The best backpack?

Much of the time, I live out of my backpack. This page is the first in a two-part series. The second looks at what's in my backpack. This one tells the story of my present pack. If you think you know what would make a good replacement, please comment at the bottom. :)

The pack

patagonia backpack by lowe alpine systems, 1987

In Ireland, in the mid-1980s, Lowe Alpine Systems made a backpack it called "Patagonia". At that time, most backpacks were still framed by a bulky metal tube. Karrimor had a popular pack called the "Alpinist", with a foam pad in the back instead of a frame. One day, someone showed me an ad for a pack with a novel design, two hidden tongues of metal that followed your back's contour: the internal frame. I still remember how excited I was in the shop on the day I bought mine in 1987.

Since then, the pack has been on countless overnight hikes through all kinds of scrub, it's lived on four continents, and it's gone around the world many times. It had its first repair in 2008, when an upholsterer went over some of the stitches. In typical Australian fashion, the person who did the job put a twist in one of the straps and bypassed the plastic tightener it was supposed to go through.

For some reason, I regret that the pack wasn't with me when I saw Tibet in 1987. China had opened Tibet to individual travelers in 1986. A few months after I returned, riots started, and Tibet was shut down again.

patagonia backpack by lowe alpine systems, 1987

In 1994, the pack went missing from the locked storage room at the youth hostel in Anchorage, Alaska. I had taken a shuttle to go hiking on Mt Flattop, and I'd thought it wise to lock the bag while I was away from the dorm. It was my first day of a 14-week trip around the world! The manager denied that my bag had been there at all, but I had the receipt. A policeman came and asked me questions. It was a strange situation where I felt that I was the suspect. No one could figure out how the pack could have walked away. I wondered what I would do.

patagonia backpack by lowe alpine systems, 1987 I still had my credit card and my passport, so I split the cost of a rental car with another traveler and drove some hundred miles for a few days, wearing the lone red t-shirt I'd had on when the pack had disappeared. When I returned to Anchorage after sighting a few brown bears, the bag was there. What had happened? A group of climbers bound for Denali (Mount McKinley) had stayed in the hostel. They all had the same pack. When they had left, they had taken all the blue-and-red packs out of the storage room and thrown them into the van. It was a day or two until they realized they had one extra bag and sent it back to Anchorage.

I'm not in love with the Lowe brand, but I love this pack for how light it is and how well it carries its loads. Some years ago, I worried about the time I'd have to replace it, as pack manufacturers were on the "indestructible pack trip" and used fabrics that weighed tons. That was particularly silly given the easy life of most packs (rubbing shoulders with yoga mats in the closet) and given how long a good light pack will last. I was so attached to mine that I thought of buying a used replacement on ebay. For my needs, the average used pack is as good as new. With a second bag in storage, I thought that I'd be covered for a lifetime. The problem was that it's impossible to find this particular model on search engines because its name, "Patagonia", is also the name of another sports brand. But I don't care anymore. If I ever need to replace this marvellous pack, I'm sure another marvellous pack will turn up.

Odd jobs

A good backpack is so versatile that sooner or later you'll be carrying something unexpected in it, perhaps a moped engine or a live duck. I am sure to forget most of the odd jobs my pack has done, but as I think about it now, a few images come to mind.

The first odd job was utterly stupid. I had just bought the pack and wanted to put it to use. A school friend had invited me to go skiing in his house in the Alps, and we went to the supermarket in a large town before hitting the road. We didn't cook much except pasta, so we bought a trolley-full of cans of all kinds. Eager to show off how large my pack was, I crammed all the cans in it. It was stupid because I almost broke my back, and it was also stupid because the lip of the bottom cans rubbed strongly against the fabric and made a mark. When I saw that the cans had almost torn through the bag, my heart sank, remembering the money I'd spent for it and imagining that it would soon be out of commission. As it turns out, that is the worst scar the pack has taken in its career.

Most recently, I had a lot of fun bringing little gifts to my girlfriend. In Morocco, I bought a lamp, a red translucent skin stretched over a pyramid of wrought iron. Wrapped in a beautiful blue blanket, it survived the trip to Florida. Later that year, I brought back a four-foot branch from a date tree, laden with dates. I had to wrap it in large garbage bags then fold it to make it fit inside the bag. It didn't break. Then a few months later, the pack carried a drum back from Burkina Faso, in Africa. None of these things had to travel in the backpack, of course, but the fun of it was to spring large surprises on my girlfriend the morning after I arrived, seemingly out of nowhere.

Another memory just came back. Perhaps it is just fiction... It may or may not have happened, but I have a fuzzy recollection, perhaps a dream, that at some stage I lived in a part of Australia where growing marijuana was the local sport. Although I didn't smoke more than five times a year then (and never do now) I must have been piqued by the challenge, as the memory shows me riding twenty miles of dirt roads on my motorbike up into a national park, looking for the perfect growing spot. On my back, resting on the passenger seat, there was my backpack carrying a machete, fertilizer and seedlings.

Other great backpacks

I am keeping an eye out for great backpacks in case I ever need to replace my pack, and also in case my lady friend decides to change hers. I am not up to date on the latest reviews, so comments are very welcome.

Men's: Trailspace is a great source of reviews, as is REI. The Arc'teryx Bora 80 gets great reviews. So does the Gregory Denali Pro. ConsumerSearch also mentions the Gregory Baltoro 70.

Women's: Read great reviews about the Osprey Ariel 65, but too small for year-round travel. Intrigued by the REI Venus 75.

Smiles,

Andy

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