New Patagonia Ascentionist 25/35/45L Climbing Packs

They look real nice. The features actually look useful for once.

I'd like to know if the load lifters would ever make it to 45 degrees on that pack –!

Amen. Every time I see a pack where the shoulder straps meet the pack body literally one inch from the 'load lifter' attachment point, I can't help but roll my eyes.

At least HMG (and a few others) skip the pretense. Either make them truly functional, or leave them off.

This looks like a really nice climbing pack. I would seriously consider this pack especially for the price, but alas, it seems that it is not short people friendly at 16-19" torso length in the S/M size. I see a small HMG 2400 Ice Pack in my future.

I'm thinking I really like the 25L pack at ~12oz. It didn't say it on Patagonia's site, but through some internet sleuthing it looks like all 3 sizes have a removable internal frame so this would further drop down the weight of the 25L pack if removed, and also likely leave behind an internal pocket of sorts for a torso pad. Think I'm going to pull the trigger on this one for my sul summer endeavors.

Nope, the 12 oz 25L does not have a frame. Though I do like that design.

Another thing you can't tell from the web, it has some actual padding on the bottom, presumably for climbing hardware on the bottom. The material is very bomber by BPL standards. Some thin foam padding protecting the back also – built in, there is no slot to remove it and no hydration nonsense (yay!).

If you want any more details on the 25L let me know.

@some others above. Before you make apples and oranges comparisons, do remember that these packs are designed strictly from the standpoint of being climbing packs. If they fit your regular backpacking criteria (and they should in some cases) that is great. Otherwise, working as intended.

I'm glad, at least, that Patagonia has decided to go back to making SOME gear seemingly designed specifically for technical use, without pandering to the "ski lodge crowd". I saw one review from a disgruntled customer complaining that the fit of the new R1's no longer look as good at the pub. LOL

Just double checking on my scale it does look like the 12 oz claim is probably for the hip belt removed, and probably rounded down. I'm guessing this would be an issue only for the fanatic gram weenies, who probably wouldn't be happy with the heavier bomber material anyway.

Anyway, I was shocked, shocked I say, to find weight fudging going on!

Still, shows what you can do if you remove most zippers and extraneous features. It does fit all my SUL gear, though at this point I only do those for overnights these days, and got it mostly as a day pack – first one I've ever had I feel totally happy with design wise.

Edit: again this is only for the 25L.

Measurement of torso length (middle of belt to strap attachment point is 16.5 inches, shortish, but fine considering this is a frame-less pack and the belt is pretty much to keep it from wobbling. As it says, the belt is removable if desired.

Not much of a pack taper, no. Basically a cylinder. The very bottom of the pack is rounded a bit, but the back panel (for example) is basically 10" wide the whole way. The back *padding* is tapered a bit at the bottom but the fabric of the actual back panel is rectangular.

Yes on the ice axe loop being adjustable. They would go out to at least 12 inches in *circumference*, so some sleep mats for sure. Others not. But there are 4 lines of very bomber daisy chain attachment points so you could customize the hell out of the attachments- a total of 24 loops, not counting the very ends as smaller ones which might count a 4-8 additional independent attachment points. There are some on the straps that could be used (in addition to the main use of adjusting the height of the sternum strap ) which I didn't count in the above.

As shown in the video, you can remove the pack strap and reattach it in the "extended" configuration, where the lid also can act as a place to hook additional gear like this, if you aren't using it for a rope, that is. That could be used for a much larger sleep mat, or something else like a tent, stuff sack, umbrella or what have you.

If anyone needs a picture of something obscure not covered in the ones on line I could oblige.

Mark, could you explain how the inner weather collar (yellow fabric) works? Is it just like a regular spindrift collar or a flap of fabric? If it's the latter, how does the cinching of it work?
Thanks in advance–I find that collar a really interesting design.

That is only a feature on the bigger sizes, so I have no experience. Looks a bit like the old Golite "dry bags" – twist the inner and cinch the outer over the top. From the vids the inner has a cinch cord, so I guess not just a flap.

ProLiteGear has a video review of the Patagonia Ascensionist packs on youtube.com

I couldn't track one down locally to check out so placed an order for a 25L this morning to scope out, hope it works for my needs. Figured worse case scenario I throw it on swap for a few bucks less, or just use it as an overnight bag for when I head to a friends house or a hotel. I'm a 21" torso for packs so the 25L belt/strap placement is not ideal, but I really don't plan on using the belt anyways except for glissading so should be fine there.

