Excellent comfort, balance and construction

By Mitch Stein Ranked #127 - Weeklong Packs (Over 4500 cu in) February 17, 2009

This pack is supremely comfortable and has fabulous balance, especially if you pay heed to Osprey's packing advice and keep the dense part of the load in close to your back in the middle of the pack. It feels much smaller in use than I expected for such a large pack.Plenty of room for your bear cannister, in addition to all of your other kit.The ventilation on this thing is amazing, although the side profile is deeper than more conventional packs because of the bowed suspension which gets the thing off of your back.Overall, a very well designed and executed tool. You get what you pay for.Update 6/10: I have developed two particular annoyances with this otherwise fabulous Mountain Moving Van... 1) For reasons that escape me, there are no pockets on the waist belt (this should be very easy to fix)! 2) I find that the placement and shape of the stretchy water bottle pocket on the right side of the pack makes it very fiddly to grab a drink while on the trail. Although the clever design provides 2 access points (one on top, one on the back bottom) while still managing to keep the contents secure, neither works great for me. The top access point would require me to have 6 inch longer arms, with an extra, reversed, elbow in order to provide reasonable access while wearing the pack. The bottom access point is better, but still a fairly long, awkward reach for me. This is likely due to the dramatically curved suspension, which allows for supreme ventilation, but keeps the pack (and hence side pocket) further away. One possible solution would be an almost horizontal stretch pocket placed much closer to backhanded reach (see Gregory backpacking packs) As annoying as this is, I'd rather keep the superior ventilation. The moral of the story is, that I should probably use a water bladder which keeps a spigot within 8 inches of my mouth at all times (If only it weren't such a hassle to access 'em to fill, eat up so much internal volume, and be such a bitch to keep 'em clean).

View Details: Osprey Packs Argon 85 Backpack - 5100-5500cu in

Helpful Votes: 7 Yes