Date: 2003-10-23
To: Gear Review - Pack
Miles today: 0.0

I promised some gear reviews, and here is the first.First of all, a caveat. You've heard it before. Gear (with the possible exception ofcomfortable footwear) won't make or break your hike. Folks havethruhiked the AT with rucksacks, pillow cases, shower curtains,garbage bags, Nestles Quik plastic 1-liter water bottles. In one case,even a bucket was employed to hold stuff (ask Bob Peoples at theFABULOUS Kincorra hostel in TN about this story).Everybody has a system that works for them, and if you make it to HotSprings, NC (270-ish miles) or Damascus, VA (460-ish miles), you will also have your basic system pretty much downpat. I saw lots of successful folks with systems I had rejected working just fine for them. So, this is only my opinion in a sea of hundreds.Also, in the "Gear" section of my little corner of theTrailjournals.com site, I have posted specifics which I will notrepeat here - websites, etc. for specific pieces of gear. I wrote thatall before I left. Let me know if something needs updating.If I have some very simple general advice to offer, it would be, byall means: "GO LIGHT!" I'm not an ultralighter by any means, and Icarried some extra "luxury" items - my digital camera (unreservedly, afantastic camera) and pocketmail (fantastic, with certainreservations. Will review both separately). But it's discouraging tocarry lots of weight day after day. Just because you carried 55 poundson a weekend hike won't necessarily mean you'll enjoy doing it for2,172.6 miles. Your body and joints will thank you for lightening up.See if you can't get your Big Three - tent/stakes (I ditched my groundcloth after 100 miles), pack and sleep sytem (pad and bag) - under 12 pounds; ten or less is even better. Mine came to just at eight pounds with my (fantastic!) WM 20-degree (more like a ten degree)winter bag, 2-4-2 Wanderlust Gear tent, ULA P2 pack and 3/4 Equinox pad (lighter than a 3/4 Thermorest). I lost a pound or more when I switched out to my summer bag (well after Pearisburg, VA - it was Catawba - and a good thing too I waited. It was COLD!).That said, today I'll review:My PackThe ULA P-2Because I know everyone thru-hiking next year is sweating their pack,even though it is probably the item you should buy last (to see if allyour stuff then fits in). I don't know the cubic inches of mine (it can be found on the ULAwebsite), but everything I carried did fit in. Bear in mind Murphy'sLaw - If you buy too much cubic space, you'll fill it, and then youhave to carry it.Well, the first thing I should say is this pack carried all my stufffrom Springer to Katahdin. In other words, it did the job for which itwas intended. So, bear that in mind when reading.First of all, at the time I bought this pack (and this still may bethe case), every single pack was hand-made by owner Brian Franklehimself. I found him to be enormously helpful, and the pack itselfwell stitched. He admitted he was a bit too fanatic to hire a helper,and thus was crazed from all the work. I don't know if any of that haschanged, you can find that out yourself if you want to pursue thispack further.Apparently this pack won some sort of Backpacker magazine award in March andsales shot up, so I don't know about the lag time. The (fantastic!)Neel's Gap outfitter, Mountain Crossings, sold out of them quickly. I ordered mine directly from the website.First of all, the criticisms:I had owned several frameless packs previously. I liked the low weightof them, but my gear with food and water, was hovering around a 34-35pound packload. I am not at all strong in the shoulders and under afull packweight, I felt the strain there (not to mention my feet,knees low back and hips!). I was hoping the slight structural frame-yet-low-weight of the ULA P2 would offer a bit more suspension than a packless bag. Ican't really say that I noticed a difference. I wish I did.Some of my disappointment may be my own body's rebellion against carryingmuch weight at all. Still, my seven-pound-plus Jack Wolfskin pack hasa marvelous suspension. I just couldn't add the extra weight of the heavy Wolfskin to my feet and knees - they WILL take a beating, esp in GA/NC/TN, PA and up north.I had ordered the ULA top pocket and found it handy. I used it on thefirst 1/4 of my trip, then finally sent it home. So, I have one to sell if someone wants to make an offer. Before you do: I found that top pocket aggravated me over the long run. With only one attachment in the front, itshifted from side to side. And the way the back attachment was set, the top pocket pulled the top of the pack away from my shoulders. This was a factor Inoticed only after the cumulative hours of a thruhike. On a very long hike, you get so you notice everything, and if something annoys you, it annoys you! I