The ULA Circuit is likely one of the hottest thru-hiking and backpacking packs obtainable at this time. It’s a standard ultralight fashion pack with an open entrance mesh pocket, a roll-top closure, a spacer mesh again panel behind the shoulder straps, and huge facet water bottle pockets. My favourite characteristic of the pack is its broad hip belt, customary on ULA’s in a single day packs, which offers wonderful load-to-hip switch and a few vertical adjustability so you’ll be able to dial in an excellent match. For an entire breakdown of the options of the ULA Circuit, see the ULA 24 Ultra Circuit Review I wrote early this yr for the blow-by-blow. The solely distinction between the Ultra Circuit and the Robic Nylon Circuit I consider beneath for winter use is the material the packs are made with.
Specs at a Glance
- Total Capacity: 68L
- Closed Capacity: 47L /2900 cubic inches (essential physique and extension collar)
- Max really helpful load: 35 lbs
- Pack Body: Robic Nylon, Spacer Mesh
- Weight: 37.3 oz / 1038 g
ULA contacted me to ask whether or not I’d overview the suitability of the Circuit for winter backpacking since that’s one thing we’ve been doing at SectionHiker.com and writing about for a very long time. Now, winter backpacking means lots of various things to totally different individuals when it comes to climate situations and gear wants, so let’s get particular.
Winter Backpacking and Packing Requirements
Three-season backpacking or thru-hiking is usually accomplished in snug climate, with good beta in terms of path situations and water sources. But that’s not the case with winter backpacking the place there’s a lot much less certainty about what you’ll encounter. Temperatures are often beneath freezing, winter days have a lot much less daylight, most water sources are frozen and it’s troublesome to foretell what backcountry path situations will probably be like when it comes to snow depth or ice.
Weather situations may differ broadly, particularly at elevation, the place excessive wind speeds and wind chill enhance the hazard of frostbite or hypothermia until you carry further insulation and face safety. You ought to anticipate to make frequent layer adjustments to keep away from overheating and sweating, but it surely’s necessary to attenuate stopping to keep away from changing into chilled since you’re not shifting. Winter meals necessities are additionally considerably totally different as a result of winter backpacking makes use of roughly twice the variety of energy as non-winter climbing. Since you’ll be able to’t eat all of the energy you’ll want through the day at breakfast or lunch, it’s necessary to snack very often and to have your meals simply accessible so you’ll be able to eat on the transfer.
From a packing perspective, which means you must carry much more weight when it comes to meals, water, and gas. You’ll wish to carry extra sleep insulation, dry clothes, and a number of pairs of gloves, and hats as a result of it’s troublesome to dry clothes within the chilly. Finally, you’ll be able to anticipate to hold a number of very cumbersome objects that may’t match inside your pack like snowshoes, a foam sleeping pad to take a seat on when melting snow and cooking, traction aids like microspikes, and in lots of instances further gear together with crampons, an ice axe, avalanche shovel, climbing gear, or ski gear. This further gear can necessitate switching to a winter backpack that may carry extra weight, has extra closed storage and entry strategies, and has higher exterior attachment factors for carrying cumbersome gear.
Desirable Winter Backpack Features
Winter-specific backpacks and three-season backpacks which might be straightforward to make use of for winter backpacking include options that make it straightforward to hold and entry winter-specific gear.
For instance:
- A prime lid pocket is nearly essential for winter use since it might maintain further gloves, hats, goggles, and face safety that you really want prepared entry to through the day with out having to open the primary compartment of your backpack to entry them.
- A floating prime lid is an actual asset as a result of it may be used to carry gear piled on prime of the primary pack bag in place like a coil of rope, a sleeping pad, a tent physique, and even snowshoes.
- Numerous exterior attachment factors like dual-side compression straps with glove-friendly buckles are good for carrying cumbersome gear or gadgets with sharp factors like a foam sleeping pad, a shovel, snowshoes, or crampons. You can’t put these things contained in the backpack as a result of they’ll take up an excessive amount of house, they will’t match, or they’ll be lined in snow and ice (as you turn between them) and also you don’t them making all of your different gear moist.
- Bottom sleeping pad straps for lasting a pad or tent physique to the bottom of a pack are helpful.
