Jeremy
01-25-2005, 20:42
I work @ REI in St. Louis, MO, and just the other day we got in some interesting new gear. The first is an ultra-light multi-day pack made by REI. There are three versions, the UL 30, the UL 45, and the women's specific UL 45. The body is mostly constructed out of sil-nylon, but the high wear areas are ripstop. They have one zippered pocket on the front, a few mesh pockets, and a top lid pocket. On both sizes (on both the 30 and 45) the suspenion can adjust about 4 inches up and down, which is hard to find on an ultra-light pack. They also don't have compression straps, they use a drawcord that is stiched between two layers of fabric on the whole front of the pack which creates an "X" to squeeze it in. Today I took the UL 30 and loaded it up with 28 pounds, which is its "recomended" weight limit. I dialed in the fit for myself and threw it on, it felt pretty nice, but I would recomend not putting more than 25 pounds in it. The UL 45 felt good with abou 33 or 34 pounds in it, but I wouldn't recomend it holding more. All of the packs weigh under three pounds, I even checked them on our shipping scale. All in all, check out REI's website or visit a store and chek them out. The other thing we got in is a shelter made by REI called the "gimme shelter". It is basically a large tarp connected to a removable floor that you set up with trekking poles. The only down side is there is no bug protection. This shelter weighed 2.76 pounds packaged weight on our shipping scale. It has plenty of room for two, plus gear, and it packs down to the size of a nalgene. The shelter is $129.00, the UL 30 is $80.00, and the UL 45 is $110.00. If anyone else has checked these products out, tried them out, or has any feedback on them, I would love to hear it. I just wanted to let everyone now about some new stuff. In the store they weren't bad, but it would be nice to hear about their performance in the field. Thanks for reading my post!:D