New Winter Pack Recommendations

What’s your budget?  An Alpine Machine 60 would fit the bill perfectly, if you feel like spending major coin.  There’s also the McHale option, as recently discussed.

Another two options in the 60-70 would be Exped Lightning and Sierra Design Flex Capacitor 60-75L

I believe you can get a Catalyst in X-Pac…

There’s a thread here about a 70L SWD pack and some pics that don’t show much on their site.

Yeah, a $1,000 McHale, although a great option, isn’t financially. Probably about $350 which is what the HMG comes in at.

I should’ve mentioned that, thanks.

Iago,

Thanks, I forgot about Sierra Designs and hadn’t heard of the Exped lighneting. I saw the thread for the SWD 70, just worried it will be out of my price range. I’ll keep up with the thread.
thanks for the suggestions.

In my search for a winter pack, I picked up both an Exped Lightning 60 and an Elemental Horizons Aquilo. Both carry comfortably and have the volume for those bulky winter loads. I haven’t decided which one I like better yet, and still alternate between the two. I probably lean more towards the Aquilo if I think its going to be the type of trip where I’m strapping snowshoes/crampons onto the pack, and the Lightning if it’s more just straightforward bulky items and I wouldn’t need to be doing so much of that.

Seek Outside Divide

Brad, didn’t you test the flight? Do you think the extra weight of the Divide is worth it? I was actually considering the Gila before the Flight was released.

I love my HMG SW 4400. It’s the perfect winter pack for me.  Tons of space inside, huge outside pockets including the back pocket which can swallow a pair of snowshoes.  They have a great add on pouch for crampons too. The Dyneema fabric is very tough and waterproof.  It carries very well with 30 pounds of gear and holds all my bulky down gear easily.

I love my HMG NorthRim with the woven dyneema (like the McHale Spectra) for bottom, front, side and hip belt pockets. And heavy 5.0 ounce dyneema for the body. No hydration port means no openings for water penetration. Worth the additional fee over the SouthWest model. Has same diameter as the 2400, making it nimble. Yet has 65Liter capacity with the front pocket.  This is the pinnacle pack from Hyperlite after having Southwest, Junction.

The Flight carried well up into the mid to high 30 pound range which is more than most of us carry.   It’s a smaller pack – probably around 50-55 liters hence the recommendation for the Divide.

If you carry 30lbs or less most of the time the Flight and if you carry 30 lbs or more most of the time the Divide.

If you need a larger volume than the Flight but don’t carry more than 30 pounds often the new 70 liter SWD pack looks interesting.  Nothing beats the Seek Outside Divide/Unaweep suspension for carrying weight though, so if you regularly carry north of thirty pounds, that’s the first thing I would try.

Packs fit people differently though.  David and AI-G above obviously like their HMG packs, but I’ve tried two HMG packs through the years and didn’t find either comfortable.

I Love my ULA Circuit and at 68 liters it’s plenty big. Mine (XL/L) weights about 40 oz which doesn’t seem excessive and it carries well. I wouldn’t put 70 lbs in it as you did your old Army pack, but then again I wouldn’t want to carry 70 lbs! I wouldn’t sweat the whole waterproof question as I doubt any of them are… and the robic 400 is damn near bulletproof.

Just my 2¢…

I discovered the key with HMG packs is to fix the aluminum stays. The ones I have seen are bent on top inward to the shoulder. The 3200 NorthRim that I bought from Feathered Friends and the 4400 SouthWest that I recently got from Hyperlite both had aluminum stays bent inward. I shaped them to match my McHale LBP40, made all the difference in distributing the weight properly, evenly between back and hips. And no more pinching back of the neck and shoulders.