Reviewer Information

• Name: Cora Hussey
• Age: 23
• Gender: Female
• Height: 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
• Weight: 150 lb (70 kg)
• Email address: cahhmc "at" yahoo "dot" com
• Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
• Date: May 18, 2004

Basic Product Information

• Year of Manufacture: 2004
• URL: http://www.gregorypacks.com/
• Listed weight: 5 lb 4 oz (2.4 kg)
• Weight as delivered:
  • Removable top lid alone: 5 oz (140 g)
  • Body alone: 5 lb 5 oz (2.4 kg)
  • Total pack: 5 lb 10 oz (2.55 kg)
• Advertised Capacity: 3650 cu in (60 L)
• Size: Medium frame, Medium hipbelt, Medium harness
• My waist and torso: Waist 31 in (80 cm), Torso approximately 19 in (48 cm)
• I used a Gregory Fit-O-Matic to obtain a correct fit before choosing my size

Field Testing

• Trip One: Backpacking around Mt. Dade
  • Dates: April 30 - May 2
  • Location: Inyo National Forest, California
  • Weather: Sunny and clear, 75 to 20 F (24 to -7 C)
  • Elevation: 8000 to 13,500 ft (2400 to 4100 m)

  Description:
  On this trip, I carried a 35 lb (16 kg) late-winter-type backpacking load, and later added on top of that an ice axe, helmet, crampons, and whatnot for snow climbing on Dade. This included a spring weight sleeping bag, shovel, tarp, insulated parka, full rain shell for top and bottom, some fleece layers, a whole city of warm hats (I like wearing two or three at a time), food, various small items including a headlamp, a gallon (3.8 L) of water (I like water), and some fuel for a stove which someone else carried. With this load, the Deva was at its maximum capacity.

  The Deva hangtag states that it is most useful for loads up to 40 lb (18 kg). But, it seemed like such a spiffy pack that I thought I'd go ahead and overload it anyway. One item of note is that I could not even begin to fit a bear resistant canister with anything else winter-sized in this pack. No way, no how. I had to cajole my awesome friends into carrying both canisters we had. I hiked with the pack on and off trail (though it did not make much difference as everything was covered in snow) up to the base of Dade, and then up the main couloir toward the summit.

  Comments:
  On this trip, the Deva certainly felt overloaded. The hipbelt dug into my hips (I had to shift it around to keep it from bruising me) and the shoulder straps dug into my shoulders so much that my neck was cramping by the end. (Although that was possibly also due to the fact that I was dog tired.) However, it still balanced well, still stuck close to my back, and still carried reasonably well. In other words, it simply felt like I had overloaded it and was feeling the extra weight, not that it got floppy or began performing badly. Needless to say, I was impressed. I also made a mental note to pay more respect to the estimated load numbers on the hangtags.

  One thing that I thought was most silly was that the ice axe attachment (bottom loop and small top loop) is in the center of the pack. This is silly because also in the center is the small front pocket. When things are packed inside that pocket, and I put an axe over that pocket, the pocket makes the axe stick out about 8 in (20 cm) from the pack! After some bad jokes about no one wanting to hike behind me, no one wanting to make me mad so I don't skewer them, etc, we fumbled with it and came to the conclusion of that, no... I was attaching the ice axe in the same way that Gregory probably intended me to, and that Gregory just hadn't thought it through enough. One solution is to put nothing in the pocket (which was not an option as the pack was overloaded anyway), and the other solution is to pull the ice axe all the way to the very extent of the bottom loop and attach it slanted sideways but sticking out much less (which is what I did).

  Another thing I tried (and failed) packing at home were items such as snow pickets. I would have brought the Deva on another weekend which needed them, but there is simply no good place to attach them cleanly. I certainly like the side loop under the mesh pocket (which I assume is for racking things, in my biased perception) but actually carrying the pickets on the pack when they are not in use and racked is yet another issue which I cannot find a clean solution to. The side pockets make anything attached to the side stick out obscenely, and the single strap running across them allows anything strapped there to pivot wildly. Thus, I waited until this trip to use the Deva.

  These two packing points aside, I was quite impressed with the Deva. It rode exceptionally well, especially when I took most of the load out for our day scramble. I moved around a lot (reaching with arms, high-stepping, scrambling), and the Deva stuck faithfully to my back, in balance. It also was impressive to simply survive the trip without a scratch. I butt-slid down a few thousand feet (1000 m) of granite and snow and the Deva took it all in stride. By the end of the day trip, I even forgot I was trying to evaluate the Deva because it felt so much like a trustworthy companion. The balance felt right, the pack could be cinched down for lower loads, and it was quite comfortable when not overloaded.

  Overall, I used the Deva on a fairly demanding trip for its first trip. Although I found that (a) its stated maximum load is rather accurate and thus it gets uncomfortable quickly over 40 lb (18 kg), (b) that an ice axe is hard to attach, and (c) other items (pickets) are near hopeless, otherwise the Deva turned out to be a great backpacking pack with a super stable fit and great profile for lots of reaching, jumping, and sliding.

