what's up everyone I'm Miranda and I'm po Chuck and this is the REI co-op gear
guide right now we're gonna be talking about this year's best backpacking packs
that you can find at REI
so to pick these packs we looked at customer reviews and we talked about
Custer's members in the store while we're fitting them through new packs and
our first category our weekend packs so when we talk about a weekend pack we're
looking at something between 35 and 50 liters our topic for this category is
the women's maven 45 and the men's Paragon 48 by Gregory
so just high-level what we think is really cool about these packs they're
pretty durable they're lightweight and they're also really feature-rich
especially for their size and they're also really easy to adjust yeah
so one thing that I really like about them is the way they adjust they adjust
off this little velcro panel right here so you've got your size settings right
here so you got medium medium plus and then you bust that open you pull that
out and you'll have large and large plus when I'm talking to customers about
packs I've been a lot of time focusing on the back plate and the suspension and
this one's got a really nice one so what's going on here is that you have a
back plate that fits very very close to your body but it's lashed out of all
these little triangles here so you get a lot of airflow so you know you're
carrying the weight nice and close to your spine it's not gonna be super super
hot so you won't go in those like super sweaty t-shirts or device right yeah
sweaty dude your vibe yeah and it's also like a pretty comfortable system so we
tend to recommend these packs for weekend switches like one night or two
nights or if it's really lightweight summer gear it might be three nights one
night but they're not so they don't sit so far away from your back that they're
gonna be uncomfortable or if you're not used to wearing a pack yeah so for some
people these are good choices as their first pack for backpacking yeah I also
like them as a first choice because they become web stuff so there's a rain cover
built into the pack it's in here which means you don't have to go buy your own
rain cover and that's always cool and I'll see ya just side note on the rain
cover it's not it's like the perfect size for this pack so if you think
you're nice strapping a lot of stuff to the exterior of the pack it's probably
not gonna be the right size I guess so one thing I tell people a lot when
they're tooling up and they're getting their gear for the first time is you
might want to buy your pack last because if you're buying kind of a lower price
point tent your body lower pricepoint no sleeping bag and pad
then it's all gonna be pretty bulky and you want to have an idea that it's all
gonna fit in there so you know once you grab all that stuff you can go get
yourself you know the pack that's gonna fit all of your gear in there and you
get a ring cover it's gonna fit over your pocket right and we you know we
tend to tell people about if it's your first time backpacking your gear is
probably gonna be a little bit bulkier and you're gonna be a little bit heavier
and so a 45 and a 48 liter pack might not be the right size for you they might
just be a little bit small this pack does come in a 45 55 and 65 and this
comes in a 48 58 and 68 so if you really like all of the features and you'd like
the fit of the pack you can always get something larger if you need to a couple
of really cool things about this pack it is lightweight but it does have a lot of
pockets has a lot of places for you to organize things which can be really
great especially when you're figuring out how you want to store your gear so
you have this stow pocket on the outside which is great for an extra layer you
have pockets in the lid of the pack and then you have these straps on the bottom
for attaching a sleeping pad as well as a bottom compartment which will let you
put your seat back down here and then you also have a sunglass holder your
sunglass um way cooler than it looks so you know this little spot here where you
can stow your sunglasses and then this will wrap around the nose piece on your
sunglasses and that's the Paragon the Maven and our next category packs is
gonna be multi-day packs which are 50 to 80 liter packs and our picks for the
best multi-day packs you can find at REI will be AV at most in the aura 65 AG so
probably the coolest thing about the aura and the Atmos AG is that
antigravity or AG suspension system Osprey has designed just a really
comfortable pack it's designed to carry heavy loads for a long period of time
which is pretty neat about these guys yeah it's it's awesome
I mean if somebody's coming into my store my go-to pack the first pack I fit
them into assuming everything else is going to be the aura or the Atmos I just
think that it fits almost everybody great it's really really comfortable it
the way it's built is that your back is gonna sit along this mesh
plate and then the actual weight is gonna stay about this far away from you
so you get a lot of airflow which avoids the totally a thing and because it's so
soft here your body can be almost any shape and you just it's not gonna punch
in on you it's just gonna be really really soft and even is comfortable to
carry for a long period of time which is really neat it kind of feels like a big
hug yep it's like yeah the the the belt is very assertive Algy or assertive keep
in mind with these packs is that you can adjust the hip belt yeah but if you are
a little bit wider in the hips these packs might not fit you right just
because they're they're pretty spring loaded so there's a lot of different
ways you can adjust this pack so you can adjust the harness up here so there's
two plastic switches here where my thumb's are and you basically lift that
up and you can slide this guy up and down on a little fabric rail you can
also adjust a hip belt so there is a Velcro panel here that you break away
and then you can adjust the hip belt and you can orientate it off these little
caroms here and you can even make it a symmetric so this guy's got one here and
on the right side you've got two out speaking of features there are a couple
cool features on this pack that we can call out so the lid of the pack is
totally removable and then there's a flap on the inside that I called the
flapjack yeah the secondary lid your secondary
lid which makes this tweak this pack a little bit lighter if you're not gonna
use the lid you also have two pockets on the exterior and then you have this stow
pocket as well these pockets don't go through to the interior main compartment
of the bag so the only way to get to that is by going through the top or
