[ad_1]
The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Contour 35 is a water-resistant frameless backpack designed for thru-hiking by extra skilled backpackers carrying minimal gear. With 43.5L of whole quantity (35L inner and 6.5L exterior), it’s been stripped all the way down to a minimal characteristic set to cut back its weight to 16.2 oz, or only a hair over one pound. It has six exterior pockets, so you’ll be able to retailer the gadgets or snacks you want in the course of the day with out opening up the principle compartment. The Contour 35 additionally makes a pleasant day pack for longer hikes and peakbagging when you want to carry further insulation or protecting gear.
RELATED: 10 Finest Ultralight Frameless Backpacks
Specs at a Look
- Weight: 16.2 oz (459g) – dimension medium
- Gender: Males’s
- Inside Quantity: 35 Liters
- Exterior Quantity: 6.5 Liters
- Pockets: Most important + 6
- Load lifters: No
- Hip belt Pockets: No
- Hydration system suitable: No
- Ice Axe Loop: Sure
- Colours: White or Black
- Supplies: Dyneema DCF, 100D Dyneema Gridstop, Dyeema Stretch Mesh
- Most really useful load: 25 lbs
- Bear Canister Compatibility: BV425 and BV450 (horizontal), BV475 and BV500 (vertical)
The Contour 35 is a backpack greatest fitted to ultralight backpacking with as much as 25 kilos of drugs, meals, and water. It’s manufactured from Dyneema DCF and absolutely seam-taped, however it’s a easy roll-top backpack with few frills. It’s frameless, has a easy detachable webbing strap for a hip belt, just isn’t hydration suitable, doesn’t have a high Y strap, and there’s no again padding behind the shoulder straps, so you must rigorously pack gadgets like bear canisters that may poke you within the again.
Backpack Storage and Group
The Contour 35 has a traditional roll-top that may be strapped to the perimeters like a dry bag or clipped collectively on the highest. The highest of the principle pack bag has a stiffener to facilitate rolling as an alternative of the Velcro closure Hyperlite used beforehand on their bigger packs. Velcro doesn’t get together with out of doors clothes, notably a fuzzy fleece like Polartec Alpha, so it is a welcome enhancement.
What the Contour 35 lacks in options, it makes up for in six exterior pockets able to holding 6.5 liters of drugs and meals. There are two stretch pockets on the shoulder straps, two facet pockets, a entrance stretch pocket, and a backside pocket on the underside of the pack bag for holding snacks and trash. The pockets allow you to retailer every thing you want in the course of the day shut at hand, so that you don’t should cease to open the principle compartment and dig round to search out stuff. Meaning you’ll be able to preserve strolling continuous all day, which is how critical thru-hikers crush large miles.
The facet bottle pockets are deep sufficient to retailer tall bottles, like Smartwater bottles, in them, and so they have a easy compression strap above them if you happen to prefer to hike along with your water filter hooked up. The facet pockets are closely strengthened at their base to face up to abrasion and have elastic shock cords on the high which you can tighten to stop the contents from falling out. Whereas I can attain again and pull a bottle out of the facet pockets, placing it again in is usually a problem due to these elastic shock cords.
The shoulder straps have sewn-on pockets sized for holding electronics and small water bottles, as much as about 20 oz. Should you’d quite use completely different pockets, the shoulder straps have daisy chains, which may function anchor factors. Personally, I like utilizing the shoulder strap pockets to retailer my Garmin inReach Mini2 and my iPhone since they supply simple and safe entry to each.
The entrance stretch pocket isn’t enormous, however it’s sufficiently big to retailer a light-weight shell or wind shirt, a moist water filter and reservoir, or a day’s value of meals. It’s made with a sturdy Dyneema Stretch mesh and has a buckle on high that connects to the pack’s high strap to maintain contents safe.
The Dyneema Stretch Mesh pocket on the underside of the pack has two openings: a big one on the facet that’s giant sufficient to stay your hand into and a small finger-sized one which can be utilized as a trash port to stay used snack wrappers into. Whereas these pockets have develop into trendy on frameless backpacks, I’m not satisfied you need to retailer used snack wrappers in a pocket on the base of your pack, notably since their odor will entice bears and rodents, even after the wrappers are gone. I’m additionally skeptical whether or not Dyneema Stretch Mesh, made with nylon 66 and strengthened with Dyneema threads, is sufficiently abrasion-resistant for use on the backside of a backpack. However I suppose time will inform.
