I bought a new pack. I am a life-long collector of backpacks, from
huge-load mountaineering expedition packs to more compact-load alpinist
climbing packs to daypacks and fanny packs.
I love packs. They have always
served me well, carrying essentials as I trek the path. Here in the Tropics, it is more daypacks for
me, and I also utilize cargo pants and shirts (with many pockets) to have
important gear close at hand. Fast and
light.
I have had to downsize to a
smaller-capacity pack, mainly because of my recent lower back injury (lumbar
disc ruptures). My former daily daypack
had too much capacity, thus tempting me to load too much weight, and it had a
feeble waist strap that was unable to transfer the load more comfortably to my
hips and thus take the load off my back.
This former pack, the North Face
“Router”, is an exceptionally fine model, with incredibly convenient pockets
and features that make a full day of shopping and carousing easy. It has a pocket for a laptop and abundant
space for groceries, with many ingenious gear organization features. I am wearing out my third NF “Router” pack in
the last ten years; I am hard on equipment, and I use them constantly. The only reason I must sideline my “Router”
is that tempts me to carry too much weight and the load presses uncomfortably
on my hip-sacrum area (a wide and better-padded hip belt would have
helped). I am now only using the
“Router” for heavy loads while using my stiff back-brace to protect my lower
back.
I found a smaller pack with a
comfortable hip belt, the tiny Merrell “22L”.
It has a limited capacity, allowing me only small loads, and it has
well-padded hip-belt to put the load on my hips and legs if ever too heavy and
uncomfortable for my back. It is
well-engineered, with many ingenious features, and I love the light-weight
loads it encourages. It has freed me up
to venture further afield without pain.
However, the future of my
backpacking experiences with big multi-day overnight loads, in any weather in
all climates, seems to be terminally threatened. With my weak back and my advancing age, at 73
– if I were to be totally honest – I am becoming skeptical of how much climbing
and backpacking I will be able to do in future days. Yet, I am stubborn and will try to tackle any
of these profoundly personal aesthetic activities if and when I ever can,
to whatever degree possible. Excelsior!
-Zenwind.
.
