PERSONAL BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Rick Allnutt
51 Year old male
6' 0'' (183 cm) in height
190 lbs (86 kg) in weight
Email address: rick (at) BackpackGearTest (dot) org
Personal Hiking Page: http://www.imrisk.com
I live in Dayton, Ohio

BACKPACKING BACKGROUND
Over the last several years, I have become an ultralight camper with a three-season base pack weight of about 15 lb (7 kg) and skin out weight of 23 lb (10 1/2 kg). I have completed many section hikes on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in all four seasons, with a total mileage of about 570 miles (918 km). I am a gearhead, a hammock camper, and make much of my own equipment.

PRODUCT INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Fanatic Fringe 
Year Manufactured: 2004
Manufacturer's Link: http://www.fanaticfringe.com/
MSRP: US$69
Size: Large
Listed Weight: 9.5 oz (269 g)
Measured Weight: 9.2 oz (260 g) 
Listed Volume: 2400 cu in (39 L) for the main body 
   400 cu in (6.5 L) mesh pockets 
   800 cu in (13 L) more with the extension collar up

TEST CONDITIONS
Since my Field Report, I have carried the Thompson Peak pack on two AT section hikes and an overnight hike in the Adirondack Mountains. I carried 5 days of food on one of the AT hikes through the Smoky Mountains National Park. During a late September hike, I walked through the aftermath of hurricane Jeanne, with 36 hours of rain and incredibly strong winds while crossing the exposed Roan Highlands of Tennessee.  Temperatures were moderate to cool, and trail conditions included a large number of blow-downs; requiring climbing over, under, and around the tangles to continue on the trail.

REVIEW
The Fanatic Fringe pack is the only pack I used all summer. It carried the stuff that was my "home away from home" for hundreds of miles ((1.6 * hundreds) of kilometers for the metric crowd). While I had the opportunity to think about failures of shoes, socks, and my poor old body, the pack never slacked, and never really gave me reason to think about it. Not a stitch broke. The fabric did not tear. The shoulder straps stayed attached to the pack and did not make my shoulders hurt. It's true what they say, "No news is good news!"

For a detailed description of the pack, see my Initial Report.

The Thompson Peak pack by Fanatic Fringe is a wonderfully light and easy to carry pack. It is built for the ultralight hiker and I have stayed within what are considered near ultralight pack weight norms. The most weight I carried was measured at 23 lb (10.4 kg) with 5 days of food. Most of the time, my pack weight was between 16 and 18 lb (7-8 kg).

I almost always use the pack as recommended, with a closed cell pad "frame" inside the pack, cradling my gear like a barrel. Not once have I been aware of any bump protruding into my back. (Occasionally I use the pack as a day pack without the pad. It works well to carry lunch, rain gear, a sweater and a Native American flute too.)

I tested the version of the pack that comes without a hip belt. I remain completely satisfied with this configuration. The pack does not sway and the shoulder straps never bite into my bony shoulders. The fact is, I occasionally sit down to rest, or stop to talk, and forget to take my pack off. It makes me feel sort of silly, walking away from some other hiker, having spent 10 minutes talking, realizing that I could have taken my pack off but forgot to do so! The pack is that comfortable.

At the end of a long day, sometimes I do feel a little tired in my shoulders. My technique for reducing this weariness is to slip one strap near my neck and the other strap out further over my other shoulder for a half hour. Then I push the pack to the other side, so the strap that has been near my neck is out on the point of its shoulder and the strap that has been lateral is near my neck. This makes it comfortable to walk for several additional hours when I feel like "pushing the envelope" near and above 20 mi (32 km) for the day's walk.

I use a simple home-made rain cover for the pack made from silnylon. It is an oval shaped piece of cloth with a hem and a drawstring like I would put in a stuff sack. This rain cover does not keep rain from entering the seams between the back panel of the pack and its side panels. Because I line the pack with waterproof closed cell foam, any water that drips through these side seams runs down the outside of the foam, but can form a puddle in the bottom of the pack. The first modification I will make of the pack at the conclusion of this Long Term Report will be to install a small grommet in the bottom of the pack to allow water to drip out of the pack instead of pooling. I also use a packing plan that keeps a layer of gear at the bottom of my pack which is minimally affected by water: my cook pot, food bag, and tarp.

The mesh side pockets of the pack have proved to be very useful. I normally put my Mapdana, a water cup, a small square of Tyvek for sitting, and my camera in the back pocket. One side pocket holds my liter sized water bladder and the other carries my flute and a small bottle of fuel alcohol.  The side pockets would be even more useful if they were the same height as the back pocket.  This would allow me to carry a little more water in my hydration bladder.  As it is, with the one-liter bladder, I need to fold over the top quarter of the bladder and tuck it between the rest of the bladder and the pack.

The compression side straps have not been necessary for their designed purpose. Even when the pack is not quite full, the closed cell pad is resistant to being molded by the compression straps. However, I have used the straps to hold the tops of long objects (like my flute or a pair of collapsed trekking poles) that I store in the short side pockets of the pack.

The method for closing the top of the pack described in my Initial Report (and shown in the photo at the beginning of this report) has continued to work well.  I continue to use this as an attachment point to dry socks or a bandanna. The plastic grommet through which one of the draw strings passes (described fully in the Initial Report) has become useless. At the conclusion of the test, I will remove it and sew a buttonhole opening to reinforce the drawstring opening.

CONCLUSIONS
I am thrilled with the long-term performance of this pack. I believe it is a bargain worth buying. I would prefer a couple technical changes in the pack's design as detailed in my reports, but it is completely functional right now and a better pack than any other I have built or owned. I sincerely thank Fanatic Fringe and BGT for allowing me to test this pack.  It will continue to be a part of my ultralight gear kit.

The pack is still an unusual sight on the AT. I hope that word of mouth, the BGT reviews, and marketing will expand its customer base. I believe that the "smile ratio" of hikers would improve if more of us carried this ultralight pack.