Big and burly, the Patagonia Black Hole 90 Liter Duffel can easily haul a week’s worth
of gear or more and keep it protected on those rough adventures. Let’s take a look at all
of its features.
Taking a first look at the materials used for the Black Hole Duffel. We have got a 900D
polyester rip stop material. It is super durable. It is going to hold up to any of those rough
adventures, you know, tossing it in and out of the back of the truck, whatever adventure
you may throw its way. This rip stop is really durable and will hold up well.
It does have 50 percent of it is solution dye, meaning it is just going to hold its
color over those extended adventures, you know, when your stuff starts to get beat up
and worn, this ... the way that this is dyed, it is meant to hold its color. That way it
doesn’t start to look weird when you get scratches and nicks on it. It is going to,
you know, provide a really nice life in the color and the styling of the bag.
We also have a TPU film laminate with a DWR finish. So that is going to provide some serious
weather protection. While not being fully waterproof, it will provide really, really
good weather protection throughout the bag. It has kind of got a smooth feel. I could
just see water running right off this bag. But, again, the zippers are not waterproof
and some of the other materials are not waterproof, so keep that in mind with the bag, but some
se-rious durability going on with the Black Hole duffel.
Taking a look at some of the features we have got on the Black Hole duffel. There is a large
U shaped zipper that provides access to the main body of the pack. It is just one large
expansive pack so you can fit all of your gear inside nice and easily. On the inside
there are two compression straps, so if you really need to cinch down layers or cinch
down some gear, you can use those integrated straps to do so, so a nice added bonus there.
On the underside of the lid we have got two mesh pockets and they are kind of separated.
So you can store some smaller items in those mesh pockets. It gives you a little bit easier
access when you open up the bag.
On the front here we do have a zippered pocket. So just a nice zippered pocket on the front
that provides quick access to some other items that you may want to keep outside of the actual
contents of the bag.
There are some daisy chain attachment points on the outside. So we have got six daisy chain
attachment points and thy are in four different areas of the bag, front and back, so you can
lash some gear to those daisy chains or even lash these to another duffel should you want
to do that.
And on the bottom we have actually got a nice padded bottom. So when you are tossing the
gear around, like I said, maybe in and out of the back of a truck or a van, you have
got really good padding and protection for all of your gear on the inside with that kind
of reinforced padded bottom.
So some nice features in play on the Black Hole duffel for sure.
Going to the carry options, we have got three different ways you can carry the backpack.
We have got a webbing strap, two webbing straps that come to a buckle closure so you snap
that closed. You can drape those to the side if you want to and not use them or you can
use them as kind of the, you know, duffel style luggage handle there, so a nice fea-ture
there.
We do have two removable backpack straps. So you can actually wear this as a backpack
if you choose to. There is no hip belt or anything like that, so it is just backpack
straps, but you can completely take them off if you don’t want to use them and either
store them in the pack or leave them at home. And we also have two haul loops on either
side of the bag. So some really durable reinforced webbing haul loops and you can just pick up
the bag and toss it around that way as well or, again, you know, lash it to another duffel
if you choose to do that, so some really good carry options with the Black Hole duffel.
Another neat addition with the Black Hole Duffel is that you can actually stuff it into
itself. So if you turn the pack inside out there is a kind of a zipper on the back side
of the exterior pocket and you can roll up the pack nicely and kind of stow it away into
that pocket. So if you are not using it or if you just want to keep it stored at home,
you can stuff it into itself instead of the side and it brings it down to a relatively
reasonable pack size, a pretty nice feature.
And there you have it. So when you are schlepping gear for your next big adventure, the Patagonia
Black Hole 90 Liter Duffel is a great option for good storage and gear protec-tion.