I wanted a waterproof day sack, and looked hard at a lot of different packs, and actually bought another and sent it back, before settling on this one. I've now used it twice snowshoeing and it seems to be pretty good.I already have lots of different packs of many different kinds and dimensions, but I needed something waterproof, that was still light enough to carry as a daypack.
I had two specific quite different uses in mind: snowshoeing and paddling.
For paddling, until now I've just carried a dry bag down to the water, but I wanted a backpack so I could cycle down to the water instead of driving my car. There are lots of dry bags with backpack straps, but a lot of them don't have a good way to lash on my very light carbon paddle, and they tend to be kind of heavy and clumsy as packs.
For snowshoeing, and general day hiking, I wanted something that works fairly well as a backpack and this one seems to fit and ride on my back pretty well. I live on the West Coast, it's a wet place, and I don't know how many times I've come home, reasonably dry, but without a pack cover, everything in my pack has gotten damp. Snow in the mountains on the North Shore can be pretty damp it's nice to have a pack that can sit in the snow and keep its contents dry.
It's pretty light but how tough? The waterproof fabric seems rather fragile, but I suspect it's tougher than it looks.
The mesh on the front will probably get trashed I can live with that if the rest of the bag holds up.
I would've preferred slightly thicker backpack straps, but they're reasonably comfortable.
No structure at all to this pack it's just a bag so you do have to pack a bit carefully. No padding on the back, so it can be a bit sweaty to wear, but if it did have padding, and structure on the back, it would've been heavier and I'd be a little less inclined to get it wet with seawater.
I like the size not too big, not too small. I'm 5'10" and fairly big in the shoulders, and it fits well, although even at its lowest setting, the sternum strap is a bit high. Mostly I don't use it, but it was handy to have when descending a steep slope on snowshoes.
It's kind of expensive, but if it holds up I won't mind paying the extra price for waterproofness. If it were a bit cheaper and had slightly better backpack straps, I might've been inclined to give it the full five stars instead of four.
I may update this review after using it on the water for a while.
UPDATE 5 July 2013: Have used it now for about a dozen trips on the water, and like the pack more than ever.
I got it in the hope that it would replace a regular dry bag, and allow me to carry stuff down to my canoe while riding my bike, and it works very well for that. Unlike other backpack-style dry bags out there, the extra loops and lash points on the bag make it easy to carry extra things on the outside of the bag. For instance, I have a two-part carbon kayak paddle, and dropping them blade-up through the elasticized loops at the top of the bag and down through ice axe loops on the bottom of the bag works great. The mesh pouch on the front of the bag is a great place to store a handheld VHF, gloves and a small water bottle, and the straps on the side hold a camp mat/flotation device. The fastex-type buckle at the top of the mesh pouch lets me quickly and easily clip the bag to the boat.
My earlier complaint about the shoulder straps stands; wish they were a bit stiffer (so they didn't get twisted up so easily) and a little less water absorbent but this is a minor complaint.
Overall, the bag allows me to get my stuff to the water using a bike instead of my car a big step forward.
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Bought this for a trip to Costa Rica. Worked great. kept our gear nice and dry. Easy to pack, Easy to carry. Highly recommend for "wet" trips.Read Best Reviews of Outdoor Research Drycomp Ridge Sack Backpack Here
Took this on an overnight trip to meet up with my raft group. Since I was going to be on the river for 2 weeks I also wanted a pack that would work as a dry bag. At the end of the trip I was quite pleased with this pack.This is definitely in the ultra-lite/minimalist category. Size wise it's somewhere between a day pack and an overnight pack, or pretty much a large day pack. I had to fly to my destination than camp out that night before hiking down 6 hours to the river so I used it as an overnight pack. Because I was camping out I had to strap my sleeping bag on the bottom of the pack which took a little creativity, but it did work and I didn't have any issues hiking all morning that way. It is at the almost overnight pack size so I do wish they would have stuck a few tie points on the bottom to allow you to tie something on if you need to, but for the average user they won't ever need that.
The shoulder straps and waist belt are minimalist, which did worry me at first. However they performed adequately. I was hiking with the pack stuffed to the gills and then some what with stuff tied to the outside. This caused me to feel the straps by hour 4, but considering how much more weight I had in the pack then it was probably designed for, it wasn't too bad. Later in the trip I used this pack for a short day hike and the minimalist design of the shoulder straps worked great.
At the end of the day I threw extra gear into this pack, rolled up the top and threw into the bottom of the raft for 2 weeks were it kept all my gear dry through a lot of rapids. So all in all I am quite pleased with this little one.
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the only thing about this purchase that is better than the product is the company's customer service people, this comnpany has earned a lifelong happy customer!!!Praise God for people like this company!!
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