Over the past weekend, I used the Granite Gear Virga for the first time and had some thoughts. The hike was a 27 mile hike through the George Washington National Forest. 5 miles the first day, 22 the second. (Late start on Saturday.) 14 pounds total weight.
The bag was packed with a Gossamer Gear 3/4 nightlight sleeping pad rolled up, everything else in the middle with my hat, gloves, socks, balaclava, etc. stuffed in the flared bottom corners.
The good: (1) The pad and compression straps made a rigid and narrow pack. You would be hard pressed to know it didn’t have a frame. (2) I didn’t have any problems getting my water bottles out of the stretch side pockets. (3) I also didn’t mind that much not having a lid.
The bad: (1) The 1.5 in webbing hip belt poorly distributed the weight over my hips. I ended up getting sore hips. (2) The belt provided no load control. It is not possible to get the pack to stand up and get all the weight off your shoulders. The pack always wants to pull backwards on your shoulders. (3) Because the harness attachments are so low, it is uncomfortable to wear the pack without the hip belt. The yoke pokes you in the back. (4) There was significant wear on the clothes that I packed into the flared corners. Packing them in stuff sacks would have probably solved this.
Recommendations for improvement: (1) Loose the yoke system (as recommended in the BPL review). (2) Thin down the shoulder straps and use the saved weight to add side fins to the hip belt to distribute the weight over the hips and provide better load control.
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