Great compromise between weight, comfort and features

Jason Halladay

Member since  Nov 25, 2008

Posted on April 17, 2008

To be honest, I was skeptical about this pack. The super light weight for a 5000+cu. in. pack seemed too good to be true. Thankfully, I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm 6'5" with a ~21 inch torso and this pack fits me well. I've used it for winter mountaineering/backpacking and a three-week mountaineering trip in India and it both cases it performed flawlessly. I will admit that with loads of more than 45lbs, I did start to feel a bit of discomfort in the shoulders and hips but I'm happy to take that given the light weight of the pack. It's a good trade off.
The stretchy ice ax attachment loop at the top work well but can be a bit difficult to undo at first when wearing gloves but after a bit of practice, it's not bad. The top lid is easy to adjust and holds a great deal of stuff. The pocket on the front of the pack is also more voluminous than it first appears.
But what I love the most about this pack is the clips on the bottom that allow you to minimize the size of the pack and use it as a day pack. This works very well and when I wore the pack as a day pack it didn't feel like a big, floppy, under-filled backpack. The width of the pack is narrow enough that when climbing or scrambling with it, my elbows don't bump on it and I hardly notice it's there.
I would definitely recommend this pack to friends. GoLite has done a great job with it!