ended up justputting what I wanted for the day (like lunch) in a special sil-nylon bag which I then kept at the top of my pack for easy access.Buckles on the front of the shoulder straps kept sliding and alsocontributed to a less-good carry on the pack. This slippage happened sogradually I was unaware of it, until New Hampshire actually! Luckily I ran intoHot Dog, who had the same pack. He drew my attention to it and fixedthe buckles upward again for me, improving the suspension. He'd very cleverly sewed his own buckles in place, so they couldn't move. I meant to sew mine too, but didn't(inertia). I just kept tabs on them for the rest of the hike.That said, I really liked this pack for other reasons. First of all, the fabric and stitching was tough - a whole thru-hike without apulled thread. I did manage to tear a few "honeycomb" threads on oneof the mesh pockets, but I was skidding and sliding through some toughstuff and can't blame the mesh for tearing. Good old duct tape heldthe pocket together and remains there today (inertia). And I had purchased this pack with the lighter fabric option.Secondly, the hip belt is removable. I started with a medium sized one andprobably should have started with a small. The adjustment buckles werepretty close to the middle clip. By Hot Springs, as body fat altered,I definitely needed a small. The fantastic outfitter at Neel's Gap(Mountain Crossings) shipped one immediately. As a side bonus, thisoutfitter, at 30 miles from the start of Springer, can take yourhard-won, shiny new, 30-mile AT experience and teach you how to really pack this pack well, adjust the individual buckles and straps and help you downsizeyour load, replace parts - they carry ULA, know it and sell it.Apparently this pack won some sort of Backpacker magazine award andsales shot up, so I don't know about the availability.Third, there was plenty of room, even for my winter gear, including myfabulously-lofting sleeping bag. I did have to use the extensioncollar for winter gear.Fourth, I had an elastic 2-string water bottle holder installed thatworked pretty well for the clasic 20 oz Gatorade/Poweraide bottles. Whentotally full, the heavy bottles would often slip out as I slung the pack on,a minor aggravation I just ignored, or left the bottle off as Ishouldered my pack. Once the pack was on my shoulders, the bottles didnot slip. (Many of you will use the sip tubes, and those are fine too. I justwanted to keep close track of my water and not run out unexpectedly,which is why I left my sip-tube with the inline filter at home. It's agood system, but not in the freezing cold temps we experienced earlyon - the tubes freeze up and stop working, the filter can freeze andcrack, leaving one unknowingly exposed to water nasties. Just mypreference, I saw MANY sip-tubes out there.)My favorite aspect: I had all sorts of pockets installed on my P-2, and these babies were WELL worth the investment. Why don't all gear mfrs. offer this option?The mesh front and side pockets I used every day. Some folks kepttheir rain gear in there, or a wet tent. I kept daily sundries neededin a hurry - toilet paper and hand sanitizer in a zip-lock, sunscreenwhen I was using that (in March, on the balds and the NC/TN Hump Mts, in the fields of PA and the open NJ swamps, and above treeline in NH and ME), extra snack food, ibuprofen, my flip-flops for rest-break foot airing, reading glasses, sunglasses (I have sensitive eyes. Many won't carry these, but they are useful for early March and snow too). I suppose all this could have gone in my topmost ditty bag in the pack, but that's just how I did it. The sides held my water bottles, fuel bottle and various sticks, stones, skulls and bark I picked up along the way to send home at the next maildrop. Oh, and an emergency Esbitt tab (used it a few times, and replaced it - check hiker boxes - mostly to start a campfire early on, but sometimes to cook.)The real treat, though, were the front pockets on the hip belt. I gotthem both. In one, I generally kept my digital camera (often in a ziplock) and a tiny canister of pepper spray (which I never used, but felt better for having). This pocket proved invaluable, ashaving the camera readily available was a MUST on the AT.In the other belt pocket, I kept my pocketmail device (ALWAYS in azip-lock, and sometimes doubled). The pocketmail was a snug fit - whenI asked for a longer pocket, I was told that production was so crazythat my wish couldn't be accommodated. Perhaps a gifted sewing person oranother gear mfr. could be approached but I didn't (inertia), justsqueezed it in. On rainy days I put my pocketmail INSIDE the pack(they are extremely water sensitive, more so than even the digitalcamera). On drier days, I liked to keep it handy so I couldjot-journal (due to bad memory) as I