Once again the Osprey Atmos 50 sweeps the floor with being the best ultralight backpack! It's ridiculous 3 pound weight and lifetime guarantee is hard to beat! Choosing Your Backpack The backpack is part of the "Big Three". These are the 3 most important bases to cover when backpacking. Your backpack, sleep system, and shelter. Make sure to take special care in this section. When choosing your backpack there is a lot to consider. There are a few key things that I find important in a backpack. Capacity, weight, comfort and quality. When your out on a 30 mile hike the last thing you want is a bag that is just digging into your sore spot. Or a bag that has it's straps break mid trip! I always recommend choosing bags that you've seen in person or done plenty of research on. Capacity As for capacity in the ultralight world it's hard to go much above a 50 liter backpack. It is also hard to go below it. For that reason unless your dedicated to shave off pounds on every corner you'll want to stick with bags around 40-50 liters. I personally choose an Osprey Atmos 50 for a few reasons. One of the reasons is the bag only weighs in at 3 lbs which means I can enjoy the luxury of a 50 liter bag at the weight of a 40 liter or smaller. Either way I find 50 liter bags to be the perfect size. Some of you may be saying there is no way we could do a 5 day trip out of a 50 liter bag! Well that's the beauty of ultralight backpacking. It is completely possible and your going to find out how! Comfort The best way to know the comfort of a bag is to try it yourself. For me, I based my first bag purchase off of reviews and brand. Either way you're going to have to do some research! Things to look out for are what kind of straps they have, the support structure of the bag, the frame style of the bag, and again peoples feedback. Going back to my Atmos 50, it is an internal frame bag, which I have found to be 100% more comfortable compared to external. The bag has superb straps to keep the bag tight against your back both by straps pulling the bag against your back and straps compressing the bag into a tighter, more manageable ball of weight. Last and most important of all, make sure there are not points that carry more weight than others. The newest thing today's is air suspension or the ability to separate the bag from your back with an air pocket. Now this helps a lot with sweating, but the main thing is it allows the bag to rest evenly on your entire back. Compared to older bags without this you can't live without it! Weight Weight is really simple. Every pound you have in a backpack is one less pound you can put into something like your sleeping bag. I never look for bags over 3.5 lbs. Quality What I've found is most companies hold certain standards across all bags. For example, Kelty is always known for a well priced and rugged products. If you've put on one Kelty, you probably have a good idea what other Kelty bags feel like or how well they hold up. Keep that in mind as you look at bags. If you plan on backpacking lots of miles, the amount of money you spend on your bag will pay big dividends. For that reason I've provided a few links of bags I've done the research on/personally used.
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