I remember reading once that Steve House weighs his pack prior to an alpine climb and if it weighs over seventeen pounds then something comes out. Guys like this also make sure that everything they carry has a multiple purpose. The mantra ‘light is right’ is repeated over and over, and it truly is the key to success in alpine climbing. Bear in mind though, there is a fine line between super-light and stupid-light, that you probably don’t want to cross.
This story is actually a long winded gear review of a recent pack I bought. If you want to read about that pack right now you can always skip ahead; otherwise you will have to wade through some historical rambling on various packs I have owned (or coveted).
Reinhold Messner and Rene Desmaison…
Well how cool is that in the young aspiring alpinist’s mind; to have those two names on the label of your pack? The venerable Sacs Millet was the first pack I ever owned and in retrospect probably the best as well. Why is that you ask? Simple, no extraneous features, and totally bulletproof. It was made of heavy duty nylon with a tough coating on the bottom section, and it had a canvas back panel. This thing lasted me for years and years. It came in red or blue. I had the red model. It got used and abused and made it to the top of many summits. I remember descending Pico de Orizaba in Mexico and I got the bright idea to let it slide down the snow slope we were descending. I miscalculated that one… because the slope actually curved and angled in such a way that the pack started sliding then bouncing totally in the wrong direction, which resulted in a huge detour for me to retrieve it. I was beat; the pack was not. The thing that finally killed it was using it as a book bag in college
Sacs Millet
My first ‘big’ pack was this hideous lime green JanSport external frame pack. It had lots of zippers and doodads. It was actually a pretty decent pack that got a lot of service. The nice thing about it was that it was really comfortable and you could carry a ton of weight. Way more than seventeen pounds. The pack itself seemed to weight that much. It had these ridiculous aluminum wings that were supposed to help transfer weight from the frame to the hip belt. I soon stripped those off.
JanSport
If you read my story ‘there and back again’ you will recall we were bushwhacking out of the Lillooet range through some pretty steep nasty terrain. Easily, B4+ bushwhacking at the very least. The air was blue with my cuss words as the DM has attested to, because the bush was snagging the frame of my pack with every move I made. Normally I am very reserved and never resort to such salty talk. But that fiasco was almost the death of me and it was the death knell for that pack. As soon as I could, I sold that sucker (for almost as much as I paid for it which was in itself kinda cool) and I used the money to help fund a more modern pack.
The DM actually had folding money and could buy the latest and greatest exotic gear, and one of these pieces of gear was a pack from Synergy Pack Works. It had one of these new-fangled internal frames, in an ‘X’ configuration, plus the copious lid could be removed and affixed to some of the harness to make a nifty summit pack. The pack pockets had snaps so that they could be easily detached. I wanted one! Trouble was I also wanted a pack from a company called Yak Works out of Seattle. These packs actually were frameless but they looked so cool. I still think they look cool and would get one today if I could. Being frameless of course, they relied on thoughtful packing to make them comfortable to carry.
I guess, fortunately for me as I was deliberating and protracting my decision another new pack company sprung up. These upstarts were called Gregory. Really? What kinda name is that? The other catch was that at the time the closest place you could get one was at Marmot Mountain Works in Berkeley California. One thing you have to remember here is that this was back in the dark ages, before internet, even before things like fax machines and PC’s. So you had to sort of find out about a lot of things by word of mouth.
Anyway… as things turned out I was going on a trip to the Valley and would be passing through the Bay Area. This provided an opportunity to go to Marmot and laydown my toad-skins for the pack. One of the shticks about this pack was the bendable internal stays. The guys at Marmot were ‘trained’ in bending these so that they could be custom fit to your back. This ended up being a truly great pack. It could carry even more than the JanSport. No external frame to get all caught up in shit. It was constructed of heavy duty cordura and built like a brick outhouse. All of the seams were taped, no fraying possible here. This pack served me exceptionally well over the years. And the design must have served Gregory well too, because they became a big and well respected pack manufacturer, still in business today. The harness got chewed by marmots in the Wind Rivers but I was able to field repair it with sutures and dental floss. Eventually I got it repaired by a shoemaker. Yes a shoemaker. You see this was still very old-school compared to nowadays as the harness was partially made of leather. Two of my buddies; KK and BMc also got the same pack, being so impressed with mine I presume. In later years during one of my many moves the pack unfortunately and mysteriously disappeared.
It got replaced by a humungous Lowe 90 litre pack. This pack I still own. It weighs at least seven pounds, maybe eight. Most of that is in padding, the harness, and load distribution system. It carries weight like a Peterbilt truck however. I needed a big pack in a very last minute situation, so I didn’t have a lot of time or choice in the matter. In retrospect I think I would have chosen differently, had I the time.
