Author wearing the Klymit 2013 Double Diamond Vest at Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, California USA
Greetings Hikers,
For the past six months I have had the opportunity to use incredibly unique 2013 Double Diamond Vest manufactured exclusively by Klymit. This is a vest that stands apart from the rest of the hiking vest community. It does not have down inside of it, nor does it have synthetic material inside of it to help keep you warm. Rather it uses NobleTex insultion, which is the use of specific materials combined together with the noble gas called Argon. Klymit over the last year or two has perhaps become more known for its sleeping pads than its vests, which is all that Klymit originally offered when they got started back in August of 2007. They reminded the hiking world of the fact that they are also a clothing manufacturer in October of 2012 when they announced their Ulaar Jacket via a Kickstarter project.
For 2013 they also made a few changes to their flagship vest, the Double Diamond vest. It, like their sleeping pads and other garments, features their signature welding process for material – giving it that distinct tube style design. Just to put this out there as a disclaimer before I go any further, Klymit sent this vest to me for T&E and I was/am under no obligation to publicly share my thoughts on this vest. I was intending to return the vest within sixty days or so after getting it, but here I am almost 200 days later and I am still wearing, testing, and trying to find my full thoughts on this product. More and more I am trying to spend at least 200 days using a product before I write my thoughts about it. In the early days of my hiking and writing articles I had no problem pushing out an article with a product I only had for a few days or maybe a week or two. The internet is becoming flooded with gear reviewers who do articles after getting their product and maybe using it for a day or two, if at all.
Author wearing the ZPacks Waterproof Breathable Cuben Fiber Rain Jacket in the Redwoods of Northern California. Photo credit: Brian Doyle
It was a little over 14 months ago when I wrote my first review of the ZPacks Waterproof Breathable Cuben Fiber Rain Jacket (allow me to just abbreviate that as “ZPWPBCF” from here out) and it continues to be one of the most asked about pieces of gear that I own. A few months later I proceeded to write a follow-up article on the jacket that helped to address some of the more popular questions that I received about the jacket. Over the last year I have continued to carry and use the jacket out on the trail and at home when it is raining – which is quite often here in the Redwood rainforest of Northern California.
Since my initial purchase of the ZPWPBCF rain jacket I placed an order for a second jacket with longer arms and a shoulder pocket to hold my wallet when I am in a trail town and all of my cloths are being washed. It has proven to be very useful both out on the trail and in-town, and my thanks go out to ZPacks for their continued efforts put forth to make custom modifications to gear that they sale.
All of us as hikers seek different features in our gear, but when it comes to a rain jacket the end result is whether or not it keeps us dry. There are of course two factors regarding this: external moisture (rain/snow/etc) and internal moisture (thermoregulation) and usually one of those does not come about without the other trying to mess things up. It is an important part of learning to be a hiker is to learn how to properly manage and control your thermoregulation – failure to do so can result in a lot of unnecessary suffering on your part. For example: sometimes when it is raining and very cold, you are better off removing a layer or two of mid-layer base clothing when wearing a rain jacket to prevent overheating – which can lead to condensation build up on the inside of the jacket.
In this article I am going to try to summarize the questions I have received over the last year regarding the ZPacks Waterproof Breathable Cuben Fiber Rain Jacket.
Greetings hikers, climbers, adventure racers, bikers, and all outdoor lovers!
I have a rather long and unique history with the Jetboil systems – those who have followed my articles for any length of time know some of the good and the bad – but there is one thing about the JetBoil Sol Ti that keeps haunting me: I just really love this thing!
Now sure, talking about something like the JetBoil Sol Ti might seem totally out of place on a website that tends to focus on SUL/XUL hiking, but hopefully over the last few years I have been able to get across the point that a hiker can carry one or two “heavy” or “luxury” pieces of gear and still be a SUL hiker (BPW sub 5lbs/ 2.3kg.)
