Re: [pct-l] GoLite Pack question

["Brett Tucker" <blisterfree@hotmail.com>]

Tom and Karen,

Think of the GoLite pack as a day pack or a "book bag" used in school. It's 
very similar, though of a greater capacity than most, and of ultra 
lightweight components of the latest materials. Anything you can do to a day 
pack you can do to the GoLite. You could sew on a hip belt fairly easily, I 
would think, but I don't know that the belt would ride along the hips. The 
pack comes in several sizes, but I don't know how that affects the overall 
vertical length of the pack along the back. My pack, which was an unsized 
prototype, stops just short of my pelvic shelf, so any hip belt attached to 
it would tend to ride too high. But the possibility is there - the back of 
the pack is all one piece of nylon, which then wraps under the bottom to 
meet another piece of nylon in the front. At least on my prototype. But in 
any case, there are no gagdets, bells, or whistles along the back that would 
pose a problem for the amateur seamstress. You'd just be sewing through one 
piece of 330 denier cordura ripstop. The width should be ample for sewing a 
hipbelt in the usual configuration - several inches of material attached to 
the pack before the hipbelt begins its curve around the wearer. The outside 
corners of the pack's bottom have triangular pieces of material that attach 
the shoulder straps at their bottoms. These shouldn't get in the way of the 
hipbelt.

Still, I would question how effective a massive, padded, Dana hipbelt would 
be on a pack that has no suspension. The belt might feel comfortable, but 
would it serve its intended purpose of transfering the load onto the hips? I 
think the answer would be 'no,' unless you could find a way to provide a 
rigid frame to the back. The recommended foam pad and/or clothing wouldn't 
cut it. They'd buckle under the load as you attempted to "stop" the pack at 
your hip level. If it makes it as far as the hips. And so the pack would 
still rest on the shoulders, if not immediately upon donning the pack, then 
certainly within the course of walking and jouncing the pack down-back.

Some of my day packs have webbing hip belts, and I have considered sewing 
something like that onto the GoLite pack, if it proves necessary. This would 
be a thin, maybe 1 or 1.5 inch width of webbing, unpadded, that would 
probably rest above the hips, and would just offer the ability to "tweak" 
the load, as necessary. Another idea might be to sew "load lifters" 
connecting the shoulder straps to the pack at the top. These, too, obviously 
are intended for use with rigid frames, but might offer the tweak effect - 
if the straps happen to rest uncomfortably on the shoulders, adjust the load 
lifters until the straps rest differently, perhaps pulling the pack in 
toward the back in the process.

None of this should be necessary when using the pack as intended, though. 
With a load of under 35 lbs, I'm comfortable these days. I wasn't initially, 
but my shoulders strengthened to the task. This happened during the course 
of hiking 850 PCT miles, most while using the pack. At first, 25 lbs was 
about "it" before things became uncomfortable. Within a week or two, 25 lbs 
felt like nothing. And it progressively got better from there. And there's 
some shoulder definition to show for it, as a side benefit. :)  I'd say the 
trick is to start with a load in the range of 10-15 lbs base weight, no food 
or water. Then, at 2.5lbs of food per day, 3 or 4 days of food on top of 
that should be tolerable. Water could be an issue, depending on the need to 
carry that. I hand carried some water through the PCT's desert stretches, 
mostly when lugging over a gallon. This wasn't as bad as it might seem, 
comfort or balance-wise. And there again, the arms got some definition as a 
result. You can "pump" the water as you hike. :) But I'm getting carried 
away. The GoLite pack works great as intended. Yes, it can handle upwards of 
50 lbs without failure, but it isn't intended to do that, comfort-wise, over 
the long haul. The gear is strong. Shoulders can be made strong. But 
shoulders will probably give out before pack does.

Incidentally, GoLite may have a hip-belted pack available in the future. I 
don't know if it's even on the drawing board at this point, though. It was a 
thought, intended to serve the mountaineering/climbing community who 
sometimes need belts to help maintain their balance in exposed terrain.

Keep in mind that the GoLite pack is patterned after Ray Jardine's own 
packs, the construction methods of which he details in the PCT Handbook as 
well as Beyond Backpacking. Making one's own pack saves a ton of money, and 
you can build it the way you like, from scratch.

- Blisterfree




>From: Tom Hopkins <java2@ix.netcom.com>
>Reply-To: java2@ix.netcom.com
>To: Karen Borski <kborski@yahoo.com>
>CC: pct-l@backcountry.net
>Subject: Re: [pct-l] GoLite Pack question
>Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 12:23:57 -0800
>
>Has anyone actually used a Go Lite Breeze pack with any amount of weight
>in it? Like the equivalant to a 15 lb pack with a weeks worth of food
>and some water? I glanced at the article in Outside Magazine[too cheap
>to buy it!]. It said that 40 lbs would be impossible. Go Lite claims it
>can handle well over 40 lbs. I just don't see how it could be anything
>but extremely painful on the shoulders. Of course I am still considering
>getting one!
>Tom in Sacramento
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