I picked up a Jansport Wasabi backpack in a thrift store yesterday for about $6 and after giving it a bath and drying, I gave a good critical look as trail gear.
It looks like a typical school book bag, with three large zippered pockets down the front and a smaller audio pocket up top with a headphone port. There are two smaller pockets inside and a key lanyard. There is a mesh water bottle pocket on the right side that will hold a one liter Nalgene or a bit larger.
The shoulder straps are well padded with Jansport's Aircore foam and have an ergonomic s-curve. In the best UL tradition, there is no sternum strap nor a waist belt. There is a small stretch mesh pocket at the top of the right shoulder strap that opens to the bottom. This was a mystery, but I eventually found a review that identified it as a cable pocket for earbud headphones. Clever. The back panel is padded and has some vertical stitching with a smooth fabric cover.
The pack bag itself is 600 denier polyester and 420 denier nylon. This looks like fairly tough stuff– more so than the typical silnylon pack cloth. With a 29 liter capacity, the zinger is that this pack only weighs 17 ounces.
I could see using this pack for day hikes and even SUL-ish summer overnight trips. I think it has as much load carrying ability as any UL frameless pack without a hip belt, in fact maybe better considering the 3" wide and well-padded shoulder straps.
In fact, I can't find anything that would prevent me from using this pack on the trail. I wonder what else is out there with comparable features, weight and cost?
Caveat: this is an older version that does not have a laptop pocket, adding about 7 ounces.