More and more one of mine has been the JetBoil Sol Ti, and here is why:
Using 16 oz of water, enough for a meal and coffee, I am able to get 22 uses out of a single 100g JetBoil JetPower canister. I am no great math genius like some of the guys at BPL who can figure out at what point in a long distance hike, or even a weekend hike, a certain weight of something becomes viable or nonviable, but from a few hundred days spent on the trail over the last few years, over 500 at this point, it would seem to me that if I can go 11 days and not have to worry about whether I am going to run out of fuel, well that is a very nice thing. And, if I decide to have a cold breakfast every couple of days I could easily extend that one canister of fuel well into the two week duration. On an ounce-by-ounce comparison, even my beloved esbit weighs more at those durations of being on-trail.
About a month ago I posted an article introducing the 2013 version of the LiteTrail Titanium Solid Fuel Cook System and over the last few weeks I have had a fair number of folks contacting me wanting to know my follow-up thoughts on it, after having put some trail miles onto the system.
My thoughts on the system at this point are that it is a great all-in-one-purchase setup for esbit users! There are ways that a slightly lighter system could be put together, but it would involve purchases from multiple companies, and that means additional shipping fees and your own time, and it would probably just not be worth it for the average hiker. I think as it stands right now, the LiteTrail Titanium Solid Fuel Cook System is the best all-in-one-purchase esbit system that I have come across.
The Cookpot:
The cookpot itself has proven to be awesome for my style of trail cooking. My previous Ti 600ml pot was 75 grams and this setup is 72 grams – and 54.71 grams by ditching the lid, which makes it a sub 2 ounce Ti pot!
Two factors with all pots… the pot itself and the lid for the pot.
The pot itself is wonderful. One of the issues I have had with my 600ml pot was I could not get a ziplock bag to fit into it. This 550ml pot holds a lunch/dinner size bag just perfect (ref: this photo) so that makes me happy. The pot fits on every pot stand I have put it onto. The handles are a good size, even with my large hands. The rolled lip on the top of the pot is good. The pot does have some flex to it – being a thin-walled cookpot – but you really and intentionally have to give it a good squeeze to get it to flex.
The lid is a good lid, but I have since switched it out to one I made myself out of a sheet of 0.005 inch thick titanium foil. As I see it, if a lid does not actually stay attached to a pot, its pretty much serves no real purpose beyond helping with the convection of heating up water, and any old thing might as well be used… aluminium foil for example – just something to help trap in the heat. Now, if you can get a pot with a lid that actually stays attached to the pot (thinking along the lines of the old snowpeak pasta pot and lid – now that was how a pot and lid should work!) that is an awesome thing and the weight can be worth it. But at 17.33 grams (0.611 ounces) just for the lid, I could not justify it. Some things I did like about the lid: the vent holes (I wish more companies would add a lot more vent holes, there are three on this lid… add another row of three, or preferably four, on the other side of the lid, would be really nice), and interestingly, the lid fits perfectly onto the top of a Jetboil Sol Ti, so I have now swapped out my Jetboil Sol Ti plastic lid with this one, and saved two grams off the weight of the JetBoil setup – and I would rather have a Ti lid than a plastic lid any day of the week.
I am not saying the cookpot setup it is not worth buying because of the lid, you should buy this pot if you need something in the 300ml (cup size) up to the 600ml pot size, or if you are a 600ml cookpot user and want to save a few grams, regardless of whether you plan to use the included lid or swap it out, the pot itself really is that good.
The Windscreen:
The windscreen worked out pretty well. I had a few times in really strong wind that I could tell it was suffering because of the low height of the windscreen, but this is unavoidable because the windscreen is cut to size to be able to fit into the pot. There is a nice cut-out for where the cookpot handles are at. It has vent holes around 50% of the bottom of the screen – good size ones too, considering that esbit requires a fair amount of air to really reach peak heat levels.