Surprisingly the weights of the bigger ones, though not specifically designed as "ultra-light" are pretty good. Again, shows what you can do even with bomber material, if you leave out unnecessary features. I would be interested in getting confirmation of the weights since I wouldn't put it past them to give the weights without the frame and hip belt.

Amusingly enough I was able to get all my SUL type gear into the 25L plus a small bear can!

That's nuts that you could get a bear can to fit as well. I'm assuming you used the relocatable strap to cinch it down under the lid? That's a feature that sold me on the pack, as well as the non removable back pad surprisingly enough. I use a ~25L zpacks zero every now and then for my lighter summer trips, with a cut up section of pad on the inside of the pack for my pack padding. I used the pack with pad for my legs when sleeping, along with a blow up torso pad. Having the pad loose in the pack was a little bit of an annoyance when packing, and made it not real usable with a small load for short day hikes. I'm not a fan of having the pad mounted externally on a pack either for back cushioning.

Sewn in is nice for my purposes, and not too far off of the weights of the ul cottage companies packs when a foam pad is added in to that weight.

Not overly ecstatic about the color choices or the large patagonia branding up the side of the pack, but a little color splash never hurt anybody and I think functionally it looks to be a pretty solid piece of equipment.

It was a small bear vault, and no, it fit inside just fine on top of the bag I tried (and that a 45 degree quilt) with room to spare, vertically of course. Depending on how bulky your gear is you could use the lid that way, especially if you have a rolled-up foam pad or something else that is bulky.

Something made me try this (not seriously at first) because so many of my trips are in bear can territory. If I was doing an overnighter or weekend trip I now think this would be a perfectly good pack for it if it was summer and I was paired down to SUL type gear.

Any further testing results on these ones?

Thinking of picking up the 35L for running to work and other general use… I don't really need the 35L capacity, but the torso length of the 25L won't cut it for me :(, still the 35L looks cool and well featured, just not at such an attractive weight.

The torso length on the 25L shouldn't be an issue simply because the "hip belt" on that one is by no means intended to bear the weight. Its only purpose is to prevent wobbling, and is removable if desired. So there is in essence no "size" to this pack and would basically fit on anyone, just like any belt-less pack. That is why it doesn't come in different sizes, and why the "torso length" is so short. Intended to do a different job.

So if you are ruling it out on "lenght" alone then you probably shouldn't. It doesn't matter *at all*, unless you are going to try to create some kind of internal frame with a pad or something, but this isn't really the size and type of pack where you probably would want to do that. So as a day pack it is ideal, or for SUL. Its supposed to just hang off your shoulders. In that case I actually like that the belt is a little higher for wobble control.

The 2 bigger ones do have a frame and a real hip belt, so in those cases size matters.

I know I claimed this pack would fit a bear can. Hear is the visual proof you can easily get that and all SUL gear into the 25L

Here I have everything packed WITHOUT either using the extension setting on the lid strap (so it would be possible to get more doing that), or using any space in the bear can itself, or having anything lashed onto the outside using the many attachment points. So it would really NOT be crazy to take this on a 4-5 day SUL trip.

In case you are wondering, yes it does fit the larger radius Berikade as well, but just barely. The nice thing about the bear vault is that there is enough space left over to stuff some clothing or other things at the back to add additional back padding to the thin foam already in the pack itself.

Probably with a little more effort than I made here things could be arranged in the pack to be quite comfortable, making this a pretty cheap, light pack that is also very bomber. Not that bad for a pack designed for something else.

Contents:

smaller Bear Vault can
Trash compactor liner and Sierra Stealth quilt
Zpacks bivy and solo hexamid (in this case pocket tarp version)
short xlite pad
clothes bag, and not skimping on driducks and puffy either.
stove and fuel bottle
dinky bags
Gatoraid water bottle.

I picked up the 25L on sale from prolitegear.com a couple of weeks ago and have been using it as my daily bike commute (30 mi. round-trip) bag, which is working out really well. The top zip keeps phone, wallet, and keys. The main bag stores the change of clothes (office attire w/ dress shoes, dress belt, etc.) a small hygiene kit, hand towel, snacks & lunch, extra water (it's already in the 90sF in Sacramento, CA!) and bike Ulock. This is a climbing day pack which is designed to put the load up high between your shoulders. It's very stable there and works surprising well while riding (road, in drop bars). I'm very impressed with the quality of materials and hardware used. Actually, I'm now pretty intrigued by the 45L as a 3-day pack.

