kyl4387314

I was a little iffy about buying these but had a canoe trip coming up so gave the large & small (they didn't have the medium at the time) a try. The small is pretty small, your not going to put too much in this, but it fit all my eight year old's clothes for a three day trip and slipped in his backpack fine. The material is pretty nice compared to what I was expecting but don't expose it to anything sharp... I wasn't thrilled with the placement of the purge valve to begin with feeling it was going to either poke/abrade something in my pack or get stuck or get twisted open. The large went in the canoe by itself, the small in a backpack. During the two mile trip across Lake George, we were descended upon by a monsoon! We got drenched and took on several gallons of water. Everything in both packs stayed nice and dry but both had lost all compression. I checked the valves and they were still tight, so I guess they are just not airtight enough to keep from re-expanding. I still need a couple more & I'm probably going to get Sea to Summit or Outdoor Research instead.

Take a look at the picture. See all that material bunching around the armpits... Unless your built like twiggy and get a size larger than you normally need, it's going to bind in the pits something awful. I'm 5'9" 165 lbs with an athletic build. I can usually were a medium, sometimes a large. I ordered the medium here and I had to return it, after five minutes, I just couldn't wait to get it off. The sleeves aren't made like normal sleeves, they're tubes, that originate at the neck on the top and several inches below your armpit on the bottom. A really odd fit & totally uncomfortable.