rested. Sometimes I wedged my (cheap) reading glasses (in a snack bag to prevent lens scratching) in there too.The pack was not waterproof - I don't know any that are. I used asil-nylon rain cover and stuff still got wet thru the silnylon. You don't want your sleeping bag, food and clothes wet, believe me! In the end, I used atough trash compactor bag Dave Hicks gave me INSIDE the pack, as a liner.It lasted all the way to Katahdin and kept the essentials dry. On verywet days, I also draped an ordinary black trash bag over the front andtop of my pack, since the silnylon did such a lousy job of protection.This helped alot and kept things dry enough in an extremely wet year. If I had a wet tent, I shook it out, wiped it down as best I could, then stuffed it into its stuff sack which, if rainy that day, then went on the bottom. Remember, I had a trash compacter liner for the critical gear, so the tent could not wet those. On days with a promise of sun, I put my tent near the top to dry it out at lunch or a break. I should add, I was swayed by someone's internet comment that thezippered gear access was a must-add. They spoke so confidently andemphatically, I thought they must know what they were talking about.Be careful to sift what you read on the internet! (including this).There are alot of blowhards, and they are more than happy to give you their un-field-tested opinion. I never used this access feature, because I sorted things into silnylon bags - tent atbottom mostly, then in the liner, my clothes bag (a fleece one, so it doubled as my pillow the entire hike), WATERPROOF food bag (you're going to hang it outside in the rain, right? Silnylon ain't that waterproff, so put everything in Ziplocks) and night bag (with my toothbrush, paste andkit, headlamp, matches and lighter for supper, EARPLUGS! (trust me on this one, it will improve your serenity and equanimity, as well as greatly assist your love of fellow wo/man), a book if Iwas reading one, a face net for buggy summer nights in shelters, etc) and daytime/snack/lunch bag. The zipperedfeature added weight and expense, and once I added the trash compactor bag(an essential dryness necessity, remember) it was totally useless andirrelevant. You may think differently, but I felt like an idiot forspending the extra money.The ULA P2 was inexpensive, compared to other packs on the market. That's a plus, esp. for such a well-made pack.The back pad was adequate without being bulky. I never got poked in the back from gear.The ULA pack, to me, felt best snugged closely to my back andshoulders via the lifter/shoulder straps, and when adjusted this way did not shift whilerock-scrambling (critical consideration). On hot days I wouldsometimes let the straps out so the pack fell away from my back a bit,to circulate air. But inevitably, I would find myself cinching them upagain for a more comfortable carry. I rarely used my chest strap, leaving it dangling unless really rock-scrambling.Other tidbits that come to mind:Directly on my pack I attached a back-up light, a tiny Photon-type. This was my light source backup, and I used it MANY times. It weights less that a quarter. These little bulbs put out an incredible amount of light using a watch-type battery. I have night-hiked with them, as they are even brighter than the Petzl Tikka headlamp I used. The Tikka is a great overall lamp - cooking, reading, going to the privy - and is much easier on batteries than some of the really bright headlamps, but wasn't a fully illuminating night-hiking source (maybe my night vision is going...). The reason I put it on my pack was convenience - that sometimes I was pushing twilight, and was reluctant to stop and fish my headlamp out. There was the faithful Photon knock-off, right on my pack, illuminating the way.Some folks think you should attach a whistle to the pack too. I never did, but it's not a bad idea. There were places in The Whites where I knew I would not be heard above the wind. The classic distress signal, BTW, is three sharp blasts, pause, repeat as needed.On hot days, I would also sometimes tuck my bandanna in the ULA's shoulder straps. Convenient for handy brow mopping. I washed the pack completely during a two-day layover in CT. I used Itchy's hose and scrub brush, ordinary laundry soap, and scrubbed away. Then I let it dry in the hot July 4 sun. I have heard of others doing this in a bathtub in a motel I think it's a great idea to remove the salt and stank from your pack but at the risk of sounding like somebody's mother (apologies in advance) please, consider the hikers behind you and clean up the tub thoroughly.Hmmm, if there's something I haven't addressed about the pack and you want to know, let me know and I'll update this page. Checkout other '03ers pages too, there were alot of ULAs out there this year.