Winter Backpacks: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

If you’re gearing up for winter mountaineering and backpacking, it’s price asking your self if you’d like a backpack that’s designed for winter use, or whether or not you will get through the use of the backpack you utilize the remainder of the yr. Personally, I choose utilizing a winter pack or a three-season pack that has comparable capabilities. It’s quite a bit simpler to make use of and extra snug.

What Makes a Good Winter Backpack?

An excellent winter backpack:

1. Can be used whereas carrying gloves. That means it has huge buckles on the hip belt or compression straps or which can be simply opened and closed and don’t replenish with snow or freeze up.
2. You can get clothes, gear, meals, or water out of them quick with out a whole lot of effort unpacking after which repacking them. Winter mountaineering requires a whole lot of micro-stops and it’s vital to get transferring once more shortly so that you or your companions can keep heat.
3. Makes it straightforward to hold heavy awkwardly formed gear like snowshoes, skis, climbing rope, microspikes, sharp crampons, or ice axes.
4. Is modular, so you possibly can take away parts like a lid or hip belt or connect others, like pockets, electronics, insulated sleeves, and so forth to the skin.
5. Lies near the again for higher stability and again insulation.
6. Has sufficient quantity and is designed to hold all of the clothes, gear, meals, water, and gas you want in your journey in affordable consolation.

Best Backpacks for Winter Hiking

The finest backpacks for winter use are climbing backpacks, mountaineering packs, and snowboarding packs which can be arrange with 2-3 tiers of facet compression webbing straps to allow you to carry cumbersome gear that doesn’t match simply inside a backpack, like snowshoes, skis, or crampons. Some multi-day backpacks with prime lids additionally work effectively as a result of you possibly can entry often used gear and clothes, like hats, gloves, or light-weight jackets from the lid shortly with out having to cease, open up the primary compartment and dig round inside your backpack. A prime lid additionally protects your further clothes or gear from moisture not like open facet pockets or entrance mesh pockets.

Volume-wise, I discover that 35L-40L works effectively for winter day mountaineering and peakbagging, whereas 60L-70L works finest for winter backpacking. You’ll need to go even greater for expedition-style journeys.

Here are two examples of excellent winter backpacks, one for day mountaineering and one for in a single day journeys:

Osprey Mutant 38

The new Osprey Mutant 38 has sufficient storage for winter-day mountaineering or mountain climbing. It has huge buckles that can be utilized whereas carrying gloves and that gained’t clog up with snow. There are horizontal compression straps that make it straightforward to lash snowshoes to the facet of the pack and horizontal straps, anchored on daisy chains to lash a pair of crampons to the entrance of the pack. The floating prime lid gives closed storage for hats, gloves, and snacks and you’ll drape a rope over the primary compartment and maintain it in place with the highest lid.

The hip belt could be folded again to be used with a climbing harness, whereas the pack’s again panel sits flush in opposition to your again to offer insulation. There are gear loops on the skin of the hip belt to clip carabiners and further gear to, in addition to daisy chains on the shoulder straps. The checklist of options goes on: twin aluminum body stays, detachable prime lid, twin ice axe holders, and so forth. Weight: 40.25 oz /1141g.  Available from Osprey.

Granite Gear Blaze 60

The Granite Gear Blaze 60 is a superb instance of a 60L backpack that makes an outstanding winter backpacking pack. It’s obtainable in males’s and ladies’s fashions with an adjustable torso size. It has three tiers of facet and entrance compression straps, a detachable floating prime lid, and a entrance zipper so you possibly can entry gear contained in the pack with out having to unbuckle the highest lid and attain into the primary compartment from the highest. The pack can simply haul 40-50 lbs, making it good for journeys the place it’s worthwhile to carry snowshoes, traction aids, further water, and gas for snow melting, along with winter tenting gear. Weight: 48 oz / 1361g. Available from REI.

Here are different backpacks which can be good for winter day-hiking and backpacking:

Worst Backpacks for Winter Hiking

The worst backpacks for winter mountaineering are:

• Low-volume day packs as a result of they don’t have sufficient inner storage and it’s arduous to connect gear to their exterior.
• Many ultralight backpacks fail as a result of they use wire and rope locks for facet compression as a substitute of webbing straps and huge buckles. Cordlocks and the wire additionally are inclined to freeze up in winter. Plus it’s troublesome to slide a pair of snowshoes underneath a zigzagged wire on the facet of the pack, not to mention doing it whereas carrying gloves.
• Frameless backpacks typically lack the load switch required to hold heavier winter gear, particularly when winter backpacking.
• Roll-top backpacks will also be problematic as a result of they don’t have a lot accessible closed storage. This means it’s important to cease often and open them each time you want a layer change, a snack, or water. This simply slows you down and makes you chilly. It’s a great way to piss off your mountaineering companions, too.
• Ventilated backpacks with mesh again panels can chill you simply as a result of they don’t present any again insulation.

Gossamer Gear Mariposa 60

I occur to love the Gossamer Gear Mariposa 60 for 3-season use, but it surely doesn’t make an excellent winter backpack as a result of it doesn’t have any facet compression straps to lash gear to the pack with. The sides of the pack are NOT mirror photos of each other which makes it tougher to hold snowshoes strapped to the edges, and the fold-over lid is time-consuming to open and shut (overlook doing it with gloves on). There aren’t daisy chains to hold sharp winter traction aids from or clip an insulated water bottle sleeve, and there’s no place to hold crampons besides deep contained in the pack. It’d simply be ungainly to make use of for winter backpacking, in comparison with different choices.

The Ugly

The ugly happens when individuals attempt to use their tiny or ill-featured backpacks to hold all the additional clothes, gear, meals and gas required for winter mountaineering or backpacking. The quantity of winter gear and consumables is far increased than what you in all probability carry the remainder of the yr on mountaineering journeys, so you actually do must measurement as much as carry all of it.

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