Like most people, I love this jacket. The medium fits me perfectly, with room to layer and excellent freedom of movement (6', 170lbs, 40 chest). The harness thingies actually work. It is definitely tough and waterproof... mine stood up to a 7 day trek to the summit of Kilimanjaro and many high sierra climbing trips and still looks new. Mine is made in Canada and its a new Candy Apple Red model. The craftsmanship and quality of materials on this piece makes everything else look sad. I use the Alpha LT when backing up a softshell and this one as a primary when the weather means business.

This pack just arrived today, long story short: I love the concept but it doesn't quite work for me. This was intended to replace a similarly sized Dynafit pack with diagonal carry.

Pros: Avalung, high quality build, lots of features, well organized pockets, seems comfortable, diagonal ski carry is my personal favorite method, securely carries any width ski (I tested with Megawatts and RT-86s), rides low on the shoulders so it doesn't interfere with head range of motion while wearing a helmet. Basically all the strengths of my old pack + avalung.

And now for the critique:

1. The angle on the diagonal ski carry vs. vertical is too large (see photo), so much so that I'd hate to hike through trees while carrying my skis, or boot-packing anything that requires good balance. Even an A-frame carry has a narrower profile, and the whole point of diagonal (imho) is to just have one long thing waving around instead of two, or three in my case ;) but I digress.

2. The skis ride very high while attached to the pack, which makes problem 1 worse and makes you feel lopsided. My bindings are mounted in standard, boot-center position. If you mount your bindings ski-center then this isn't a problem. You can lower them by not cinching up the attachment but then the skis flop around.

3. Sizing... what's with the sizing on all BD packs now? They used to fit me perfectly. I'm 6' 170lbs, climber build, with a 19ish inch torso, why is the M/L way too tall for me? The small is too short as well, but a better fit than the M/L. The S&M thing is funny, but I humbly suggest to BD that the sizes be re-labeled S and L and that you should make a medium size or make your packs adjustable in terms of torso length or both.

In summary, if the carry issues aren't important to you and you fit the narrow torso range of the two sizes, this could really be an awesome pack for you. If you are looking for diagonal ski carry for ski mountaineering or serious backcountry, take a look at Dynafit's packs. If BD changes the carry angle and makes a size M, I'll buy two of them.

I love the pinks, and the Anasazi VCS classic, both in size 8.5 (I'm a size 10 in my running shoes). The new design has a different heel that does "fit better" with less empty space in the heel cup, but the side effect is that the slingshot effect of the heel rand is less aggressive. So much so that I need to move down a half size to 8 to get the same ridiculous edging ability as before. It seems to me that they are using a thicker C4 sole on the new models as well, putting a little too much rubber under the big toe edge. Nothing a good belt sander can't fix. The forefoot still fits my me like a dream and I prefer C4 to Onyx. I still give them 5 stars, but the pinks would get 6 stars.

This suit makes a fantastic base layer in very cold climbing conditions or a stretchy mid-layer for skiing. It eliminates the gap between pants and jacket. I like to wear it over light- or mid-weight wool thermals during mid winter Sierra excursions. If I'm moving hard then I only need a wind-breaking layer over it.