I needed a different big pack however. One I could actually climb with. Enter the Wild Things Andinista. Now this was and still is a pretty slick pack. It is still my go to sac when needing to carry overnight gear on a light and fast trip into the hills. It’s pure white. (well not so much anymore) It is white because it is made out of spectra. Much lighter than nylon and much stronger; not to mention much more expensive. It has some good features of a serious pack: Floating and removable top lid, single compartment with a huge bivi extension, tubes for ice tools and plenty of lashing points. But what are really neat are the pleated sides with full length zippers that allow the pack to be compressed in volume in two increments down from full size. It’s certainly not the most comfortable carry in the world. Just remember the seventeen pounds.
I have had several other smaller climbing packs along the way: A Lowe Alpine which was solid but suffered from fraying of material by the zippered top pocket, and a nonexistent suspension system. An Arcteryx Bora, that was heavy yet bombproof. It got stolen in Bolivia. Its replacement was another Arcteryx Bora that got stolen in Toronto’s Chinatown. I’ve got an Arcteryx Khamisin. Lighter than the Bora’s, and a great pack, although it could use a floating detachable lid. I use it a lot, even though the buckles are failing, and it’s getting some holes here and there. So in order to replace that, I went looking. A new pack had really caught my eye. This is finally where the gear review comes in….
Patagonia Ascentionist 35
Patagucci was never in my mind as a manufacturer that I would look to for a pack. Expensive clothes maybe. Packs…not so much. But then they came out with a line of serious climbers packs called Ascentionist. Designed with input from some badass climbers, including the aforementioned Steve House. They looked and sounded pretty skookum. So I purchased the 35 litre one; which is the middle of the three sizes that they come in. It’s bright orange, although I guess that the marketing folks chose to call it ‘mango’. So what’s it got?
The most noticeable thing about it is that there is no lid per se. There is some material with a zippered pocket that acts as a lid of sorts when you cinch up the drawstring. All of which can be done with one hand, which is pretty neat. There are two ice tool loops and a bunch of integrated daisy-chain like loops, and a really great feature is a haul/grab loop that you can actually put a mittened hand through. The harness and hip belt are well-shaped and pretty comfortable, although the waist adjustment is kind of funky and takes some getting used to. But what is really good about the waist belt is that it has integrated gear loops; these are real handy. One particular quirky thing is the drawstring. Even though the one handed opening and closing of the lid is pretty neat, you have to do something with that drawstring when it’s closed, so you need to sort of fiddle around a bit and poke the string down into the pack. To round it out there is a removable back pad, a lightweight internal frame, and a small bivi extension. There is no built in hydration tube port, so if you use such a system you need to fish the tube out through the top of the pack. The best feature is that there is absolutely nothing superfluous about it. It is lightweight too, maybe too lightweight.
I have had the thing on two trips. The first was to Red Rocks this spring. I poked three holes into it on the first day. I get it that it’s all pretty abrasive sandstone out there, and that being the desert that every plant has got some sharp pokey thing on it. So maybe it’s to be expected. Bit disappointing however. But never mind, some rip stop repair tape fixed that and made it looked ‘funky’. I didn’t lose any sleep over that. Now I did do some box steps at home with the pack, but with never anything more than seventeen pounds in it. I felt that this was a great pack, and was going to be my pack of choice for my upcoming Canadian Rockies trip. I was so enthused by it I went out and bought its little sister, the 25 litre version. In any event, the pack performed like a champ. It carried nicely and was very stable on my back. I was pretty happy. That is until I got home and was unpacking all of my kit. As I normally do, I go over everything to look for signs of wear and tear. Much to my dismay there was a tear starting to open up where the internal frame rubs against the fabric at the top of the pack. This wasn’t a case of damage like the holes I put in, but wear associated with the design of the pack. Much of the load would be transmitted through this point. Design flaw if you ask me. Somewhat thicker material and/or a reinforcing section would have been all that it took.
The fine folks at Patagonia however took it back and effected repairs by reinforcing the area, and turned it around within ten days. I’m trusting it will last. All in all I really like this pack. I think it could have been a way better pack if it were made of just slightly heavier material and was reinforced a bit better in the frame contact areas. Sure, some weight would have been compromised, but only marginally so. Maybe worth the weight of an energy gel. I will continue to put this pack through its paces as well as its smaller counterpart and will report any new findings that are fit to print.
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