The first question I ask anyone who seeks help with being properly outfitted for outdoor adventure and travel is exactly what type of activity do they want to do? Not in three to five years, but now for today and tomorrow and this year. Often they’re looking at laptop bags instead of hiking packs as they’re imagining themselves rambling down trails thru forests and deserts. Or they’re looking at mountaineering packs with lots of straps while dreaming of zipping around Europe or East Asia on planes and trains. Sure, one can do most anything with any kind of pack, and, yes, one can argue gear is so hypercompartmentalized these days. This means more choices for a better fit, however, and so once I’m clear what they want, then off we go!
You want to go hiking and camping, right? Backpacking, too? Great! It’s beautiful out there! Even in the rain! OK, what kind of hiker are you? What kind of camping do you want to do? What’s your big dream you’re gonna make come true this year?
Let’s have five quick looks at five different broad categories of hiking. So whatcha wanna do?
Mountaineering? Then you’ll want a backpack designed to haul heavy loads. A mountaineering backpack needs to be larger in volume as well as having a more robust frame. The pack has to be able to carry heavy weights such as cold weather clothes, a bulkier but warmer sleeping bag, and all kinds of climbing gear in addition to regular hiking and camping equipment. A similar argument can be made for winter camping, altho packs for fast, light alpine ascents and cragging are much smaller and look like modified daypacks. Remote expeditions require large, robust backpacks, too, especially as those usually require highly specialized gear. Last but not least here note beginner alpinists usually need larger packs for heavy loads as they’re often in climbing courses requiring a wide range of equipment. More experienced mountaineers who are not guiding and teaching usually migrate towards smaller packs and lighter loads.
Dayhiking? Then you’ll need a small backpack to carry at least the minimum amount for one person, the so-called ten essentials. Unless you’re packing for children or assisting someone along the trail, each person must be self-contained with their own ten essentials. What’s the point of one person carrying everything when the one with the pack is the one who falls down the side of the mountain or gets swept downstream? Ten essentials don’t need to be big and bulky. They can be small and minute, but do know what they are, where they are, and how to use them.
Superliteweight, ultralite, and hyperlite thruking? Gonna backpack the entire Appalachian Trail or the PCT? If so, this is the exact opposite category of mountaineering or family camping trips. One uses small packs with the bare minimum. Packs are often lighter in weight than many daypacks, and are designed to carry minimal weight. If you go over those weight recommendations, your comfortable ultralite pack will make you feel miserable on the trail. So if you’re not planning on this, let’s set this aside for those who are, OK?
If you’re not looking at mountaineering, dayhiking, or thruhiking, then you’re among the same categories with the majority of hikers and campers. Here’s another set of questions for ya now:
Are you the kind of hiker who hikes to camp? Or are you the kind of hiker who likes to hike?
True, many do some of both. Others go thru phases over the years such as mountaineering to family camping with children to thruhiking to dayhikes, but most folks primarily either hike to camp or hike to hike. It’s not a right or wrong thing, but different choices. So what’s the difference?
People who hike to camp tend to carry more stuff and thus more weight. They hike in for several miles or so to one beautiful place where they set up camp and stay put. After one or two to even three or four nights in the same place, they pack up and head on back down the trail the way they came. If you chose this kind of backpacking where you like to hike because you love to camp, then you’ll need a larger backpack.
People who hike to hike, however, tend to go lightweight, maybe even superliteweight, but they are not necessarily going ultralite or hyperlite. They’ll still want small backpacks, just not teeny tiny ones. This time they’re using liteweight tents instead of a tarp, for example. People who like to hike because they love to hike view camping as just a time to sleep. They may even eat dinner well before they stop and have breakfast after a few miles down the trail. They’re moving faster with less weight so they can experience as much of the outdoors as they can, rack up the big miles, and are doing long stretches of trails or big loops. Maybe they’re even doing a short, long-distance trail. They may still be out for one night or a week or more, but they’re moving from place to place. All of their gear is small and is either expensive or homemade.
A few other things to consider:
Your pack is your home away from home. It deserves your respect.
The type of backpack is determined by the activity one aspires to do the most of. There are packs for water sports such as for canoe portages or standup paddle boarding. Packs for trail runners, too, and for road cyclists commuting to work and for mountain bikers caroming thru trees and over the rocks. Packs for cameras. Urban commuter packs, also called laptop or book bags. Packs for dayhikes, mountaineering, dayhikes, and thruhiking. Packs for skiers and snowboarders. Packs for teens. Packs to carry babies and toddlers, too! There are packs for backpackers who hike to camp and for those who hike to hike. Woo Hoo, all KINDS of packs!
There’re a few more things to consider, too:
The size of a pack is determined by volume and is measured in liters.
The sizes XS thru XL refer not to the size of the pack but to the height, and height only, of the harness system. Keep your L’s straight as a quick glance at a tag sometimes have people mix up L for “liters” with L for “large.”
Some brands and model lines will maintain the same volume regardless of harness size but the pack is shaped different for long versus short torsos. Other brands and models will add or subtract 2 to 3 liters to or from the median.
Harness sizes such as S, M, L refer to torso length, especially in North American brand packs. One’s torso is not the same as how tall one is or isn’t, how broad one’s shoulders are or aren’t, or what size clothes one likes to wear. One can be short in height but with a long, tall torso while another person who stands tall may have a short torso.
Torso in backpack jargon refers to the relationship between your belly button or navel, your iliac crest (the high bony ridge on the top outside edge of your hips), and C7, the vertebra at the base of your neck where the cervicals transition to become the thoracic vertebrae. Imagine a kind of triangle between those three body landmarks.
Sometimes really wide shoulders create a type of lift on a vector, so one may be able to move up in harness size as long as the hip belt doesn’t hang down too low. O/S means, “one size fits all,” and are often associated with daypacks or hyperlite packs. Many European brand backpacks are also O/S but are highly adjustable.
Once upon a time all backpacks were designed and made by men for men without any thought to sex and gender. Now there are packs designed for men’s bodies and packs designed by women for women. Currently there’s a cultural shift going on in regards to what colors are considered masculine or feminine with more of a body type or bodycentric pack design regardless of sex. This practice extends into making packs with so-called gender-neutral colors instead of women’s packs with feminine colors and men’s packs with masculine colors. This reflects increasing awareness of body, sex, gender, and cultural issues as our society becomes more aware of such distinctions as we continue to explore and evolve as a species. After all, people are often either endomorphs, ectomorphs, mesomorphs, or some variation in between. We’re all a little bit different even if we’re all the same, so pack fit becomes crucial for each individual person.
So, what kinda hiker are ya? Wanna do a 55 mile loop thru spectacular mountain wilderness or a weekend getaway hiking over the pass to camp at a beautiful lake with lots of yummy food? Do you have spinal twists, old injuries, even surgeries? A so-called big belly or skinny hips? Out of shape? In superhero condition? A preteen? A newbie? An experienced, old-timer getting back into the outdoors after years away from the trails? A parent with a squiggly wiggly youngster looking for a child carrier pack? There’s always a pack for you. Sometimes an experienced outfitter can take up to one or even two hours to fit a person to a new pack, especially if people haven’t been thru the process before.
Remember, too, these are experiential processes. Everyone has differences of experiences, opinions, and judgments. Those aren’t the same as facts. I constantly revaluate what I think I know as I learn more about living the life we live down here in Planet Earth. If you have anything to share and contribute, then have at it!
William Dudley Bass
Thursday 11 April 2019
Seattle, Washington
Cascadia
North America
Earth
Copyright © 2006, 2011, 2019, 2020 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.