I’ve had this pack for 2 years and I’ve beaten the living daylights out of it and it still performs just as well as the day I bought it. I don’t make it a habit of buying my gear from Walmart, but this was a excellent ozark trail backpack purchase. I use this pack on a daily basis to carry my office clothes while I ride my bike to work and to carry light loads while out Geocaching. However, some sources may run dry during extended periods of drought.
I did have a few inches along the edge for some clothes, a water bottle, and a headlamp, but that could have been made wider with a narrower sleeping pad. Having a separate rain fly for a 2- or 3- person tent makes sense because multiple people can split up the weight a little easier on longer hikes. With a 1-person tent, that doesn’t really make as much sense.
A sub-freezing night brought beautiful, delicate frost flowers. Water from a full day of rain and a nighttime thunderstorm brought life to the small waterfall in Wolf Pen Hollow. I’ll forever cherish the memories made and accomplishments achieved — and my own cherishing quickly turned to wondering about other OT thru-hikers’ experiences. Ultimately, the good design for this product was that it was sized right for what I needed, both in dimensions and weight. Not too small, but not too large (and thus wasteful) – a Goldilocks design. After all, I had to be sensitive to weight as we were required to carry our own water for 10 miles as there were no options for filtering during that stretch.
I might actually pick up another for my son to use. I also use a Marmot 20 liter pack which does have a thin hipbelt, but it is more limited space-wise and weighs a couple of ounces more. I’ve carried it in bad weather, including rain and snow. Some days this bag was heavier than I would have chosen it to be.
Streams and creeks can run deep and quick during heavy rains, and temperatures can dip below freezing in the spring and autumn. There are long stretches without cell phone service. Berchek continued, “Water is easy to find ozark trail canopy on the OT, even in the drier seasons. The problem is there are a lot more water sources than indicated on the map, so…you end up carrying more water than needed. Water sources indicated on the OTA maps are mostly reliable.