Here at Gregory we were psyched to get notice of the Baltoro pack being included on the UK-based Outdoor: Talk’s “A list kit” for backpacks, not so much simply because of the great accolade (though we’re always honored when folks recognize the detail we put into our packs), but because they really nailed what we believe regarding suspension and how comfortable your backpack is when you do what you do with a backpack - load it up and carry it.
As they point out, if you pick up the Baltoro and it’s not the lightest weight pack measured against many on the market. But the measure of a great pack, and especially one made for many consecutive days of trekking, is how well it carries the weight on your back. As we’ve said many times, and we’ll say again now, it’s worth a little bit of extra weight put into the right part of the pack (the suspension) in order for the load to be dispersed equally and transferred in the most effective way possible to your body.
Said more simply, it’s actually comfortable with weight in it. And that’s something you’re most likely to be aware of after you’ve carried some packs that don’t distribute the load so well.
As they write, “The development and weight have gone into areas that somehow spread the load in such a way that it doesn’t seem to concentrate in any one place. … There are undeniably lighter heavy load bags on the market, and some very good ones, but when you’re on a long trail what really matters is comfort and that’s more than just a matter of grams carried and you’d be hard pressed to find anything more comfortable than this arm chair of load haulers.”
Wayne himself wouldn’t say it much differently.
Thought we’d share a good review we got on a respected UK-based outdoor blog.
After logging many miles, the tes
ter’s conclusion: ‘The carry is the important thing, and here it’s right on the money.’ We couldn’t have said it any better.
The Gregory philosophy has been and continues to be that a couple of extra ounces in the right spot (the suspension) for the right reason (better load-transfer, which means better carrying, which means more comfort at the end of the day) can make your bag carry that much better over the span of long days on the trail. And that will go a lot farther toward energy savings and feeling better at the end of each day than saving weight at all costs.
How does wearing a pack affect your body? At Gregory, that’s always been a key question, because the driving principle has always been ‘if you’re not comfortable, you’re not going to have fun.’
In that vein, longtime outdoor industry writer and observer Clyde Soles blogged about a recent study by the American Physiological Society that concluded
backpack straps can cut off blood flow to your arms, resulting in decreased motor control and more fatigue.
We thought it would be interesting to get some perspective from Gregory’s guru of suspension, company founder Wayne Gregory. Wayne’s been living and breathing backpack suspension for about 40 years. If you want to know how passionate he is about the subject, just get him started … and budget some time. Wayne’s first question on this recent study: “Well, how were they carrying the weight? And were they in the right frame size?”
A pack for carrying bigger loads, according to Wayne, is like a finely-built automobile. You start with the appropriate chassis, and then the various components from there have to make sense with the rest of the car. Only then do you achieve appropriate load transfer so that they load is evenly - and comfortably - distributed to the various points on the body where it should go. But you also have to be able to change the way you carry that weight on the fly.