Durability of it might be an issue over the long run. I have around 15 to 18 days of use with it and it is already suffering a few hard wrinkles. I think they were caused by me stuffing the rest of the cook kit into the pot. To compare: I have well over two hundred trail days using the Suluk46 Ti Windscreen (disclaimer: Suluk46 is a sponsor of mine) and it has not suffered any serious damage or hard wrinkles. I think for the average weekend hiker or those doing short long distance trails (CT/JMT/etc) it should hold up fine, but I am a bit concerned, at this point, over whether it will hold up over the long haul. Only had it for a month, after all.
The Stand:
There is not a whole lot to say about the stand… you unfold it, put your esbit on it, light the esbit, and put your pot on the stand. These tri-wing esbit stands have been around a long time and they have more than been proven to be rock solid. They can eventually fail if you pound through a lot of esbit and do not clean off the build-up, but if that happens to you, well, you deserve to have it happen… take better care of your gear.
There is also the ground protector / reflector that makes up the stand system. It is something you should always use – watch this video for why.
The Stuffsack:
Going to have to admit here that I did not buy my cook kit with the bag – I bought each piece individually, because I did not need the stuff sack. The reason for this comes from a discussion that Chad “Stick” and I had back in November of 2012. In one of my messages to him, as I was typing the message, an idea hit me, it went like this:
Regarding the cuben fiber cookpot bag… I have actually been thinking of ditching the one I use and instead using a one gallon zip lock bag. They weigh about the same and I can get my 900ml evernew pot to fit into one with lots of room left over. I would much rather deal with esbit soot and stickiness within a throw-away ziplock bag than within an expensive cuben fiber bag. I usually have two or three ziplock bags with me anyway so adding another one would not be any big deal. Think I am going to have to give this a try.
So for the past 7 months that is what I have done… now I just stuff my cookpots right into a ziplock bag. When they finally get to a point where they are all nasty inside because of the esbit left-overs, I just throw the ziplock away and grab another one. Heck of a lot nicer to throw away a bag that costs a few cents than a cf bag that costs 13-15 bucks.
So all that said, there is one very sweet thing about the LiteTrail CF stuff sack… and that is the fact that it is a rounded stuff sack with a flat bottom. Not really sure it helps stuffing it into your backpack all the much easier, even for those of us that use outer pockets for putting our cook kit, but it is a nice change-up from how everybody else makes stuff sacks, and having a flat bottom makes it so you can use it for other things where you want a bag to stand upright.
Additional Thoughts:
Jon from FlatCatGear has been playing around with a “focussing ring” for esbit stove systems that in my own testing has proven to be highly beneficial. Because of the low height of the LiteTrail windscreen, anything at all that I can do to help increase heat from esbit is worth it, and this is an easy and very lightweight means of potentially gaining a few extra BTU’s from your cooking setup.
After using the tri-wing for one trip, and knowing that it worked, I switched it out and went back to my BGET esbit tray. Nothing wrong with the tri-wing, but I just prefer this little tray and a dedicated wire pot stand (such as this one) that I had made and is 4.03 grams, so with it and the BGET my stand system is 5.69 grams, compared to the 12.59 grams of the tri-wing stand. It is a more stable system and less likely to have the pot tip over in high wind or if the water is boiling really hard, plus it is a lighter method.
If you are a fan of the TrailDesigns Caldera Cone systems, for $35 bucks you could swap out the LiteTrail windscreen and Tri-wing and switch over to the much more efficient Caldara system. The downside, of course, is that the Caldara Cone will not fit inside of the LiteTrail 550ml pot, unlike the LiteTrail Windscreen. I asked TrailDesigns if they were planning on releasing a Sidewinder for the LiteTrail 550 pot and they said it could not be done, which is the answer I expected, but that would have been super sweet if they could have.
Final Thoughts:
In the world of hiking there are a crazy amount of cooking systems available for hikers.
