Reviews > Packs > Frameless Backpacks and Day Packs > Six Moon Designs Comet > Jamie J. DeBenedetto > Field Report

Six Moon Designs Comet Backpack
(with optional frame stays)

Field Report - July 26th, 2005

Reviewer's Information

Background/Experience

I've pretty much been what my husband refers to as a "tree hugger" since birth but my backpacking life started in earnest about seventeen years ago. These days I spend about 15 days a month in the outdoors either with the Canine Hiking Club of AZ or with my family. My backpacking style is lightweight but not ultralight. I sleep in a hammock most of the time and I keep my pack base weight (less food or water) below 15 lbs (7 kg) for three season outings of two to three days. I tend to gravitate toward multifunctional gear.

Back to top

Product Information

Back to top

Product Description

The Six Moon Designs Comet is a top entry, frameless backpack designed for ultralight backpacking up to 35 lbs (16 kg). For frame support the Comet makes use of the users sleeping pad and if desired, an optional set of Aluminum stays can be added for more ridged load support. A more detailed rundown of the Comet is available in my Initial Report.

Back to top

Important Note Before I Begin

When I received the Comet it already had the two optional Aluminum frame stays inserted into their respective sleeves. I of course assumed they were correctly inserted and went ahead and used the pack as it was on one overnight backpacking trip and a couple of short day hikes in May. Later I found out the stays were accidentally inserted backwards, convex to my back instead of concave, which is the proper way. Mr. Moak of Six Moon Designs clarified this personally via email and apologized for the slip up. So, although I will be commenting on other aspects of the Comet during the above mentioned outings, I will leave out information related to and affected by the frame stays backward placement.

Field Tests - May through Mid-July

Outing #2 - Two day backpacking trip the beginning of May 2005
(Outing #1 was a quick morning hike the day after I received the Comet to work the kinks out of the pack. Nothing of interest to report.)

Location - Pine Mountain Wilderness, AZ
Weather and Temperatures - Sunny and clear. Highs in the mid 70's F (20's C) with an over-night low around 55 F (13 C).
Pack Details - Total pack weight was 27 lbs (12 kg), a good portion of which was water. Hip belt and shoulder straps were attached and I used a 3/4 length 3/8 in (1 cm) closed cell foam pad in the Pad Pocket along with the frame stays (but unfortunately they were backwards as previously mentioned).

"Do you see it?" This was the unofficial name myself and the other members of my party gave to this "trail" as we bushwhacked and rock-hopped back and forth across the nearby dry creek bed all the way up the mountain. Recognizable as a trail only by sparsely placed rock cairns, some of which were obviously built by evil doers who were no doubt hiding nearby and laughing hysterically at the antics of eight adults milling around the woods searching for a non-existent trail. If I was looking for the perfect place to put the Comet's siliconized nylon fabric and mesh pockets through their paces Pine Mtn. was certainly the place to do it. On several occasions I had to go through or brush past all manner of "wait-a-minute" bushes and other unknown prickly nasties in pursuit of a friendly route. With each plunge through the brush I would hear a scraping sound on the outside of the pack and I would cringe expecting to find a tear, or at least the beginnings of one. During rest breaks I always looked the fabric over to see if anything negative was happing but the nylon held strong. I did have to remove little flora hitchhikers from the mesh a few times but the pockets were not damaged by these short-term passengers.

As this was my inaugural backpack trip with the Comet we had much to work out with each other. I must admit the Comet never reveled its "sweet spot" to me no matter how much I tried to persuade it with my tightening and loosening of straps. Of course, I'm assuming most of my fit problems were related to the frame stays so I wont go into too much complaining. On the other hand, I will say I was not very impressed with the padding on the hip belt. I had sore spots and slight bruising on my hips when I woke up on day two of my trip. Bruising and hip soreness is not common for me, even in my teens when I was a Skinny Minny and carried a much older and heavier external pack I never had a problem.

Conversely, I found the padding on the shoulder straps to be sufficiently comfortable, even though more of the load was on my shoulders than I'd like (again, it is possible this is a result of the backward frame stays). The real concern I had with the shoulder straps is their length; they are just barely long enough. I realize with a 19 in (48 cm) torso I'm pushing the edge of the height limit for this pack so this might be the reason. It is also possible the previously mentioned backward frame stays had an affect. Nevertheless, the shorter straps did make for difficult adjusting. I normally like to release one strap to make it easier to exit the harness when I drop my pack. Unfortunately, with the Comet once the end of the strap was sucked up close to the buckle it was darn near impossible to grab and made retightening the strap very tricky. I had to be extra careful when taking the pack off to not let the strap slip too close to the buckle. Also, I was only wearing a t-shirt while on this trip and it occurred to me that if the shoulder straps were already almost at their limit I might have a hard time using the pack when I have on more layers. I'll make sure to comment about this in my Long-term report if it becomes and issue.

I discovered the Comet has some pros and cons regarding accessing gear despite the simplistic design of the pack compartments. I really miss the convenience of having pockets on the hip belt but I found I could just utilize the pockets in my pants more and chalk it up as weight savings. The exterior mesh pockets are extremely convenient with regard to storing quick grab items or wet things but they are much too tall to take things out without the assistance of a friend or taking the pack off. Although inconvenient, this feature is understandable given the Comet's design, and overall was not a really big deal for me on this particular adventure. The most undesirable feature I encountered with the Comet on this trip is the roll top closure on the main compartment. On the positive side, when the opening is open it is nice and large and that makes packing and unpacking very easy. The down side is I find having to buckle, then unroll, then tear apart the hook-and-loop strip then repeat in reverse when done just to get into the pack quite tedious. I also have very serious doubts about the long-term survival rate of the hook-and-loop strip. Again, something for the Long-Term report I guess.

