backpack frame sheets expendible?

[johndavidjr]

For a recent 3-night hike which included bushwacking and a moderate snow climb (see post in Olympics section) I left behind the framesheet on MEC alpine pack of about 52 cu liters. Have used this newish pack very little, with or without framesheet, and in past 7-8 years have used almost exclusively a frameless 50L Lowe pack. I don't have much of an opinion on whether leaving out framesheet was good/bad, though it obviously saved a little weight. Has anyone formed an opinon on detailed pros & cons??

[cracked]

Pro - carries heavy loads better.

Con - makes pack less flexible, worse for climbing. And heavier.

 

IMHO, a daypack sized pack only needs a framesheet if you're carrying skis and boots on it. Try it sans sheet, if you don't mind, you're good to go. If it bugs you, you can cut a new framesheet out of the lid of a plastic walmart storage bin.

 

And what the hell is a cubic liter?

[johndavidjr]

umunamuricun-ena cubic liter must be around 60 cubic inches of course, but I'm weak in arithmatic. I've carried the pack (US$60 on close-out) on two short trips with frame sheet & I find it difficult to say just how much the thing improved load-carrying, and even more difficult to say is why. Maybe I wasn't carrying enough weight, but I'm somewhat of the ectomorph build, & don't carry weight well to begin with. It's probably just a matter of experience and preference.

[tomtom]

umunamuricun-ena cubic liter must be around 60 cubic inches of course

 

An inch is a measure of length. A cubic inch is a measure of volume (a cube one inch on each side). A liter is already a measure of volume (a cube 10 cm on each side). So what the heck is a cubic liter?

 

- Amuricun Tom

[snoboy]

One of my favourite packs, that I often use for ski touring, is a frameless pack; the Serratus Genie.

 

It takes a little more effort to pack it well, but other than that, as long as the weight is reasonable, I have no real problem with the frameless idea, up to a certain size/weight.

[johndavidjr]

I'm so glad Reagan killed metric conversion, because I can't figure it out. All I know for sure that's relevant is, my Lowe was advertised as the Snow Peak 50, and somewhere back in the dark ages of the 1990s, I took that to be about 3000 c.inches.

[cracked]

The framesheet is also nice if you're stuffing your ski boots into the thing..it keeps them from poking your back.

[Dru]

framesheet is also good for preventing the #4 camalot from gooning your kidneys from behind

 

the less back padding your pack has the more a framesheet will help. also helps to transfer load from the shoulders to the hipbelt. if you take a framesheet out of a 38L pack it wont make much diff but if you take it out of a fully loaded 90L pack you will notice, the pack will tend to banana bend as you tighten the shoulder straps up and want to take your back with it

[johndavidjr]

Yeah my cheap, MEC bag is unsusually long & narrow for its size, & when more fully loaded without the sheet, it tends to deform somewhat. It's got padding & I can manage to keep stuff away from back pretty well. The load-carrying disadvantage sans sheet at 20+ or so pounds (how many kilos?) wasn't so easy to observe; subtle & hard to quantify-- to the point where I'm not even sure there is one. (Why would a piece of plastic & couple of aluminum sticks make a difference?) More clearly, I remember when loading up my frameless Lowe to the max, I'd naturally think it was too damned heavy, & if only it had framesheet, then life would be wonderful. So is it wonderful, or isn't it?