going through the bottom sleeping bag compartment that has a fold down divider
so pack smart don't pack anything on the very inside that you think you're gonna
need while you're on your trip and oh there's also this cool water bottle
compartment or pocket so you have a pocket here but you can actually put
your water bottle away while you're wearing the pack so rather than trying
to do some kind of like awkward reach over thing this actually goes going like
this then you can push it all the way back
yeah really easy to use while you're hiking my favorite thing about it and
Miranda doesn't like it as much is the snow unto go stow on the go trekking
pole system so what it lets you do is basically at you forward carry your
poles so if you need to go hands-free really really quick what you do is you
take the bottom of the pole and you push it right through here and then the front
and the handle on the pole will go through this little this little wire
right here and then there's a little switch right here so you can pull that
down and that'll tighten that up and you can basically wear it kind of like a
sword right up front it's kind of cool yeah I like it so our next category for
packs are extended trips and we talked about an extended trip pack we're
looking at something that's 75 litres and above our top picks this category
are the women's debba 80 and the mens baltoro 85 by Gregory so we really like
these packs because they're they're premium packs they're very very
feature-rich they got tons of pockets lots of ways in and out
they're heavy bags but they're heavy bags because they come with a big heavy
suspension when you've got a BB suspension like that it means you can
carry a lot of weight that is the entire point of an extended pack right it's not
just about the capacity but you're gonna be carrying a lot of stuff that's gonna
end up being heavy totally and like coat-check mentioned these packs have a
lot of features so they've got a ton different pockets you've got two pockets
on the lid system which actually don't touch they don't overlap which is nice
and then underneath it comes with a rain cover and this is another pocket
underneath the lid and you actually have three ways to access the interior of
this bag so you obviously have through the top you have top access and then you
have bottom access which is where the Sigma bag compartment is and that is
totally removable and then you also have the u panel access so on the front here
you can unzip this panel and just open the whole thing up like a suitcase to
get to your stuff there's also a couple different pockets on there or two
different types of pockets on the hip belt so
oh sorry before I talk about hipbelt you also have this stove for the water
bottle so kind of like the Atmos Andorra you can easily stow a water bottle while
you're hiking which is just kind of a really nifty thing that I'm glad they
thought about you anyway so then on the hip belt you have two different types of
pockets you have on one side a mesh pocket and on the other side you
actually have a water repellent or waterproof pocket so you have a zipper
on here that is waterproof so this is a great spot for storing a GPS or for
keeping your cell phone or camera or whatever so there's not a lot of just
really for the spines there's only a little bit of length just here in here
two settings but you can swap out the harness for like totally different
straps you can adjust the lumbar pad there's a plate right here you can pull
out so you can control how much lumbar you have yes thank you and then this
belt can be completely removable you can switch it out for a different size of
belt so the thing that makes that really helpful right is that if you if your
spine length fits the size of the pack but you are like little bit broader in
the chest or you need more distance around your hips you could just swap
those and make the pack fit for so much the other day the story suite that's
awesome yeah and then the other really well the other really cool thing about
these packs is that they come with a removable
water reservoir that turns into a day pack that Gregory calls the sidekick so
you can actually take out the whole reservoir sleeve from this pack and if
you want you can remove the sleeping pad straps on the exterior of the pack and
then have a hip belt on the small pack and this might seem like sort of a silly
thing but since these are extended trip packs if you are going to be base
camping and taking day trips you essentially have a day pack built into
these bags pretty bad pack in and then switch to your smaller pack yeah so our
next category is gonna be the best packs underneath one hundred and sixty dollars
and that is going to be the REI co-op flash 45
so as I mentioned these packs are on the lower end of the cost spectrum but they
are also designed for lightweight gear so if you've already blown all your
money on an expensive tent don't expense a sleeping bag but that's like weight
this is probably a good pack for you the material is pretty thin but it still
feels tanky to me yeah it doesn't feel like they kind of bagging you to baby
some some really lightweight packs you got to be a little careful in what you
do of it I mean you can kick this thing around a little bit and be alright
yeah totally it's pretty durable and it's also a modular so you can remove
the lid and you can also adjust where the compression straps are in your pack
which is really great for avoiding any sort of pressure points and there a
couple kind of cool pockets on here so you have the larger stretch pocket in
the front and then there's also these water bottle pockets on the side that
will accommodate a larger they have a snap and will accommodate larger now
Jean but they'll also accommodate a smaller water bottle water bottle which
is some lightweight hikers really like to have yeah these packs do come in a 55
litre size as well or they'll have a kind of a couple different features the
other thing I really like about this bag is the way the backplate feels it's it's
really really light but there's some decent offset off the foam so you get
some good air flow along these notches here and if you look at it there's
there's a little hollow inside the foam right there and that's really really
awesome because it really lets you nestle your hipbone and just kind of
guide it into that slot right there and it just feels really really good even
though it's really skinny lightweight pack well that's it for the beste packs
you can find at REI this year if you have any other questions you can check
out our other videos if you haven't already go ahead and subscribe and if
you do have a pack or you have questions about packs you want to get it fitted
you can always come into the REI and yeah