Reviews > Packs > Internal and External Framed Backpacks > Ultimate Direction Cohiba > Thomas Peltier > Long Term Report

I have been in the outdoors since I was a toddler. My mother introduced me to backpacking when I was in the backpack. I in good turn joined the Boy Scouts to get away from Mom on the weekend hikes. My first backpack trip with the Boy Scouts was down a dirt road to a park and campsite. That was my last trip with the Boy Scouts. Since then I have been backpacking mostly in the Sierra Nevada.

I have been a professional river guide and kayak instructor for the last 11 years; however, I currently work at a family establishment in Bakersfield, California. Working a "Real Job" keeps me away from the outdoors a bit more than I would like. My summers are busy between city work and river guiding. Much of my packing is done on the river in the summer. This has driven me to long winter trips and short summer trips for the last several years. I took up snowshoeing to help get into winter packing. I have found that less is often more in my backpacking and my summer trips I find myself as happy in a pair of Chacos carrying my pocketknife as I do with a heavy pack and big boots.

I am not an adventure racer but I do demand a lot from my backpacks and the Ultimate Direction Cohiba has lived up to the difficult task. I had many opportunities this summer to take the Cohiba on short one and two night trips. I even had the opportunity to take the pack out for an entire week. Oh, what fun I have had with the Cohiba.

The key feature about this back that I would like to talk about is the shoulder strap design. Specifically, how the shoulder straps are connected together at the bottom over a rigid rod. This feature allows the shoulder straps to stay in place even when I'm climbing. The more I twist my shoulders the tighter the Cohiba seems to grip. When the hatches are battened down and all the pockets and straps secured I can run jump and climb with the Cohiba and never have a stray movement from the pack. I am impressed with the performance of the frame set and with the innovative design of the shoulder straps.

The only problem I have had with the Cohiba was the removable pouches. They work great for dumping a little bit of weight but the problem is finding them again when I need them. I left the rear pocket at a friend's house after a backpacking trip this summer and didn't find it again for almost a month. Now this isn't really the fault of the backpack but some features just work better for different people. As for me I'm kind of forgetful and, well, sometimes I loose things.

At 2500 cu inches (41 L) the Cohiba is not the most spacious backpack I have ever used. When I'm heading out on trips longer than 2 or 3 days I do have some trouble making everything fit. I have to be creative when packing the Cohiba. For me taking advantage of the duckbill became very important. It took me a while to work out how to fold my sleeping pad and ground cloth to fit under the duckbill but I eventually figured it out. The more food I brought backpacking the more creative I had to become while packing. The trade off for this is in the performance. Like I said before, I really like the way this pack rides on my back.

Over the coarse of this test I have had the opportunity to use the Cohiba backpack from sea level to just about 10,000 feet (3048 m) and from tempuratures of 15F (-9 C) to just over the century mark (38 C). The entire time the Cohiba rides high and stays right where it belongs. Oh what a feeling is a coined phrase but... To sum things up, I found that the Cohiba fits me very well and is easy to carry. The removable compartments are nice for organizing things but I can't seem to keep my hands on them so I try to just leave them on the pack all the time. The Cohiba at 2500 cu inches (41 L) is a small pack for extended trips but I tend to carry small light packs so the Cohiba and I have been a good match. I will continue to use the Cohiba for my day hiking and overnight backpacking trips. I imagine that if you see me in high summer deep in the Sierra Nevada that I will still be sporting the Cohiba, because I just love to have the Cohiba on my back, it simply feels good.

Reviews > Packs > Internal and External Framed Backpacks > Ultimate Direction Cohiba > Thomas Peltier > Long Term Report