As a kid from southern Utah, I’ve been backpacking across sandstone, down arroyos, and through willow thickets my whole life. This, in part, led me down a path of searching for ultralight or at least light-ish backpacks with attributes that make them ideal for canyon country backpacking. I have identified 5 features that make a backpack ideal for backpacking in the desert.
Some people begin packrafting because they’re looking for new ways to connect landscapes. Others begin packrafting because they’re sick of schlepping their 50lb kayak around. I’m in the former camp—an ultralight backpacker-turned-packrafter with extreme ultralight biases. When I wrote a packrafting gear list about 4 years ago, I didn’t realize how strong these biases were and how much they limited my packrafting abilities and comfort. At the time I hadn’t paddled much more than the ephemeral streams in Utah’s canyon country, so my experience was somewhat limited. That list still feels applicable to a certain kind of boating, but it has its limitations. Now, I think a different gear list is needed.
This complete packrafting gear guide is written for most people in most packrafting scenarios—I hope it will help you choose a packraft, a paddle, safety gear, and all the packraft-compatible backpacking gear you need for multi-day expeditions.
In this post and the accompanying video, I’m comparing the longevity of DCF (Dyneema Composite Fabric) and silicone-coated nylon shelters. To do this, I’m going to take a look at two Mountain Laurel Designs shelters, one made of DCF and the other made of 30 denier silnylon, to see how they’ve faired over the years.
With this modification, I made my Seek Outside Eolus much more adaptable to variable terrain and different pitch heights. It also allows me to pitch this tent faster.
I have patched two intentional holes in the EPL200 Ultra front pocket of my Superior Wilderness Designs Long Haul 50. I will keep an eye on the patches as I continue to use the pack then and report back here to let folks know how they’re holding up.
I call this the Baloo Maneuver. Scraped up and down pretty hard like 12 or 15 times.
Abrasion resulting from Baloo maneuver
Even got a tiny hole
Cut a piece of Tear Aid for the inside
Used seam grip on the outside
The finished repair. Ugly because of the blue patch behind.
Scraped with a sharp rock for 25 minutes while watching Deep Space Nine resulting in this abrasion/hole
Cut a piece of DCF tape for the inside
DCF tape inside
Applied Aquaseal to the outside
Finished repair looks pretty good. I like how the Aquaseal fills in the abrasion and remains malleable. I imagine this will hold quite well.
I made this video to explain why I’ve made some of the choices I’ve made as I keep on trying new backpacks.
I’ve been on a hell of a pack journey; it has been challenging to say the least to find something that is light and carries a lot of weight well. If you’ve read through some of my other posts you’ll know that I used a large HMG Porter 4400 (46oz) pack for a while, but it destroyed my shoulders. Then switched to a Seek Outside Divide 4500 which I still have and love but is heavy at 57oz. I began using a medium 32oz HMG SW 3400 modified with loadlifters for most of my three-season trips, but it still wasn’t quite cutting it. I tried the Seek Outside Flight One (38oz) briefly but I bought the wrong size (22”) and did not like the hip belt. My next pack was the Hanchor Marl (40oz) which I still have and like, but which may become obsolete with the introduction of the SWD Big Wild 70.
I’ve been using the Seek Outside Divide 4500 as my go-to load-carrying pack for about the last three years. A good example of an ideal trip for this pack is a five-day packrafting loop in Canyonlands National Park I did in 2018. I carried typical three-season equipment, five days of food, a 6lb 11oz packraft, an 18oz PFD, a 37oz paddle, a ton of water, and other packrafting gear. At my heaviest, hauling water from Spanish Bottom up 1000 ft in less than a mile to the Dollhouse and then through the Maze to Water Canyon, my pack was probably around 48lbs. I do not like carrying weights like this. But sometimes it happens, especially with boats, and especially in the desert where water is potentially scarce. When I have to, the Divide is the perfect pack for the job.
I’ve used the Seek Outside Flight One Solid Spectra backpack on three trips now including the Uintas Highline Trail. The Highline was 104 miles over the course of 6 days, making it a great test for this pack. I don’t know my exact starting weight but I’m guessing it was around 30lbs with a few liters of water and a grapefruit. It felt heavy with 50% of the weight on my shoulders, so I ate the grapefruit right away. But as much as I messed around with the adjustments I couldn’t get the weight distribution right. It remained between 55/45 and 50/50 hips/shoulders for the remainder of the trip, even at the end when my pack weight was below 20lbs.
When I set out to find a simple, stable, light, modular shelter in 2015 I pretty quickly landed on the Mountain Laurel Designs Duomid. It’s not the lightest shelter in the world, but something about it felt foolproof, reliable.
My Personal Use
I worked as a ranger in the High Uintas Wilderness during the 2013 season when I used the gear provided by the Forest Service. Most employees used Big Agnes Seedhouse 2 tents. At about three and a half pounds, these tents were not ultralight but they were pretty roomy for waiting out 48-hour storms while reading, listening to podcasts, or playing guitar. Yes, I carried a guitar. At four and a half pounds it was worth it considering how many nights I spent alone.
*****August 2022 Note: I’ve removed this video because I have tested a lot of packs since I made this post and I no longer feel conviction about this modification. In my opinion, it’s totally fine for straps to attach at the top of the shoulders if the straps are fairly cushy and spaced properly for a person’ s shoulders. If a pack fits like this, loadlifters are indeed unnecessary. That said, the load ratings of HMG packs are completely bananas. If they fit a little better in the shoulder I’d think they could carry 35lbs comfortably. *****
The first pack I can remember owning was a green JanSport. When I was about 21 I replaced it with a blue 115 liter Lowe Alpine. I used the Lowe for a while, eventually replacing it with a Dana Designs Astralplane (also in the 115 liter range, and weighing a now unfathomable 7.5lbs), and then with a Black Diamond Infinity 60, and then with a Boreas Buttermilks 55. In retrospect, the BD and the Boreas weren’t bad packs but the swiveling hip belt on the BD squeaked and the Boreas hip belt nearly tore off one time when I carelessly stepped on it while hoisting the load onto my back. Oops.