In the world of SUL/XUL hiking those numbers decrease very quickly.
Most XUL hikers are cookless hikers so it is a mute issue altogether, but for those XUL hikers who still enjoy a hot meal or tea, there are not a lot of options. The LiteTrail Titanium Solid Fuel Cook System provides a great base system that with a few changes could be made into a sweet XUL cooking system.
For those who are SUL hikers, this is one amazing all-in-one-purchase esbit cooking system, and as I said earlier, probably the best option out there.
For UL hikers, this cooking system offers everything the beginner or skilled esbit hiker needs.
The current price for the LiteTrail Titanium Solid Fuel Cook System is $90 bucks – I have spent a whole lot more on a single cooking system, so this is a great price for a complete esbit setup.
+John Abela
HikeLighter.Com
In accordance of USA Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR, Part 255: I hereby declare that the products mentioned within the content of this article were not supplied to me in exchange for services.
As of the day of publication of this article I am a sponsored hiker of Montbell America, Gossamer Gear, Black Rock Gear, Suluk46.
It has been fun to watch LiteTrail mature over the last year or so, Jhaura Wachsman, the founder of LiteTrail, has been investing a lot of time and money into sourcing some of the lightest gear available for SUL/XUL hikers. That alone makes them a company that is always on my watchlist.
About a week ago they announced a new set of titanium cook pots, that are suppose to be crazy light weight, so I ordered up one of their 550ml pots to give it a go and see how it compared to my existing setup, which is comprised of the hugely popular Evernew 600ml pot, and the always amazing TrailDesigns Sidewinder, and a DIY esbit stove/stand.
The order showed up tonight, and I am heading out on a hike tomorrow, so I wanted to get a brief pre-use article pushed out for those considering this setup.
My Sawyer Squeeze article that I published a little over a year ago has apparently become one of the de facto articles for this product on the internet, which is really cool. It gets a lot of attention from hikers, hunters, adventurers and travelers, from around the world. It is always fun to see an article in a language I am not even able to read (thank you google chrome for having an automatic language translator) and it is the second most popular article I have written.
All this means I get a lot of folks contacting me asking me questions about it, which I am always happy to do.
I wanted to take a few moments and share some of my thoughts regarding this filter, having used it for over a year.
There have been five big issues with this filter by other bloggers and hikers the world over. I am going to address my thoughts on each of these issues.
1) Bag Durability
There is no reason for anybody to keep hashing out this issue. Everybody knows the original bags failed to perform for a lot of people. I suspect that the vast majority of these failures were a result of user error. People squeezing the crap out of the bags with such force that it was causing the seams on the bags to blow up. I even read the account of one AT hiker who blew through all three original bags, an Evernew bag, and two platypus bags. We need no further evidence than that story of the fact that most folks just abused their original squeeze bags to much. I put well over 50 gallons of water through a single bag and never have a failure.
Regarding the Evernew bags: I am pretty sure I was the first hiker to publish documentation saying that the Evernew water bags fit perfectly on the Sawyer Squeeze. Within 48 hours of me publishing that article, every major retailer in the USA was sold out. Literally thousands of Evernew water bags were bought by hikers within a matter of two days. I had companies emailing me and telling me they were sold out within 24 hours and eight months after I posted my article on them I was on a hike with the owners of some of the big name outdoor companies and those who did not know me at least knew that somebody out there had obviously posted something about it, and it was fun getting to hear their stories of having hundreds of orders in their inbox when they arrived the next morning at work. It has been estimated that there were over 25-thousand dollars worth of Evernew bags bought by hikers within 48 hours. Since that happened the companies here in the USA have received two or three additional shipments of the bags (they are made and shipped over from Japan only a few times each year) and every single time the companies here in the USA get shipments of the bags they are either already pre-sold or end up being sold within a few days of being listed as in-stock.