I ended up purchasing the 35L as just a general day pack and used it for a week's walking in New Zealand sleeping at huts on the walk (no tent, but a bit of food, and clothing for rough conditions, approximately the same gear as a summer weekend in volume and probably a bit heavier).

Overall, I really like it. It's a comparable weight to my HMG windrider 3400, but it's kind of nice to have a physically smaller pack, especially where packing in cars and buses is concerned.

I could probably fit more in (e.g. I considered it for a weekend trip tomorrow with a Australian 'winter' setup), but I think it would stop carrying comfortably pretty soon… It's definitely not as nice at carrying load as my HMG, largely because I don't like the curvy shoulder straps as much, but also because it's a bit conical being a climbing pack… but it does a fine job with small loads and the small amount of flex in the frame does move nicely with your body. The waist strap works well and the weight does transfer effectively, probably up to around 8-10kg or so.

I didn't miss having external pockets, the one on top holds the essentials, and the spindrift collar is a good way to segregate some stuff out of the main packing area (rain jacket, warm jacket). I used some elastic cord to create a shoulder strap holder for a gatorade bottle, like the ULA packs and that worked fine in a cold, low drinking setting.

The whole lid setup is really cool once you get your head around it, it opens up massive and quickly, closes just as quick, and allows for painless overstuff with lofty items… probably prefer it to a roll top and like the lack of velcro (grabbing my fleece). Little G-hook closure is quick and easy.

Compression is fairly effective, although it has a tendency to mushroom out in the middle a bit between the two side straps… if these were angled it would be better. Compression from the top strap also goes a bit odd if it's not packed right… it has a kind of sweet spot in terms of being full enough and if you don't hit that it goes strange shapes…

Clips on the straps are convenient for attaching poles / tools… However, this is mitigated somewhat by one of my annoyances – the bottom set of straps have a lot of creep when holding something solid like a trekking pole and you need to re-tighten occasionally… strangely the top strap does better so nothing ever fell out, but it was fiddly.

Other downsides are;
-the funky aluminium push through stopper thing to move the sternum strap up and down is painful to get in and out, glad you only need to do it once

-the material against your lower back has no absorbency and feels a bit sticky at times… some foam added there would be nice to wick moisture

-face fabric isn't coated enough to be waterproof, especially without taped seams… but it is waterproof enough to hold a lot of water in the bottom of the pack when it's been raining a while… a single drainage hole would have been nice…

-load lifters are useless for me… having said that, I'm at the top end of the torso length range… on a shorter person they may serve some purpose, but they'll never be at enough angle to be that useful, they just simulate having straps connected at the top of the frame (like HMG) which they could have just actually done and saved some weight… worse than not doing anything, they creak a bit at tension and press down into the shoulder strap padding a bit and cut in… not terrible, but contributes to the straps not being as overall comfortable as the much simpler straight and not curved design of HMG.

Apologies if this review was a bit HMG-comparison heavy – it's what I know :). Overall though, can recommend, especially if you can pick up one for just over $100 on special. Will take a beating.

I've used it as a summit pack on Shasta etc and as a travel/day hiking pack. Its holding up well. The color choices are not the best however.
In regards to fit, Im an 18 inch torso and it works well.. I tried it out at a Patagonia store before buying though. The black hole pack didn't fit me and I wanted to be sure.

I ended up also snagging the 45L from prolitegear, in addition to my previously mentioned 25L, but unfortunately I'll be returning this one. I have a ~19 1/4" torso so I ordered the large, but it was a tad bit too long in the torso and the shoulder strap fit was a bit off. The medium might fit but I'm guessing it would be a tad too short. I think I'm just between sizes on this one.

I've been using my 25 liter pack as a hunting pack in the fall and snowshoeing/ski day pack in the winter. I'm really impressed with this very simple, no frill pack. It's light, it's well constructed, durable and I'd say the 25 liters is conservative- maybe just the design, but you can pack a lot of stuff in it! The daisy chain setup lets me lash a hard shell, snowshoes, etc to the outside. It carries very nicely w/ 10-15 lbs, not sure much past that point.

Al in all, a very nice day pack :)

Curious about people comments on the 35L carrying about 20-25#'s. I have never have a pack with a frame, and curious to see how it will do. Seems like a nice winter day pack, and an all around day to day pack.