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UL-ish Backpack

Hiking is okay. I really love working around the woods, exploring and whatnot. for me, its about being in the forest and is moving around a bunch - climbing, squatting, running, ducking, leaping - just your basic mischief and tomfoolery, you know how I be. Normally I bring with me the bare essentials, what I can fit into a fanny pack, or maybe a small, ~10 liter backpack.


Every once in a while though, I may want to go out into the woods for a longer hike that takes more than a day or so. For this endeavor I need to bring the enemy of agility: stuff. Sleeping stuff, cooking stuff, cleaning stuff, pooping stuff - just a bunch of stuff. For these types of trips, I have my big ol' Osprey 65 liter backpack, complete with a lot of bells and whistles, for all intents and purposes it's a really nice bag. This sumbitch is about 6lbs though, making it the single heaviest part of my kit on a backpacking trip. I don't know if you've tried, but being mischievous with a gigantic pack full of stuff on your back is troublesome.


So while hiking is okay, backpacking sort of sucks.


I wanted to build a lighter bag, and with the subreddit MYOGers all showing off their awesome UL bags, I figured I'd get going on one myself.



I wanted some versatility here, so I sacrificed a bit of weight by putting in spandex pockets. The side pockets have a small port at the bottom facing me so I can quickly pull out the bottle and reinsert it when I'm done. I also bent the frame stays in such a way that it encouraged suspension for the back panel, where I have a piece in tension to provide better ventilation.



I am really particular about my shoulder straps, so I designed these to be swappable should I want to make another go at them. Same with the hip strap, both of which I am not super happy with how they came out so they'll likely be getting some updates soon.



I really wanted a modern sternum strap. So I found some hardware and used a piece of paracord and a 1" strip of cordura to make the corded sternum strap slides, they came out really nice I think. The cordura gives a really nice firm grip for the hardware.


A handful of 3d printed parts around the bag, like this G hook.



The inside is pretty simple. The backpanel has a compartment to hold the internal frame sheet, then there are two side pockets to hold things like a trail saw, maps, or other quick access things. I have two little loops to add a future internal pocket as well if I want. Overall, the total capacity is around 50liters at the lowest, and can probably get up to 65liters with the roll top.


The internal frame sheet is made with HDPE, (2mm sheet), some 1" tubular webbing, and 2 aluminum flat bars that I bent to provide a tall "C" shape.


I chose this shape as it made the most sense for weight distribution, and it allowed for suspension in the backpanel.


Before sewing on the webbing to the framesheet, I cut a slit for installing the frame stays, and added some velcro to close it off so that if I want to I can reform or replace the stays with carbon ones.


Here I have the basic pattern for the main part of the bag. I built this for it to be pretty adaptable to anything you'd want to do. Around the edges of each main panel you'll find a 1" repeated block pattern for referencing where you'd want to put things. Take note, in the bag I made here, I cut out a little bit of the side panel so it would articulate the suspension a bit, but that isn't entirely necessary.



 
 
 

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