My wife and I both have MYOG packs built on the Seek Outside frame/harness. After using them for around 40 days, the padding in both of our shoulder straps has become completely packed out under the 1″ webbing. It’s paper-thin. We do tend to carry heavy-ish loads due to extended food carries and packrafting (40-50# is common) but that’s what SO packs are designed for. Having the bulk of the load on my hips for extended periods seems to exacerbate a hip issue I have, so I like to switch the load to my shoulders on occasion – which is quite uncomfortable now that there is so little padding left beneath the load-bearing 1″ webbing.
My HMG 4400 pack (which has seen much more use) still has intact, uncompressed foam beneath the webbing, as do most of my other old packs.
The shoulder straps kinda are what they are, so my question is more about how I could improve upon them with a MYOG version. I considered posting in that forum, but thought some non-MYOG folks might have input on foam thickness/type, design, etc. Is it simply a matter of using better quality foam? Does the edge-binding design of the HMG shoulder straps “stabilize” the foam so it doesn’t squish out? I’m also considering increasing the load-bearing to 1.5″ to better distribute the load.
Thoughts/ideas welcome. Thanks!