Clearly these Evernew bags are performing at a higher level of quality control than the Sawyer bags, otherwise they would not continue to be selling as fast as they are. As I documented in January of this year, Sawyer released an entirely new bag to try to stem the bleeding bad PR that they were getting because of the bags. It was all too obvious that they had a sure winner on their hands with the filter itself, but failed to bring to market a bag worthy of the filter itself. Or, as I have said in times past, Sawyer should have called it the “Sawyer Roll” – in a quasi-jokingly manner – in that rolling the bags reduces the vast majority of the stress on the bags.
Regarding the new bags… there have been a lot of people who have claimed that the new bags are not different from the old bags, beyond just the pretty picture. If you think that a new picture slapped onto a bag (when there was already a layer of ink on it) results in an additional 5 grams there is not much I can do about that. My contact at Sawyer has never once indicated to me that the bags are the same, beyond the change of artwork, even when I directly asked the question. I just do not have any further response regarding the new bags then this information. If somebody out there wants to, and has the ability, to do some kind of spectral analysis or whatever it would take to validate the claims by Sawyer, I would welcome the whitepaper on your research, beyond that, I can do nothing more than share with all of you what my Sawyer contact has told me.
Update: April 18, 2013 – Mountain Laurel Designs has gotten access to, and has started to sell, multi-packs of the new Sawyer Bags in both 1L and 2L sizes! They are $15 bucks for three 1L bags, and $15 bucks for two 2L bags. They are a 9-ply bag, compared to a 5-ply bag of the Evernew bags, and they are estimated to be 4 grams less weight than the Evernew bags.
2) Freezing Temperatures
There has also been a LOT of discussions and arguments about whether or not the Sawyer Squeeze can survive freezing temperatures. I have long held with the fact that any freezing of the filter should result in you throwing away your filter. I have zero evidence to prove such a drastic action, but to me the facts are simple: the squeeze is a Hollow Fiber Membrane filter. What this means is that there are a whole bunch of very very small tubes inside of the filter (read more on wikipedia regarding membrane filtering) and this is really good in that it allows for significant amount of more water<->surface contact thereby allowing the water a higher chance of being filtered. But the downside to this is that the tubes are significantly smaller than non hollow fiber membrane filters, like most other backpacking water filters. These smaller tubes mean that any water trapped inside of them results in a drastically higher chance of that water freezing and as we all know, when water freezes it expands in size, and therein is the problem. When the water freezes it a very high likelihood of blowing a hole (rupturing) one of these very small tubes. When that happens it means there is a very high chance of allowing water through the filter without being filtered.
Here is the official position of Sawyer via their FAQ page:
While we have no proof that freezing will harm the filter, we do not have enough proof to say it will not harm the filter, therefore we must say that if you suspect the filter has been frozen, to replace it — this is especially true with a hard freeze.
Only you can decide if the risk is worth it, personally, I do not. Puking my guts out four 2-4 days, than being constipated for 4-7 days is simply not worth it to me. $50 bucks is not worth a week or two of suffering.
This past winter when I was on sub-freezing hikes I carried with me extra handwarmers and made sure that at least one handwarmer was hot and inside of the bag that my Squeeze was in, to help make sure that it did not freeze. It meant carrying an extra 3 ounces per day, but again, what is safe water worth to you?
3) Tips & Tricks
It has been fun to see others sharing their tips of what they have done to make their life using the Sawyer Squeeze easier. For all the people out there hating on the Squeeze, there are a lot more people out there talking about how the Squeeze has become a part of their life and sharing ideas and such regarding their interactions with the filter. I think it is always a sign of a winning product when you see folks talking about how they are modifying it, or other things to work with it, and the internet is filled with hikers, hunters, and world travelers talking about how they have modified other gear to work with their Squeeze.
