A Quality Pack on the Cheap

This week I'm going to tell you about that Outdoor Products backpack.  Over the course of the week since I typed up that last post, I actually found the name of the backpack.  It's the Outdoor Products Trail Break pack.  it has an 18L capacity, and came with a 3L water bag.  It looks like Walmart still sells the black one online for $35, or you can get the green one on eBay for around $20.  It hasn't been listed on the Outdoor Products website for probably a year, and I've been told by their customer service that they're not making it anymore.

Also, full disclosure.  The professional looking pics I have below I stole off the Walmart website.  I'll start it off with this one.

The back of the pack has the compartment dedicated to the water bag, and I'll get to that in a bit.  The pack has 1 big main pocket in front of that one that I've always described as a school backpack pocket.  You can zip it open from either side (2 zippers for this pocket).  You zip it open, and it's just a big, open space.  No dividers or internal pockets in it.  

There's a secondary main pocket that only has one zipper to it.  So it zips to and from one side.  It's not as big and open as the main pocket, but it has 3 smaller pockets on the back wall.  The smaller pockets are 2 different sizes, and one of them has a velcro clasp over it.  I'm guessing that was intended to be a phone pocket or something...velcro it in so it doesn't accidentally fall out.

It has a much smaller zipper pocket on the face of the pack.  That one is about the size of a phone, but since there's no protection in it, I always used it to throw a snack bar or small bag of trail mix.  This pocket is, honestly, not really big enough for much else.

It has the pretty big mesh pocket on the face of the pack that you can clip closed.  I always found that one handy for keeping a trail map or the little notebook that I carry when I hike.  I'd also typically stuff my wallet and truck keys in this mesh pocket when I'd leave the ride. 

Just below this mesh pocket is a zippered pocket that holds the included rain cover.  I'm not a huge fan of rain covers.  Sometimes they work with very dry results.  Sometimes you wonder if it kept any water out at all.  I used this one a couple of times in mist and drizzle, and it seemed to work well enough.

Then there are the 2 mesh pockets on the side that I imagine most folks use for water bottles.  There's a cinch strap on either side of the pack just above the mesh pockets.  There are no pole loops on this one, so I always carried my trekking poles in these pockets, and secured them using the cinch straps.

There are two "daisy-chains" on it just above the mesh pocket on the face.  I put daisy-chains in quotes because on a pack this small, they're more like double loops.  I have a couple of grimlocks (plastic D-rings) on those.  That makes it handy for clipping something on the pack if needed.  I strung a loop of shock cord between the two, and used one of them to clip my butt pad to the pack.  I'd stuff it under the shock cord to keep it from flopping around while I was walking.

Rounding out the pack are the hip belts.  There's a pocket on each of those, but they're small and tight enough that my wallet wouldn't fit, and my keys were a bit too big.  I'd usually carry a small bag of trail mix in one of those.

Overall it's a great pack!  At 18L, it's not so small that you're only carrying water, but it's not so big that you're carrying more than you would need.  In addition to my usual load, I could stuff a sweatshirt or jacket into the main pocket, but that would fill it up.  It's a relatively comfortable pack even though it's not adjustable.  The only thing that bugs me occasionally (and it's more a preference and not a comfort thing) is that the hip belts are a bit high.  They ride above my hips, so they help secure the pack to my body, but they're not carrying any weight at all.  Then again, on a pack this small, there's not a lot of weight to be carried.

Now the water bag pocket, they used an interesting concept for it.  After using the pack as much as I have, I'm still not sure whether I like it, but I know I prefer the more traditional approach better.  Take a look at the two pics below, and then I'll describe it for you.

If you look on that back ridge of the pack in the pic on the left, you'll see a long zipper that appears to continue on down the right shoulder strap.  If you look at the pic on the right, you'll see that zipper does, indeed, continue about half-way down the length of that shoulder strap.  Rather than have the usual H2O port on the back of the pack somewhere, that zippered pocket is it.  Open it up, and it's a very thin pocket where you hang the bladder.  Then you run the tube the length of the zipper to where it exits on the shoulder strap.

It's an interesting way to solve that problem.  It's, also, where my bag had an issue.  I used it for a long time, and always had the bladder in it.  Then one day I decided that I was going to use it without the bladder, and realized that they had not actually sewn in one side of the end of the zipper.  So long as the water tube was run through the shoulder strap, the zipper would stop a couple of inches short of the end.  When I pulled the bladder out and zipped that up, the zipper just came off the end, and, despite my best efforts, the zipper would not go back on.

The Outdoor Products warranty and customer service were both stellar even though the pack already had a lot of miles on it.  I let them know I had an issue, they asked for pics, and they quickly covered it.  The backpack wasn't being  made at that point, so they gave me credit on their website.  I already had my eye on the pack that I'll talk about next week, so I gave the credit to my wife to get one that she needed.  Later on, I ended up doing some surgery on the bag to get the zipper back in place, and then sewed everything up so that it works again.  Not long after I bought the bag, I replaced all the gray zipper pulls with bright yellow ones, so I used bright yellow thread on it when fixed the zipper.

I really like this daypack.  I've used it enough that it's well broken in.  I've personalized it by adding those grimlocks, changing the zipper pulls, and now it has the yellow stitching where I fixed it.  It's relatively comfortable, and it holds enough to get you by for a day, but not so much that it's really going to get heavy.  The back on it has that upside down T pattern that helps with ventilation.  I've got no complaints about this pack.  In fact, at the $35 that it is currently listed on the Walmart website, I don't know that you could get a better bang for your buck day pack.