Backpacking Background:
With twelve years of hiking and backpacking experience, and several hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail under his belt, Ken’s goal is to section-hike the whole thing before he croaks. He carries lightweight gear, including a tarp and a homemade alcohol stove, and his base weight for warm-weather trips is about 18 pounds (8 kg).

Product Information

	Manufacturer:	Equinox Ltd.
	Model:	Katahdin
	Web Site:	Equinox Web Site
	Size:	One size, 3350 in^3 (55 liters)
	Listed Weight:	22 oz (624 g)
	Weight As Delivered:	23 oz (652 g)
	MSRP:	US$120

Field Information:

Location Where Tests Were Conducted:
The tests were conducted in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in southwest Virginia in spring, summer, and early fall 2004, with moderate weather and temperatures from 50 F (10 C) to about 90 F (32 C). Elevations ranged from 4000 to 5700 ft (1220 to 1740 m). This is a beautiful and relatively rugged area, covered with open, rocky balds, and it receives heavy use from hikers, equestrians, and mountain bikers.

Test Information:

Photo of Katahdin pack. General Description:
The Equinox Katahdin is a lightweight, frameless rucksack made of silicone nylon and mesh, with fully-padded shoulder straps and hipbelt, and all the little suspension niceties: load lifters, sternum strap, and hip-belt stabilizer straps. The initial impression is of a giant sil-nylon stuff sack with a suspension system grafted on the side. The pack has no stays, no padded back panel, and no framesheet, and as a result weighs in at 23 ounces (652 g) on my kitchen scale. My Initial Report contains full details about the features of the Katahdin.

Testing:
I have continued to use the Equinox Katahdin ultralight pack on day hikes and lightweight backpacking trips through the six-month test period. Please read my Field Report for my experiences with the comfort and convenience of the Katahdin in use. To summarize, I have found it to be a well-made and comfortable pack as long as I keep my total load below 22 pounds (10 kg), including food and water. For me, the Katahdin simply lacks the support structure to handle heavier loads. For my style of lightweight hiking, this limits the pack to warm-weather trips, when I can carry my summer down sleeping bag, an ultralight tarp shelter, and minimal extra clothing. My base weight for these trips was in the 13 lb (6 kg) range. However, at 3350 in^3 (55 l), the Katahdin is large for an ultralight pack, and I have met a number of true ultralight hikers who would be able to use this pack in colder weather.

Durability
The Katahdin has held up well to six months of moderate use. I did manage to back into a barbed-wire fence one day when picking wild blueberries on the Pine Mountain Trail, which put a small gash in the sil-nylon fabric. The gash doesn't seem to be spreading, though, and the pack otherwise looks pretty much like it did when I received it. (I can tell you from experience that there is nothing quite like the sound of sil-nylon meeting barbed wire. It is not a nice sound, but, luckily, it turned out to be more sound than fury.)

My Opinions:
So, does this unusual and innovative suspension system work? Looking back at the journal I kept while I was testing, I found this quote, which sums up my feelings rather well:

I think this pack has an identity crisis: is it an ultralight frameless ruck, with a 20-pound load limit? If so, it’s too heavy at 23 ounces, since there are packs on the market at half that weight. Is it a lightweight pack with a solid harness and suspension that can handle 30 pounds? Well, no. The compression straps help, but the limit for me is 20 pounds. In order to handle larger loads, the pack needs usable load lifters, and for that it needs a framesheet or a couple of stays/rods/hoop of some sort of lightweight composite material. Something that will let the lifters pull in the load while taking weight off the shoulders. Even with such a system, this would still be one of the lightest such packs on the market.

The Katahdin has, as noted above, a terrific suspension system, including one of the most comfortable hip belts I've ever worn. It has load-lifter straps on the shoulder harness, hip belt tensioners, and a creative compression strap system that stiffens the pack's contents to provide a 'frame.' Unlike any other frameless ruck that I have tried, if the Katahdin is very carefully packed, the pack can put a fair amount of the load on my hips.

However, only rarely have I been able to achieve this state of packing perfection. More often, I find the pack sagging into itself, getting lower and lower on my back, and putting more and more of the total load on my shoulders. I realize that everyone has a different tolerance for carrying weight on the shoulders, but I am one of those hikers who prefers most of the weight to be on my hips. When I attempt to transfer the weight back to my hips by tightening the load lifters and loosening the shoulder straps, the pack just sinks lower and the situation repeats itself. The reason for this is clear: it is difficult to get load lifters (the primary means of shifting weight to the hips) to work properly on a frameless pack. Even the compression system on the Katahdin has a hard time making the lifters work.

Again, the degree of comfort depends a lot on the total load. With loads in the 16 pound range (7 kg), which I usually achieve on the last day of a hike (it's close to my base weight), the pack is superbly comfortable. When my load is in the 22 lb (10 kg) range, I have to pack very carefully to get any benefit from the lifters, and the pack can start to hurt my shoulders by the end of the day. Above this weight, and I am unable to make the Katahdin work well for me.

Suggestions for improvement:
Given my experience with the Katahdin, I would like to make a couple of suggestions for improvement:

1. Consider adding a lightweight hoop or framesheet to improve the operation of the load-lifters. This sounds like a radical suggestion for a frameless pack, but adding a simple carbon-fiber or Delrin hoop that went from the hip belt stabilizers to the load-lifters would fully exploit the suspension system, allowing the load-lifters to function properly at all times. Given the great hip belt, anything that allowed me to transfer more weight to the hips would be an improvement. Such a system doesn't need to add much weight to the pack: I have been experimenting with using aluminum tent-pole sections inside the pack to provide this support, and my initial tests showed promise. The poles only weigh a couple of ounces (50g). (This is a common method for adding rigidity to a frameless pack.) This would have the added benefit of making the pack easier to load (it would stand up by itself), and it should greatly increase its load-handling ability. One downside would be that the pack would take up more room when empty.

2. Cover the mesh panel on the suspension side with sil-nylon on the inside of the pack, creating a complete cylinder of waterproof material. As it stands now, the back of the pack is completely open to the rain, requiring me to line the pack with a trash compactor bag to keep the contents dry. In addition, it would be nice if the major seams could be sealed with silicone sealant. The current seam finishing is very professional and looks great, but French seams would be easier to seal.

3. Design a weather-resistant closure for the top of the bag. The simple drawstring closure is easy and fast to use, but it leaves a hole in the top of the pack. There are several packs out there with roll-down or twist closures, and the additional fabric shouldn't add more than a few grams. If the pack had sealable seams and a water-resistant closure, I wouldn't need to use both a pack cover and a plastic pack liner the keep my gear dry.

4. I would like to see a large mesh pocket on the front of the pack for carrying wet gear and clothing. I don't know if this is possible given the three compression straps, but it would be a big help for my style of hiking.

Conclusion
Overall, I like this pack. When I keep my total weight down, it's comfortable, easy to use, and makes me feel like I have joined some Ancient and Noble Society of Ultralight Hikers. That's me, dancing down the trail with my summer backpacking load, feeling great. My biggest peeves really concern the weather-proofing; if I could have suggestions #2 an #3 implemented on my pack, I would be a much happier camper. Adding some sort of rigid support for the load-lifters is less important, but I would find a lot of use for a slightly heavier but more supportive pack. In any case, I will continue to use the Katahdin for warm-weather solo backpacking.

Thank you to Equinox Ltd. and BackpackGearTest for giving me the opportunity to test the Katahdin.

Read more reviews of Equinox gear
Read more gear reviews by Ken Bennett

Long Term Report