- Daisy chains are exterior gear loops for clipping gadgets to the skin of a backpack from further webbing straps and exterior pockets to insulated water bottle sleeves.
- An exterior crampon pocket makes it straightforward to hold microspikes or crampons so that they’re simply accessible whereas preserving the sharp factors away out of your physique and different gear in case you fall.
- Side zippers allow you to entry or stash insulation layers in the primary compartment with out having to open the highest. This is very useful on a high-volume backpack over 70L in quantity.
- Ice axe loops and shaft holders to safe axes to the skin of the pack.
- A hipbelt with an enormous heart buckle that doesn’t fill with snow and can be utilized whereas carrying gloves.
- A snowshedding again panel and hipbelt padding
How Easy is the Circuit to Use for Winter Backpacking?
If your model of winter backpacking resembles the winter backpacking necessities I checklist above, the Circuit is awkward to make use of, significantly when in comparison with winter-specific backpacks just like the Osprey Mutant 52 or the Black Diamond Mission 75. Other light-weight backpacks just like the Granite Gear Blaze 60 or the Granite Gear Crown3 60 are additionally considerably simpler to make use of as a result of they’ve twin compression straps on three sides and optionally available floating lid prime pockets than can deployed over their rolltop pack luggage, so you could have the most effective of each worlds relying on the season. (See Also: 10 Best Winter Backpacking Packs)
That’s to not say that you simply couldn’t hack the Circuit with third-party webbing straps to create higher attachment factors, however the present pack design remains to be restricted in that regard as we talk about beneath.
Mesh again panel and hipbelt padding
The Circuit’s again panel and the within of the hipbelt are lined with a porous mesh that picks up snow once you put the pack down. This melts in your clothes once you put the pack on and makes it moist, which may be very undesirable in winter.
Hipbelt
When you place the Circuit hipbelt on it is advisable to tighten it by pulling on 4 webbing straps that pressure the belt utilizing ladder locks. This can solely be accomplished by eradicating your gloves in winter since you want a high quality diploma of dexterity to seize the ends of the webbing. A less complicated hipbelt with a a lot beefier heart buckle that doesn’t clog with snow is extra fascinating.
No exterior closed pockets
All of the storage on the Circuit is in the primary pack bag, so there’s no place to place further gloves, mittens, hats, goggles, or face safety contained in the pack with out stopping, opening the pack bag, and retrieving these things. You can’t put the within the entrance mesh pocket as a result of they’ll get moist there and develop into ineffective. While you’ll be able to put snacks into the hip belt pockets, they’re not giant sufficient to carry this further accent clothes. The solely different is so as to add a big third occasion chest pack connected to the entrance shoulder straps.
Snowshoes
The most effective method to carry snowshoes is alongside the perimeters of a backpack, near your hips. This is straightforward to do with backpacks which have dual-side compression straps with glove-friendly side-release buckles. Unfortunately, the Circuit solely has one facet compression strap, that closes with a glove-unfriendly ladder lock and a brief webbing strap that’s solely barely lengthy sufficient to safe a foam pad to the facet of the pack with one finish in a facet pocket. There’s additionally no approach so as to add your personal facet straps as a result of there are not any gear loops sewn into the vertical rear seams alongside the facet of the again panel.
Assessment
If you’re on the lookout for a backpack that may span four-season use and your winter situations dovetail with those described above, I wouldn’t advocate getting the ULA Circuit. It’s simply not arrange for versatile winter backcountry use. It’s high quality should you solely want to hold microspikes or crampons over a brief snow-covered part of path, but it surely’s not straightforward to pack when you must carry quite a lot of snowshoes and mountaineering instruments for any size of time. I additionally don’t suppose it’s actually value making an attempt to reengineer the Circuit to be four-season prepared. There are simply too many characteristic and structural adjustments required that it’d in all probability be extra expeditious to design a wholly new pack on the pre-existing Circuit or the bigger ULA Catalyst body.
I hope this evaluation was at the very least helpful to provide you a style of what to search for in a winter-capable backpacking pack and tips that could packs, together with light-weight backpacks, that may span four-season use.
Disclosure: ULA donated a Circuit backpack for this text.
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