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Reviews > Stuff Sacks > Dry Bags > Pacific Outdoor Equip Pneumo LTW Dry Bag > Colleen Porter > Initial Report
Personal Details Tester: Colleen Porter Expected Field Conditions: The majority of my testing will take place in southern California, in local mountains and along the coastline. I'll be testing the Pneumo Ltw in fresh, salt, and probably chlorinated water. I'll use the Pneumo as a beach bag and possibly in a kayak during our annual week-long campout on the California coast. The Pneumo Ltw will get sandy for sure, and will be out in the sun every day. We will be visiting Glacier National Park this summer, paddling on Flathead Lake (also in Montana), and the possibility exists that I'll be going to NE Texas for a while, too. I expect the Pneumo Ltw will experience rain, blazing sun, humidity, mud, sand, and almost certain abuse from my children. Elevations will range from sea level to probably over 8000 ft/2400 m, and temperatures will range from roughly 30 F / -1 C to probably over 100 F / 38 C. Product Description: A roll-top dry-bag with a compression valve at the bottom left side (when looking at the bag's logo side) and slots at the bottom corners which allow webbing or thin cord to be passed through. The bottom of the bag is neither rounded or squared off, rather it is just seamed across. The end result is that the bag will not stand up on its own when full (or when empty, for that matter). It is a bright orange, the only color offered in this style. Here is an excerpt from POE's product description: "We kept all the features of our benchmark Pneumo dry bags; welded construction, roll top closure, compression purge/fill valve, and added weight savings with the introduction of a new 40Dx30D ripstop fabric and a refined closure." Initial Impressions: I already own an older POE Pneumo Mech dry-bag, which also has a compression valve, so I had an inkling of what to expect from the Pneumo Ltw. It's quite a pleasant shade of bright orange - not exactly fluorescent hunting season orange. More tangerine orange. It looks quite nice out in the sunlight, and I expect that its bright color will make it easy to spot if it should accidentally fall out of a boat. I immediately stuffed it with my REI Kilo Plus sleeping bag, which is a 0 F/-18 C down bag. It fit easily, but even with the compression valve open to allow air out of the bottom of the bag I still had to exert a little force to get it down to the bottom. I then rolled and clipped the top of the bag shut, and proceeded to squeeze out as much air as I could through the compression valve. I was able to shrink the size of the bag quite impressively. The valve is exactly the same sort of valve one would find on a self-inflating sleeping bag - it twists one way to open and twists the other way to close. Performance: I took the stuffed Pneumo Ltw out for a walk along my local creek, so that I could toss it in and see how well it works. I did just that - tossed it into a nice deep pool (see the picture at the top of the report). It floated nicely and I let it stay in the water for a while, then retrieved it with a long stick. I walked along and found a section of creek that was flowing nicely but had enough large rocks to prevent the bag from being swept away by the current. This time I placed, rather than tossed, the bag in the water. I let it float along and gently bounce into rocks for a while, occasionally steering it with another long stick. Eventually, I pulled it out and brought it home. The DWR coating on the Pneumo Ltw did a nice job of preventing the bag from getting really wet, even though it spent plenty of time in the water. At home, when I opened the bag, I was surprised to see that a small amount of water had somehow seeped in through the top closure. I hadn't anticipated that at all, so I went back and read the instructions on the packaging that the Pneumo Ltw came in (note to self - always read the instructions, even when the process seems obvious!). When I initially rolled up the bag closure, I had assumed that I knew how to close up a dry-bag correctly, but now I suspect that I didn't roll the top down quite as many times as I should have. Since this was just at-home goofing around, it wasn't really a problem, but when I use the Pneumo out in the wilds I'll have a much smaller margin of error! Next time I'll be more conscientious about how I close the bag, and hopefully there will be no more instances of water leaking in through the rolltop closure. Test Plan: Mainly I will utilize the Pneumo Ltw as a pack liner/waterproof stuff sack. I’ll likely use it in my Camelbak or REI Flash pack for day hikes, and my REI UL 45 pack for overnight trips. Since it has that nifty little valve, I
can squeeze air out or blow air in, depending on what I need or
want. This will be a really handy
feature for trips that require swimming across a large creek or calm
river. I hiked the Virgin
River
narrows a few years ago with a friend who used one of P.O.E’s standard
Pneumo
dry bags as a pack (P.O.E. builds them with webbing channels for just
this
purpose) and he used it as a float in the deeper sections of the river. I'm hoping to have
an opportunity to use it in this manner. Durability is my main concern – can the Pneumo Ltw take a little abuse? Pack liners get pulled and shoved around inside a pack, opened and closed a LOT. I’ve tended to pop or tear holes in the plastic bags I’ve used as pack liners, even the heavy-duty bags. Will the constant rolling, unrolling, shoving, cramming, pulling, loading and unloading start to wear off the waterproof coating? Will it be too much for the lighter fabric? The Pneumo Ltw will get a LOT of hot, direct sunlight on our annual beach campout. Seven days of it, with each night cold and foggy. Kids will probably try to get into it. I’ll be able to toss it, full of stuff, into fresh, salt, and chlorinated water. In Montana, I can pack it full of warm clothes and snacks, then take it paddling on Flathead Lake. We won’t do anything more ambitious than paddle over to Wolf Island (which is really just a speck with a couple of trees on it) for a picnic, but the Pneumo Ltw can hold our jackets and our food. If I’m feeling especially perverse, I could drag it on a rope behind a motorboat, although that’s probably outside the realm of its intended use. I’ll also use it on day hikes in Glacier National Park (but I probably won’t take the kids out on an overnighter in Grizzly Country). These things, and any others that come
up in the course of
the test, will all be faithfully reported on.
Thanks to BGT and to POE for letting me test the Pneumo Ltw! Read more reviews of Pacific Outdoor Equipment gear Read more gear reviews by Colleen Porter Reviews > Stuff Sacks > Dry Bags > Pacific Outdoor Equip Pneumo LTW Dry Bag > Colleen Porter > Initial Report | |||