• Trip Two: Backpacking on Mount Baldy
  • Dates: May 13-14, 2004
  • Location: Mt Baldy, Angeles National Forest, California
  • Weather: Beautiful, 75 to 35 F (24 to 2 C)
  • Elevation: 6000 to 10,000 ft (1800 to 3000 m)

  Description:
  This was a more standard backpacking trip. It was only one night, and I did it with lighter gear (30 lb, 14 kg) on a dirt and rock trail. I did not carry a shelter, but I carried food, 3 L (100 fl oz) of water, a spring weight sleeping bag and pad, a fleece and down vest, a pot set and large white gas stove, a rain shell for top and bottom, and various other small items. Everything went inside, and with this load the Deva was loaded perfectly with perhaps room for one or two more fleece tops to spare.

  Comments:
  On this trip, the Deva carried like a dream. Sometimes, packs which are stable off-trail tend to cinch down too much on trail. This was certainly not the case here, and the Deva turned out to be a lot more comfortable than it was when overloaded and pushed to its limit on the previous trip. On this trip, I began to appreciate the slimmer profile. It still had the great balance from the previous trip, but I noticed that the side pockets did not impinge on my natural trail-style arm swinging. Also, the back panel felt like it rested nicely in-between my shoulder blades and did not spill over onto my shoulders themselves like some larger designed-for-men packs do. In many ways, I am built more like a slender man (mostly in terms of outdoor clothing), but in terms of slim packs the Deva seems to be the right ticket.

  One less desirable item I did note was that the padding on the Deva is minimal. This probably adds a great deal to its stability. And, by far and large, the Deva has excellent and comfortable padding where it needs it (hip belt and shoulder straps). However, on the back panel there are only two pads which rest against the long back muscles of my torso. This is great, but I have somewhat pointy vertebrae. And two of my vertebrae poke out farther than the padding on the muscles around them poke out. The end result: those two vertebrae rest directly against the hard plastic frame. They rubbed uncomfortably a bit for the first part of the trip, and then I stopped slouching as much and walked straighter. It was a bit annoying, but it is probably going to force me to improve my backpacking posture and thus I probably shouldn't complain too much.

Comments by Attribute

+ Packability: Good
Comments: This pack has a lot of options for small items. Four zipper pockets (top, two sides, and front center), one mesh pocket, and the one canted water bottle pocket make me put my organizational skills to good use. I really liked all the options to have each item have its place in the pack. The problem comes when I try to pack bulky items. Bear-resistant canister? Long snow pickets? Long tent poles? Wish me luck. The single side straps are basically useless because things pivot under the single attachment point. Conceivably, another end of something short and thin can be pinned down by being shoved in the (tight) mesh side pocket. However, the only thing I found I actually could use the mesh side pocket for (with it being so tight) was my energy bar wrappers. Plus, the ice axe attachment (as mentioned above) is just not well thought out. But, for normal backpacking items (apart from the bear canister) the Deva fits enough for a weekend and has lots of options to rearrange the small items.

+ Comfort: Great
Comments: I'll describe the comfort as: "Stiff, yet adequate". The Deva is certainly not a cushy pack, but it is surprisingly comfortable for how stiffly and closely it rides on my back. The hipbelt is slim, and the shoulder straps are completely devoid of any frills whatsoever, but after twisting, jumping, sliding, glissading, hiking, and overloading it beyond what it was designed for, all I came away with was two sore points where my vertebrae poked against the back frame, and a neck cramp (which was probably my fault in the first place). No bruising, no nothing.

+ Stability: Excellent
Comments: This is my favorite part about the pack. It rides like a stiff and responsive climbing pack, and is easily packed for good stability. The lumbar pad sticks like duct tape to my hips, I can cinch down on the hipbelt for all it's worth and it only gets more stable, the two pads against my torso muscles are thin enough to keep the pack from flopping back and forth (though the thinness creates other problems, as described above), and the shoulder pads grip and stay put. In addition, I can transfer all the weight to my hips, and still have the pack stay put comfortably. The elastic in the sternum strap does wonders for the comfort, since I cinch everything down to the bitter ends of straps for stability and the elastic still lets me breathe (a good thing). I also like the narrow profile. The pictures of the pack I've seen (such as on Gregory's website) made the pack look, well... fat. But in reality I have found it to be nicely and athletically slim. I think this adds to the stability a lot because I don't have extra weight flopping around on the outside of my shoulders.

Summary

• Upsides for me so far:
  • Very stable and well-balanced
  • The bottom survived a lot of butt-sliding
  • Super stable
  • Shoulder strap and hipbelt padding is very comfortable
  • How did they make it so stable?
• Downsides for me so far:
  • Ice axe attachment is not well thought out
  • Pickets and other long items are nearly impossible to attach to the sides
  • Padding in the vertebrae area is a bit thin

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Reviews > Packs > Internal and External Framed Backpacks > Gregory Deva > Cora Hussey > Field Report