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Price:
£50
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Weight: 1.27 kg
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Features: Ardura 420RS nylon rip stop fabric and Esdura midweight 600 denier polyester fabric, Freeflow III back system supported by nylon rods, microbreathe shoulder straps, inner security pocket, internal and external lid pockets, water bottle pouches on both sides, internal two litre hydration pocket, rain cover with stowaway pocket in the hood.
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An all-round good design at a great price.
No waist pockets and a slightly backward-tilting centre of gravity.
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The Concept
Women's specific packs have been around for a while now, but there are still fewer to choose from than in the men's range. While this is true of Berghaus packs as much as any others, the number of women's Freeflows increased last year, so you get some choice, even if it's not all that large. It might seem less obvious why women need different packs from men than why they need different clothing. The answer is that the back lengths of women's packs tend to be shorter, the shoulders are narrower and the lay-out of the hip-belt is different. Basically, the better the pack fits, the more comfortable it is to carry, and that means having packs with a specific women's fit. If you're quite tall it's still possible to carry a men's pack comfortably, but there's no harm in having the women's specific option.
At the moment, women's Freeflows are all in the 25l - 35l range, so we're not talking super-lightweight fast-movers' packs, or larger weekend packs, but just good solid daysacs for a walk out in the hills. They've got all the features you want and, at £50 for the 30l version, you get a lot of pack for the price.
Features
The Freeflow back system is what gives this pack its name, so we'll talk about that bit first. As the word 'Freeflow' suggests, the mechanism allows the air to flow freely behind your back, so there's no danger of the sweat gathering there and giving you a soggy t-shirt. How does it work? Well, the body of the pack - contents and all - is held away from the carrier's back, supported by nylon rods, so there's nothing in contact with your t-shirt except a mesh. Although the mesh fibres still cover a part of the area of your back, you can really feel the air behind you and, if that's not enough, there's also a (large) fist-sized hole in the small of the back, to let the sweat escape completely. The way the Freeflow III differs from previous Freeflow systems is that there are simply larger gaps for the air at this point.
The fabric of the body of the pack is a combination of Ardura 420RS nylon and Esdura polyester, depending on the amount of stress placed on it. The sides, back, lid and base all use the latter, so the pack has a pretty sturdy feel, while the front is all made of Ardura nylon. This is a lighter weight material, and slightly less tough, but it doesn't exactly feel fragile either. It's also the rip-stop version, so if you snag anything on it (there are walking pole and ice axe loops on the back, so that's always a possibility) then the rips won't spread.
Other features of the pack include no less than four lid pockets: the standard external lid pocket, a pouch below it for the waterproof cover, an inner mesh pocket, and a small, internal waterproof pocket for valuables that hangs just inside the pack. The only other pockets are the two mesh water bottle holders at either side, both of which have a slightly angled entry, so you can just about extract a bottle without taking the pack off if you're feeling dextrous.
It's not a super slim-line pack as it's not really designed for scrambling or climbing, but it's not exactly wide either, and with two compression straps on each side you can pull it in to a fairly streamlined position, especially if you don't use the side water bottle pockets. The pack's hydration system compatible (2l) so you may not need to anyway.
In Action
We used this pack for the first time on a pretty steep ascent (we're talking 1600m in three hours) so we were sweating a fair bit. This meant we felt the benefits of the Freeflow system straight away. With only a mesh pressing against our back, we didn't have to worry so much about the breathability of the pack material, because we were exposed to plenty of air - and we tend to find air pretty breathable:-) There were two downsides. One was that our back felt a bit chilly when we stopped for a breather, but we thought that was a price worth paying to minimise the damp t-shirt effect. The other was that the weight lies slightly further back than it does in a conventional pack, which can affect your centre of gravity. The difference isn't dramatic if you aren't carrying much weight though, and as this is only a daysack we didn't really have a problem. It's worth packing your heavier items as close to the back of the pack as possible, to keep the centre of gravity, and even then we might not use the Freeflow on a difficult scramble in case our balance was affected, but for walking it felt fine. The other thing to note is that the space taken up by the back system compresses the space available on the inside. Hence, the pack looks a bit larger in the shop than it really is - so don't be fooled by the appearance. It can feel slightly strange packing a sack that's wide at the bottom but has a funnel-effect in the middle, but as today's gear all packs pretty small, this wasn't too much of a problem either.
The Freeflow system works in the same way for men's and women's packs, so why is this one women's specific? Well, the straps are contoured to fit a woman's body and the shoulder straps are narrower than on men's packs. They're still wide enough to spread the load effectively though, and the porous mesh fabric on the inside helps to wick moisture away. We know that fit's a personal thing, and there's no replacement for trying the pack on before you buy it, but the Women's Freeflow 30 fitted us nicely. One of the fine details on the fit was the detachable chest strap, which can be re-attached through any one of five loops on the shoulder strap. We've had trouble before with chest straps that were at the wrong height, but this way you can choose your own height, depending on how long you are in the back. It's more fiddly than a sliding chest strap, but at least it gives you some option.
Other accessories on the straps included a loop to tuck away your platypus tube, so it doesn't waft irritatingly around on your chest. There's an internal pouch for a 2l hydration system, with an access point on the left shoulder, so if you like yours on the right hand side then you aren't in luck.
That covers most things really. We did take the pack out in the rain and discovered that the rain cover is very roomy, but it has a drawcord to pull it in to a snugger fit. We were also at a bit of a loss about how to use both the internal hood pocket and the waterproof valuables pouch. OK, so the inner hood pocket is only made of mesh, so it might not keep your valuables 100% dry, but still, we weren't sure that both inner pockets were really necessary. That's not really a problem though, as the mesh doesn't exactly weigh much, although we'd rather have had an extra pocket on the waist belt if anything as there wasn't anywhere to keep our nibbles, odds and ends without taking the pack off. Still, as we couldn't really find anything else to quarrel with, we're pretty sure we'll be using the Women's Freeflow 30 again.
A sturdy, well-featured day walking sack at a reasonable weight and a great price. The back system keeps the load nicely away from your body, so the sweat can evaporate and you stay dry. If you don't mind the slight toll on your centre of gravity, it works well, without your wallet suffering too much for it:-)
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Performance
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Value
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