Back to top

Outings #5 and #6 - Day hikes in May and June 2005
(On outings #3 and #4 I was still using the pack with the stays in backwards so I am skipping discussion of these trips, as they are not relevant.)

Location - Sonoran Desert - South central AZ
Weather and Temperatures - Sunny and clear. Temperatures in the mid to upper 90's (mid 30's C).
Pack Details - Total pack weight was 15 lbs (7 kg), a good portion of which was water. Hip belt and shoulder straps were attached and I used a 3/4 length 3/8 in (1 cm) closed cell foam pad in the Pad Pocket. Frame stays were not used for either of these hikes.

Although the Comet and I survived the Pine Mtn. Wilderness with only a small amount of bloodshed (all mine of course) the experience left me a little concerned about the pack's ability to comfortably handle my normal backpacking load; usually I hover around the 23-24 lbs (10-11 kg) range with food and water. I decided in order to give the pack a fair assessment I should take a more structured approach to testing. I really wanted to give the Comet a chance to show me what it could do at the weight it was more likely designed to carry, 17 lbs (7.5 kg) or less (that's from the manufacture's website). To test this I dropped the pack weight down to a svelte 15 lbs (7 kg), took out the frame stays and inserted my ¾ length closed cell foam pad into the Pad Pocket. This would be my beginning/stripped down configuration. I'm pretty sure I heard the Comet breath a sigh of relief when I did this.

Since the hangtag and the website do not mention anything about the proper way to insert the frame stays I made sure to take a mental note of how they were inserted when I removed them. Of course as I found out later that was mute since they were incorrect to begin with and I ended up unsure if I had remembered correctly anyway. Which in hindsight is really a good thing because had my Swiss cheese memory not failed me, I would have likely still been using the pack with inverted stays. On a side note, I think adding insertion directions to the website and/or the hangtag would be a good idea just in case another user removes them without taking note or forgets, as I did.

On these two hikes I carried all gear except a 20 oz (.5 L) water bottle on the inside of the pack (the water bottle was in one of the side mesh pockets). By synching up the three compression straps and rolling down the main compartment closure as far as it would go I was able to keep the smaller load very compact and stable. At this lower weight the Comet was considerably more comfortable all around. No hip belt slippage, no sore spots on my hips and certainly no issues with the shoulder or lumbar padding.

I did end up with a very sweaty back and two odd reddish brown stains near the collar of my white t-shirt after the first of these hikes, however. The area where the stains appeared is where the straps ride on my shoulders. It's a complete mystery to me how the marks were produced from the strap material but they could have only come from the straps as I did not have anything else near my neckline. This was a very hot and almost completely exposed trail so the sweating was profuse. All of the padding and other areas of the pack that were in contact with my body were wet by trails end.

Back to top

Outings #7 and #8 - Day hikes in June and part of July 2005

Location - Sonoran Desert - South central AZ
Weather and Temperatures - Sunny and clear. Temperatures around 100 F (38 C).
Pack Details - Total pack weight was 20 lbs (9 kg), a good portion of which was water. Hip belt and shoulder straps were attached and I used a 3/4 length 3/8 in (1 cm) closed cell foam pad in the Pad Pocket. Frame stays were not used during outing #7 but were included (correctly this time) on outing #8.

Due to a small family outbreak of germ sharing I did not make the scheduled backpack trip I had planned to attend in June. I was able to fit in a few day hikes nevertheless, which gave me more opportunities to test the Comet with lighter loads. After having success (meaning a comfortable fit) at 15 lbs (7 kg), I stepped up the weight to 20 lbs (9 kg) for hike number #7. I used the same set up as before, pack without frame stays, ¾ length closed cell foam pad and all the compression straps and main bag collar compressed. I had a few more items in the outside pockets this time around but that did not affect stability. Overall comfort was slightly less than with the lighter load. I felt more weight bearing down on my shoulders and although unpleasant it was short lived since much of my cargo was water and of course that decreased as I walked. At around 18 lbs (8 kg), I'm guessing, it started to feel a little better.

On hike #8 I repeated what I did on outing number #7 with the exception of the frame stays. I included them to see if their presence would alleviate the stress I felt on my shoulders the last time around. They did help and boy what a difference it made to have them correctly inserted. The change was noticeable right away and that was very encouraging since I was very frustrated with the fit after my Pine Mtn. trip.

Back to top

Summary

After two months of testing I have found the Comet to be sufficiently comfortable without the frame stays up to about 18 lbs (8 kg). I am still testing my personal limit with the stays inserted. I'm satisfied with the padding on the shoulder straps but the hip belt gave me some trouble early on. More testing is needed to see if this is actually an issue. The compression straps work well to keep various loads steady and I found the outside mesh pockets to be helpful for storing quick grab items and/or wet gear, however, not convenient with regards to getting to items while wearing the pack. Additionally I found the process needed to get gear out of the main storage bag a bit cumbersome for my tastes and I have concerns about the longevity of the hook-and-loop strip that seals the collar. Finally, the fabric and mesh on the pockets, even though quite abused, has thus far held up well. The initial bit of fraying I found on the end of one of the nylon straps on the hip belt has not worsened. The Comet has now been used more than ten times and it still looks great.

Thank you BGT and Six Moon Designs for the opportunity to be part of this test series.

Jamie J. DeBenedetto
July 26th, 2005

Back to top

Reviews > Packs > Frameless Backpacks and Day Packs > Six Moon Designs Comet > Jamie J. DeBenedetto > Field Report