Making frameless backpack work for me

[Murali C]

I hope this helps others who are trying to go frameless or perhaps this is well known.

My main reason for going to frameless is because I do not have much in the way of hips. Have tried several framed backpacks and they all will slip unless I tighten the hip belt a lot – which then restricts my breathing a lot. Which then results in getting breathless when climbing and needing to stop or take more breaks than necessary etc. The problem gets worse by week 2 of a month long hike as you lose some weight and the slippage is more pronounced. And the more you have to tighten to keep the backpack on your hips. Loosening the hip belt will then put the entire load on your shoulders and most of the framed backpacks do not have good shoulder straps.

During my PCT-Washington section hike this year, I used to loosen the hipbelt on climbs in spite of the load on the shoulders in order to climb better – I had my HMG 3400 which has skinny shoulder straps. In 2018 on the JMT, I had Sierra Designs Flex Capacitor and I had the same issues. Though it had not struck me back then to loosen the hip belt while climbing.

I have a MLD Prophet which has excellent shoulder straps. I do not have a hip belt on this pack. I tried to carry 22 to 23 lbs on the shoulders and it carries very well for me. I can breathe excellently while climbing and it is a joy to hike. However, I need to carry more than 23 lbs.

My base weight is around 12 lbs. With 6 days of food and 3 liters of water, my total load pack weight comes to 27 lbs. This will be very difficult to carry in a frameless for most. Some are able to carry those weights. Not me. So, what I do is carry the remaining weight in my fanny pack. The fanny pack I was looking for needed to be able to carry 2 water bottles. I tried several – Sierra Designs recently released two models (the water bottle mesh is too shallow), Patagonia has a 5 liter one with two water bottle holders (the mesh for the water bottles is too tight). The one I like the best is from Amazon – which has a deep/tall mesh water bottle holders. I carry two 20 oz Gatorade bottles in the fanny pack along with 2 lbs of my base weight – Steripen, head lamp, stakes, spoon, woolen cap, neck gaiter, hand soap, gloves, my electronics like battery bank etc. Almost 4.5 lbs. I find that the 4.5 lbs doesn’t restrict my breathing one bit. Carrying 27 lbs on the hips is much more difficult than carrying 4.5 lbs. The fanny pack itself is 1 lb or so. So, totally 5.5 lbs on hips which is a breeze. 22 lbs on shoulder is also perfectly fine. Why 3 liters? Because I plan to do the Colorado trail this summer and there is a 22 mile section without water and I wanted to make sure that I can carry Yiu ca 3 liters at least.

On the MLD Prophet, since I am not able to reach the water pockets – this is what I did. I added two SWD water mesh pockets. Luckily, the Prophet has several attachment points. You can see the two gatorade bottles. Smart water will also fit easily of course. You can easily access these water bottles.

The fanny pack looks like this:

I keep the fanny pack in the front. Not having the hip belt makes it easier to carry the fanny pack. Though I have seen folks with framed backpack with hip belt carrying a fanny pack as well – they make the two hip belts work somehow. I tried it and didn’t like it.

I love the above setup very well. I hope to carry this on my CT next year. I think in general, a 27 lbs on hips is not as comfortable as a 22 lbs on shoulder and 5.5 lbs or so on your hips. Try it. You will be pleasantly surprised.

I think if I had a pack that covered 3/4th of my back that didn’t occupy my lumbar area, then I could place the fanny pack in the lumbar area. I could always keep the fanny pack in the front so that my lower back gets some ventilation as well. You could keep the fanny pack on your back while climbing and then move it to the front while descending to air out your lower back etc. Lots of possibilities.

I do not use any virtual frame with a pad etc as I don’t use the hip belt. I don’t have any issues with the pack on my back – nothing pointy.

I thought I will share my experiences with frameless pack and how I am trying to make it work in spite of not having a ultralight base weight etc. I carry 4 20 oz Gatorade bottles plus a half a liter which makes it 3 liters – not shown everything in the pictures.

 

[Gumbo]

Thanks for sharing!

Have you tried a hip belt with 2 buckles? Allows you to contour the belt much better to sit on hips.

