Gear
Packs
A well-loaded pack is carried by your legs. A badly loaded one is carried by your shoulders.
Most discomfort attributed to a pack being too heavy is actually the pack being fitted or loaded wrong. The load should transfer through the hip belt into the skeleton, with the shoulder straps only stabilising it.
Fitting
The dimension that matters is torso length, measured from the bony bump at the base of the neck to the line across the top of the hip bones. It correlates loosely with height and plenty of tall people need a short back. The hip belt sits on the iliac crest, not below it. If the belt is on your waist, the load is on your shoulders regardless of how tight the straps are.
Loading
- Heavy items close to the spine, at roughly mid-back height. Further out or higher up and the pack levers you backwards.
- Sleeping bag and soft items at the bottom, filling the shape.
- Things you need without stopping in the lid or hip pockets: map, food, hat, gloves.
- Waterproofs at the top, not buried. A shell you have to unpack in the rain is a shell you will not put on soon enough.
Volume
Roughly: 20 to 30 litres for a day, 35 to 45 for cabin to cabin where you carry no tent, 50 to 65 for camping. Buying larger than you need guarantees you fill it, and compression straps that actually pull the load in matter more than the raw number.
Waterproofing
Pack covers deal with rain falling on the pack and not with rain running down your back into it, or with a pack set down in bog. A liner bag inside the pack is more reliable and cheaper, and dry bags for the things that genuinely must stay dry are more reliable still.