Photo Courtesy G. McDonald
The photographer wrote in about his experience. I’ve reprinted his letter below. I must say that I’m jealous. I’m also glad to hear that he thought that his CiloGear 60L WorkSack was “All in all, the 60l v2 is a great pack!”
I’m just back from 16 days of backpacking through Auyuittuq park on Baffin Island, which was a fabulous trip through a remote and spectacular part of Canada. The trip gave me a good opportunity to test out the 60l v2 and 20l Cilogear packs.
Given the duration of the trip and the fact that we had no caches or porters, the 60l, even extended, would have been barely big enough to handle our starting loads. As I rarely need a really large capacity pack, an obvious solution was to also take along the 20l, which could then serve as a travel bag during transit, a day pack for side trips, a pillow (when stuffed with spare clothes and wrapped in a fleece) and, when mated to the back of the 60l, became an easily accessible repository for a vest, rain gear, camera lenses and a water bottle while schlepping loads. The combo worked great (the addition of the 20l didn’t noticeably change the balance or feel of the 60l) and was the envy of the “bird” brand packers (Osprey, Arc’teryx…) as whenever we did a side trip or a scramble, they found themselves either having to haul their large packs or rig a fanny pack from their lids.
Despite a starting pack weight of close to 65lbs, the load balance and weight distribution of the system was excellent. Although there’s little in the way of elevation gain on the hike, the terrain is very rough, with numerous large moraines, boulder fields and creeks. The pack felt rock solid, even while clambering over wet talus or hopping from rock to rock across streams. Although I was always happy to get the pack off at the end of the day, I never had problems with sore shoulders, hips or back. By the time we’d eaten the loads down to around 40lbs, the pack was (almost) unnoticeable.
One key feature of the 60l Cilogear pack which I really came appreciated is its’ weight (or lack thereof). The system gives amazing performance for such a lightweight product. Compared to most other packs used on this trip, my Cilogear weighed 3lbs less out of the gate and yet was just as capable and comfortable for moving gear. The 60l v2’s construction turned out to be bomber as well, emerging unscathed from baggage holds, airport transfers, boat rides which left some of the other packs scarred and ventilated.