[Murali C]

The only pack I know that has two buckles are the Seek Outside backpacks – I had the Divide. I outgrew that pack when my total pack weight reduced. When I was training with 38 lbs or so, Divide was great. it is too much of a bag for my lighter loads nowadays. Also, I did have to tighten the hip belt there as well. I think my problem is the lack of hips. Even though it has two buckles, the belt is significant in that I am not sure how much the top and bottom buckle helps hug your hips – in the sense that it probably will work better if there were two independent belts – one which you can put over your iliac crest and one below so that it hugs better.

Anyways! I love the freedom of not having to deal with hip belts. It is very liberating! You can breath much better and walk much faster. No more constantly adjusting your hip belt or pushing your backpack up as it slides down and retightening your hip belt or having to deal with hip belt flopping down on the wet mud when you set your bag down.

[Scott Nelson]

Trail running or fast packing packs typically ride higher on your back and might not have a hip belt.  One like the Ultimate Direction Fastpack 35 might work well as you propose with a fanny pack also being worn.

I also looked for the mesh water bottles you pictured on the Superior Wilderness Designs website and only saw shoulder pouches.  Was this a custom item? How do they attach to the pack body and shoulder straps?

thanks,

Scott

[Murali C]

Thanks Scott….will check out the fastpack.

The SWD pockets are shoulder pouches. MLD prophet has all these rings at various points – shown in the picture. In the Prophet, there are two rings – one at the top edge of the side pocket and one at the bottom of the side pocket – which is what I used. The shoulder pouches have the connectors similar to what you can find on the gossamer gear “fast belt”. I used thick shock cord to attach the pouches.

[Tom V]

Why not put the shoulder pouches on the shoulder straps?

[Murali C]

I tried it on the shoulder straps (that was the first thing I tried) and it didn’t work for me. I was getting shoulder pain. The reason I think is because the shoulder straps curve over my shoulders in the back and when that happens, the load on the front is creating additional load on the shoulder. For the load to work well on the shoulder straps, the shoulder straps should not curve over my shoulders (should be like load lifters I think) – but, I cannot get the pack to fit like that – unless I tighten the shoulder straps too much which then is uncomfortable. Once I had the fanny pack with water available readily in front, the motivation to have any additional load on the shoulder straps goes away.

[Murali C]

Another point I want to make is the “divide and conquer” approach.

I don’t like to carry 1 liter bottles as I feel carrying two half liter bottles distributes weight better over a larger area. Try this as well. The best tradeoff for me I feel are the 20 oz bottles – in-between the half liter and 1 liter. Carrying 4 gives me 2.5 liters and I can place them far apart instead of carrying say two 20 oz bottles in one side pocket. So, I carry two in front in the fanny pack and two as shown on the backpack. I will place additional half liter or so inside the backpack near the top.

Most of us carry food as one big blob of say 9 to 10 lbs. Instead, I think dividing the food into 3 packets of 3 lbs or so will carry better. Place one 3 lb food packet at the bottom, then clothes, puffy etc, another 3 lbs, sleeping bag, another 3 lbs etc…..or if you have 6 days of food – 2 days of food in 3 different places inside the backpack.

[HkNewman]

..hope to carry this on my CT next year.

Have used a MLD Burn myself and been looking at ways to further reduce the load for it.  I’m still working on it, but this CDT hiker (u/wesleyhikes on reddit) made a lot of his own gear, but the pictures show him using acpack with no hipbelt as he completed most of the CDT with a 5lb baseweight (a little less starting, a touch more finishing)

Finishing gear:

https://lighterpack.com/r/sv6xx7

His photos:

Cdt gear

 

 

 

[Murali C]

Pretty cool. I don’t think I will ever get to 5 lbs base weight myself. Of course, as always we are all always trying to reduce our base weight – though with my approach of dividing the base weight and water weight in the backpack and fanny pack can make a frameless pack work and reap the advantages of a frameless backpack. Of course, the fanny pack can cause some sweat to accumulate where the fanny pack attaches which I guess is the disadvantage of the fanny pack. Though these weights are on the first day of a 6 day trip. And you may not always carry 3 L – most likely 1 to 1.5 liters most of the time.  As every day goes by and the weight of the backpack reduces, you can move the fanny pack contents or the fanny pack itself into the backpack.

[Author]

Posts