to my destination. Why should we own so many packs, each of which determines where and when we can go?

Warning: Thread drift…

"So this is why I bought a full dyneema pack last year. Not necessarily to save the environment, but to last."

Actually, methinks it is GOOD for our environment when we buy quality gear that fits our needs and will last a long time — versus some of the "deals" from the likes of Wal Mart that end up all too quickly in our landfills… Not saying that good things can't come out of Wal Mart (they can, of course) — but I am leery of those $39 six-piece luggage sets and $29 four-person tents…

Yeah that walmart stuff seems a bit sketchy, but i know people who have that sort of tent and use it 6 nights or so a year. It works well for there uses.

Okay,

Back to the OP.

Pack covers often do keep a pack water proof, but in extended precipitation they usually fail for the intended purpose.

Liners do much better, if not completely water proof.

Cuben might be a water proof material for a pack, as long as it is sealed along all seams. However, cuben is not the most durable material for a back, which by design is subject to rugged use.

1.5oz cuben is really amazing stuff and I don't consider it disposable in the context of a small pack designed for UL loads. I personally think it stands up to wear and tear almost as well as 210D nylon.

I once spent a night hastily camped above treeline with my 1.5oz cuben food bag simply tied to a small bush. There were marmots everywhere in this area and in the morning it was obvious than one had spent a great deal of effort trying to chew into my delicious smelling food bag, yet no food was lost and the total damage was just one small dime sized hole and cosmetic marks elsewhere. In this context, I suspect 1.5oz cuben held up even better than 210D nylon would have. In other tests (ie. puncture) cuben may not fare quite as well as 210D nylon, but overall I would say it's much closer to 210D nylon than it is to 30-70D silnylon.

How long a cuben pack lasts seems to be directly related to how much weight you are carrying with it, because the main thing that goes seems to be the seams where the stitching or bonding eventually fails. On Zpacks they do say the life expectancy of their cuben packs is one full thru-hike, but that's in the context of much heavier thru-hiker loads which can hit 30 lbs with a full water load.

I intend to use my small frameless cuben pack as a 3 season UL pack for 1-3 night trips with total pack weights rarely exceeding 15 lbs. At maybe 20-30 trail days annually, I expect to get many years out of this pack. I don't think cuben is the ideal material for all packs, but I do think it's really well suited for small frameless packs designed for UL loads.

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As it relates to the OP, I like using waterproof stuff sacks primarily. I use roll top cuben sacks for essential stuff (clothes, down sleeping quilt) and non-roll-top cuben sacks for everything else. This way I can open my pack and retrieve stuff without exposing all of the contents to the rain like a liner would. This also keeps my stuff organized so it's multi-purpose. I do sometimes also use a pack cover to hopefully keep my pack dry so I can have it in the shelter with me. However, when the rains are heavy the pack cover will fail pretty quickly so there isn't much point in having it.