About the only thing I have done is to buy the Sawyer SP110 Inline Adapter Kit which allows you to attach the Squeeze to hydration tubing. There were a LOT of people out there making these on their own, so it was a brilliant move on Sawyers part to push out this adapter kit. It works really well for gravity filter systems, and it works ok, but not great, for drinking dirty water straight from a hydration bag through the filter and a bite valve.
One of the neat tricks of the SP100 is the ability to use just one part, the outbound part, and attach a short piece of hydration to into it, thus making it waaaay easier to fill up water bottles on the go.
12 grams (0.4 ounces) is totally worth it to help making filling up water bottles easier – especially from water sources with very little water!
Never have to worry about making sure all your water gets into your water bottle! Added benefit: no more worrying about your water bottle tipping over when you are filling it up!
One of the more unique and ideas I really want to try has come from this article in which you take a wire coffee filter and cut out the wire filter from the plastic and cut the filter part into circles and place one of them in the dirty water entrance of the filter (note: probably will have to buy a thinner washer in order to make a proper seal). There have been a lot of articles on the internet where people are adding pre-filters to their Squeeze, but I think this idea has one of the best long-term solutions that I have encountered.
4) Backflushing
Lets face it… that syringe that is included with the Squeeze is huge. When my very first Squeeze showed up and I pulled out that huge syringe I started laughing and scared the cat sleeping on a couch. It is comical. But, it has a very real purpose and should not just be dismissed.
One of the major selling points of the Squeeze is its claim to do “1 million gallons”. Of course the real selling point is the fact that it is an Absolute One Micron filter – read my original article on why that is important and why you should only be using an Absolute One Micron filter.
Part of their ability to claim such a high usage rate is because it is a hollowed membrane filter. The other part is because of its ability to be backflushed.
I have heard stories of AT/PCT thru-hikers bouncing the syringe from town to town so they did not have to carry it. I admire these hikers and think they are doing the right thing. If you are pre-filtering your water you should easily be able to make it three or four, maybe five days before you really need to backflush the Squeeze. It is called preventive maintenance – something we hikers hate thinking about, more or less doing, but it is just a reality when it comes to the Squeeze.
Please folks, do not just throw away that syringe, and when you get back home from your weekend hike, take the 10 seconds it will take to backflush your filter.
5) Drying / Storage
As I mentioned above, a hollow fiber membrane filter is an awesome thing to have because of the higher water<->filter contact time, which results in a higher level of filtration. But like water freezing inside of the tubes is a serious downsize, so too is improperly drying and storage of the filter.
When you get back home, you really need to do everything you can to dry out your filter. There has been an insane amount of people online sharing how they do this. Some of them downright comical, but most of them are really great ideas.
Personally what I would love to see would be Sawyer releasing a new product (SP118 maybe?) that would allow you to attach something like the SP100 to the inflow side of the filter, and have a small hole like the outflow side, which would be the same size as what the syringe fits onto. This would allow us the ability to attach this little device to the inflow side and use the syringe to blast a bunch of air through the filter to flush out the membrane tubes – much the same method of backflushing. It just makes sense and I am flabbergasted nobody has come up with a way to do this, nor that Sawyer has not thought of it themselves.
A lot of talk on the internet is how to carry the filter when you are hiking… some people put theirs in zip lock bags to keep the water inside of the filter from getting their get yet (solved by my idea above, hmmm). Some hikers just throw it into one of the pockets on the outside of their backpack. In the winter time I carried mine inside of a ziplock bag. This allowed me to keep it right next to handwarmers in sub-freezing conditions, as well as have it inside of my sleeping bag at night without getting my bag/feet wet. During the summer time I just threw it into an outside pocket and oh well if it drips because I only use outside pockets for water bottles and wet gear (groundcloth, shelter, rain jacket, etc.)
In Closing:
Anyway, those are my thoughts on all things related to the very awesome Sawyer Squeeze water filter. In the year+ that the Squeeze has been on the market it has take a huge percentage of the water filter market within the hiking community. I get messages on an almost weekly basis from old timers telling me they have been using the same water filter for years, yet have made the switch to the Squeeze because of its 0.1 Absolute Micron filter, its easy of use, and its weight compared to pretty much everything else of worth out there.
