5500+ pack

[crackers]

1) There is an ANSI standard on how you're supposed to measure the volume of packs. Honestly, I think it's a bad standard because it's expensive to do and a bit silly. I wish we could all measure volume with Petzl bags or ropes or something...

 

2) If you're 6'2", do not under any circumstances buy a small pack and try to make it fit. Your clothing and sleeping bag are on the border between enormous and gargantuan. I'm over 6'4" and I just can't use smaller packs under the conditions you describe. My sleeping bag is just too big for a 60liter pack...I have to use a 90 liter to fit that puppy in (western mountaineering large bighorn sdl).

[mattp]

For a trip like that which you describe, packing efficiently will also be important. There are people who can put the same pile of gear in literally half the pack that some others can.

[Nick]

I started out with a huge pack, years ago, over time I learned what I could do without and carried less and extra stuff. For a while I improved the Big Pack by cutting peices out of the pack bag and sewing it back up. Eventually I threw Frankenpack away and got smaller packs.

Avoid lashing everything to the outside of a pack that is too small.

One reason the sizes of packs seems to be wrong half the time is that many makers of packs that have long extension collars do not measure the volume of the extension when they rate a pack. Some of these packs carry pretty well with some extra stuff filling the extension sleeve and so can hold a lot more gear than a fixed-volume pack with the same volume rating. In general, you can get more stuff into a simple tall top-loading bag than will fit into a pack that has multiple separate compartments, zippers, and so forth.

[crackers]

I agree about packing efficiency, but there is a limit. If you're six inches shorter than me, your sleeping bag will be smaller than mine. It's funny to me, because the variability is really rather limited. Half a tent is still half a tent, you know? A 1 liter pot is the same size as a 1 liter pot...

 

There are some good reasons, speaking as a pack manufacturer, not to include the extension in the 'named' volume of the pack. I try to include all the 'normal' possible volumes of the pack in my propaganda, but I have to guess that 85% of my customers don't regularily use the pack with the extension totally full. I would say that my 60 liter pack is 60 liters, not the 90 liter capacity it is when you stuff it up to the extension collar. I argue this because the suspension and the compression are designed around the bottom 60 liters, not that top 30.

 

There are actually a few brands that I've measured that include the extension without telling anybody. I don't like that.

[Nick]

Your packs look good to me, and I agree that you should rate the pack without indluding the extension sleeve volume. Still, the extension sleeve can be a useful place to carry the overflow gear on the approach to a climb. A good pack usually carries well enough for hiking when overloaded this way, and when you take out the rope, rack, etc. at the base of the real climbing you end up with the right sized pack to carry your remaining gear.

 

You are six inches taller than I am. I carry some size large garments, but do not carry a lot of extra clothes. Other than the sleeping bag, parka, and rain gear we are carrying exactly the same stuff, as you point out, same stove, pot, helmet, etc. As long as we are comparing trips in the same climate your sleeping bag, parka, etc. shouldn't weigh more than 3 pounds more than mine do. Though I probably have about 50 pounds less flesh to carry than you do (no offense meant). I'll bet that we use about the same sized pack.

 

Your 60 Liter pack (3600 ci) actually will hold plenty of stuff for a week long trip as long as the climbing gear is not too bulky, and as long as we're not talking about Denali or the arctic. I use a similar pack and it works great. Using the extension sleeve your 60L pack will grow to 90L (5500 ci). It might not be fun to carry when stuffed all the way, but at 80L it probably carries OK.

 

A great deal depends on precisely what you carry. The size differrence between a big fat 10 degree sleeping bag and a lean 25 degree sleeping bag is bigger than the variation between a size regular and a size long bag of the same rating. Also, if you carry a slightly bigger/heavier version of every single thing you need it quickly adds up to an extra 20 pounds and 2000 cubic inches.

 

Not knowing what Ditchdigger will be carrying it is hard to say if he needs a 5500 ci pack or not. The class he has signed up for may well suggest such a large pack knowing than many of their students will be showing up with a a lot of the kind of bulky/heavy gear that people usually start out with. If he has the typical big gore tex parkas and 4 pound, 0 degree, sleeping bag in a large size, and so forth and so on, then he will certainly need the jumbo pack. After he takes the course and switches to much lighter, less bulky gear, he may find that a 60L expandable pack will work for most trips.