YAR.gear Mountain Drifter 38L Review

[Ben Kilbourne]

Companion forum thread to: YAR.gear Mountain Drifter 38L Review

The YAR.gear Mountain Drifter 38L (~18 oz / 510 g, MSRP $200) is a light and modular fastpacking pack that can accommodate heavier loads for short distances if need be.

[William Barber]

Ben,

Thank you for the detailed and thorough review.  I had a question about the water bottle pockets – you mention in particular that they are big enough to take 2L bottles, which is great – this caught my attention.

The question is: can you access the contents of the pockets easily without taking the pack off? That is something I am looking for in my next light pack.

Thanks,

Bill

[Ben Kilbourne]

Yes I think you can get to a hard sided bottle like a smart water bottle without taking the pack off, but soft bottles are a challenge.

[Josh J]

its a toss up between this one, SWD or UD pack for me…. can’t decide….

[Lea B]

Thank you for the review, love the look of the harness! Two questions:

How do you think the harness would fit on a female upper body? Often they are designed for male chests and don’t really fit for women – but this design looks just too nice to not have it available for us….

Second: I think the fabric type VX21 RS doesn’t exist – it’s either VX21 (with the elevated X pattern being the Ripstop component) or V21 RS (with a less elevated, square and smaller Ripstop pattern) which I personally think is the more long-living option since the elevated X patterns tend to wear down quicker. I think Yar Gear had made Drifters in both fabric types at some point but currently the standard fabric is VX21. Might be interesting to read up on that again and correct it

[Ben Kilbourne]

Their website still says VX21RS on one of the Mtn Drifters (the one that’s currently sold out) and regular VX21 on the other, so yeah maybe they use both. Here’s the spec sheet on the two, maybe that helps. If it’s really true that the RS is more durable, I’d hope they keep using it. I will say I prefer the soft hand, and it has at least the appearance of being more durable with the ripstop. I could also see it being possible that the ripstop creates stronger seams but I don’t build packs so I won’t say that with certainty.

I’m waiting on a response now about how it fits female bodies. Will post as soon as I hear from Adam. Fingers crossed that it works for everyone and I apologize for not attempting to figure this out in the review as it’s extremely important. Huge oversight on my part. Thanks for asking about it. 

[Lea B]

Thank you for the reply Ben and thanks for checking about the  harness :) very curious about that!
<p style=”text-align: left;”>You’re right, there seems to be two versions of tbe pack fabric going around – and indeed the soft touch X-pac has a really nice feel to it. I did make a bunch of MYOG X-Pac packs and I have found no difference between how the RS vs. the VX fabric hold the seams – it’s just that the slightly elevated X pattern tends to wear down a bit quicker than the more flat RS version. On the other hand I could see how the X pattern could be better in terms of tear resistance since the reinforcements are thicker (but spaced further apart). But they are still both super durable and pretty bomb proof materials so either of the choices are absolutely great backpack fabrics!</p>

[Ben Kilbourne]

From Adam: “About 25-30% of my customers are women and I haven’t had any packs sent back or any complaints about the fit. When I started making packs I found 3 women and three men all different sizes all experienced hikers to test things out. I knew I only wanted to make one maybe two sizes of straps so I really spent a lot of time working on the shape/length to be as universal as possible.”

[Josh J]

Ben,

What made you go with Yar instead of SWD or UD?

[Ben Kilbourne]

Are we talking about the superior 35 and the fastpack 40?

[Josh J]

Yes or even the 30L version

[Ben Kilbourne]

If I actually had to choose between the three I’m not sure which I would choose. UD obviously most running vesty which is great but it’s heaviest and has zippers which I don’t like. That one would be out for me. Basically, everything SWD makes is great so I’m sure you couldn’t go wrong there. That removable padded hipbelt looks awesome. Traditional harness there. Loadlifter thing going on. Yar has the hybrid harness. SWD has all those things just mentioned and uses recycled polyester which I can get behind. All depends on what you value most I suppose. I didn’t actually have to make the choice because I was sent the Yar to review. I can’t land on a choice given the hypothetical, sorry, haha.

[Josh J]

No worries,  I’m tossing between Yar and SWD and sounds like can’t go wrong with either!

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