As I said in my original article:
Until something lighter comes along that provides Absolute 0.10 Micron level filtering that does not involve waiting hours and hours to have drinkable water, and is under the 2 ounce mark, the Sawyer PointOne Squeeze Water Filter System is going to be the only filter making it into my backpack.
That absolutely continues to be the case and the Squeeze will continue to be the only filter in my backpack until such is no longer true. In worst case situations, I can also use a few drops of bleach that I keep in a micro-dropper for washing my clothes with. And I understand there are still going to be a lot of hikers out there who will continue to use Aquamira. There is no doubt aquamira weighs less than the Squeeze – nobody can make that argument, especially if you carry them it within 3ml containers. Only thing I can say to that, and that I have been saying for over a year now, is to share a story about a 70 year old hiker who sent me an email the other day saying that after 50+ years of hiking, he finally realized that having the ability to drink water as soon as it goes inside of your water bag is a really nice thing, versus having to wait 15-30 minutes. This is so especially true if you are hiking somewhere that water is very scarce. You… well *I*… do not want to be hiking for hours and hours without a water source and finally get to one, then have to wait another half hour before I can drink the water. All of us have to make our own choice on whether an extra ounce is worth that or not. This year I am going to be in some pretty remote locations and I might only have the chance to get one once a day. Carrying that much extra water to make it through the rest of the day and into the next day, is going to result in water alone weighing more than my entire backpack, so the extra two ounces for the Squeeze is just not even going to be noticed.
I would love to hear from all of you what kind of modifications to your gear you have done to make using the Squeeze be better integrated with your hiking setup!!
Thanks,
+ John Abela
In accordance of USA Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR, Part 255: I hereby declare that the products mentioned within the content of this article were not supplied to me in exchange for services. All products mentioned within the content of this review are free of endorsements between myself and the manufacturers and meets all FTC 16 CFR.255 compliance requirements.
Updates:
April 18, 2013 – added update about MLD now selling multi-packs of the new bags – and further confirmation that these new bags are indeed stronger.
The Gossamer Gear Gorilla Ultralight Backpack 2012 edition has been on the market for a bit over a year now. I purchased one to give it a try and found I really loved a lot of the features of this backpack. Most of the below is from an article I wrote about a year ago on an old website I no longer use, and I wanted to get it moved over to HikeLighter.Com – so I have taken some of the below from my previous article and updated it with further thoughts after having used it a bit more.
The Gorilla has been a very popular backpack on long distance trails and it has a nice 3,000 cubic inches (46 liters) of total capacity with a 35 pound maximum carry capacity – pretty much perfect for a thru-hiker or weekend hiker that needs the extra volume.
The backpack averages 715 grams (25 ounces / 1.56 pounds) in weight, so as an UL/SUL long distance hiker it is something I could use, but is 10 ounces heavier than the ZPacks Arc Blast (3,200 Cubic Inches / 52 Liters – so significantly larger volume) and it is three times heavier than my primary custom made front panel loader backpack which is 2,200 cu in (36L) and 240 grams (8.47 oz). But as we all know, there are times when a heavier backpack is a very good thing. The Gorilla can take a serious load and keep you going without causing pain from having to heavy of a load in a backpack that does not have enough support. It has remained in my gear room specifically because of its ability to provide me the ability to handle a heavier load.
The backpack comes with pretty much every feature that we are use to seeing on high end full size backpacks – including a center loop which can double as an iceaxe strap, 6 exterior pockets, a crazy tough 140 denier Dyneema, padded hipbelts, curved shoulder straps, sternum strap, so on and so forth. Everything a weekender/long distance hiker needs in a backpack of this size. Continue reading “Gossamer Gear Gorilla Backpack”→