Backpack Suspension
Being frameless and missing a load-bearing hipbelt, the load of the Contour 35 and its contents relaxation utterly in your shoulders. Because the pack has no padding behind the shoulder straps, it have to be rigorously packed to stop sharp-cornered gadgets from poking you within the again when the pack is worn.
I cope with this by inserting a cut-down foam pad (Thermarest Z-lite Sol) inside the principle pack bag behind the shoulder straps to cushion my again. Sadly, this takes up precious inside house. A extra environment friendly design strategy is to incorporate an exterior pad pocket like that on the Gossamer Gear Kumo 36 or exterior pad bungees as on the Zpacks Nero 38 since they don’t use any inner quantity and may also be used as handy sit pads.
The Contour 35 hipbelt is a straightforward webbing strap that retains the backpack near your torso, notably if you’re fastpacking or scrambling. It’s simply detachable by unclipping it from its two anchor factors on the perimeters of the pack; nevertheless, you could possibly use it to carry a fanny pack at your waist for further storage.
Attachment Factors and Compression
The Contour 35 doesn’t include a Y-strap, making it tougher to hold cumbersome gear, even a full foam pad, on high of the pack. I can’t fathom the rationale for this omission when Hyperlight’s Waypoint 35, which is similar to the Contour 35, consists of one.
That single high strap additionally closes with a hook as an alternative of a daily plastic buckle…and takes a stunning quantity of dexterity to shut. That is “good” as a result of it discourages opening the principle compartment in the course of the day and forces extra dependence on the exterior pockets. However that little hook is surprisingly tough to see if you happen to’re of an age the place you want studying glasses to see issues up shut…an accessibility characteristic that the 20-somethings who designed the Contour 35 in all probability failed to contemplate. A plastic buckle would have been higher, along with a Y-strap.
That stated, there are a number of different methods to lash gear to the skin of the Contour. Along with an ice axe loop and a easy shaft holder, the facet compression cords have line locs and buckles, making it simpler to lash objects to the facet of the pack even when sporting gloves. As well as, the facet straps used to lash the roll high down may be related over the entrance pocket, which may be helpful if you wish to lash a cumbersome foam pad there. Lastly, there are six small webbing loops within the perimeter seams of the entrance mesh pocket that you could possibly run cordage via and are helpful for drying moist laundry.
Comparable Ultralight Frameless Backpacks
Advice
The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Contour 35 is a streamlined, frameless backpack made with Dyneema DCF that weighs 16.2 oz. Designed for thru-hikers with minimal package, it’s loaded with exterior pockets so you’ll be able to hike all day with out having to cease and get gadgets out of the principle pack bag. Whereas the Contour 35 is completely sufficient for that job, it has a number of quirks that make it considerably much less optimum when in comparison with different frameless ultralight backpacks. I believe the pack could be a a lot stronger contender if it had vest-style shoulder straps to stability the load throughout the chest along with the shoulders, a high Y-strap, and an exterior pad sleeve or elastic twine to hold a pad on the pack’s exterior quite than utilizing inner storage for that goal. Take a look at our 10 Finest Frameless Ultralight Backpack Listing for really useful alternate options. If cupboard space is much less of a precedence, the Contour 35 makes a pleasant day pack so long as you will get by utilizing the exterior pockets and don’t have to entry the principle compartment fairly often.
I’d additionally suggest wanting on the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Waypoint 35 (23.5 oz), which is sort of much like the Contour 35 however extra versatile and a greater worth. It has a single (detachable) body keep, so it will possibly comfortably carry 5-10 extra kilos, a high Y-strap, and an non-obligatory hip belt with hip belt pockets.
Disclosure: Hyperlite Mtn Gear donated a backpack for overview.
SectionHiker is reader-supported. We solely become profitable if you are going to buy a product via our affiliate hyperlinks. Assist us proceed to check and write unsponsored and unbiased gear evaluations, newbie FAQs, and free climbing guides.
[ad_2]