The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Contour 35 is a water-resistant frameless backpack designed for thru-hiking by extra skilled backpackers carrying minimal gear. With 43.5L of whole quantity (35L inner and 6.5L exterior), it’s been stripped all the way down to a minimal function set to cut back its weight to 16.2 oz, or only a hair over one pound. It has six exterior pockets, so you possibly can retailer the gadgets or snacks you want in the course of the day with out opening up the principle compartment. The Contour 35 additionally makes a pleasant day pack for longer hikes and peakbagging when it’s essential to carry additional insulation or protecting gear.
RELATED: 10 Greatest Ultralight Frameless Backpacks
Specs at a Look
- Weight: 16.2 oz (459g) – measurement medium
- Gender: Males’s
- Inner Quantity: 35 Liters
- Exterior Quantity: 6.5 Liters
- Pockets: Principal + 6
- Load lifters: No
- Hip belt Pockets: No
- Hydration system suitable: No
- Ice Axe Loop: Sure
- Colours: White or Black
- Supplies: Dyneema DCF, 100D Dyneema Gridstop, Dyeema Stretch Mesh
- Most beneficial load: 25 lbs
- Bear Canister Compatibility: BV425 and BV450 (horizontal), BV475 and BV500 (vertical)
The Contour 35 is a backpack finest fitted to ultralight backpacking with as much as 25 kilos of substances, meals, and water. It’s fabricated from Dyneema DCF and totally seam-taped, however it’s a easy roll-top backpack with few frills. It’s frameless, has a easy detachable webbing strap for a hip belt, is just not hydration suitable, doesn’t have a prime Y strap, and there’s no again padding behind the shoulder straps, so it’s important to fastidiously pack gadgets like bear canisters that may poke you within the again.
Backpack Storage and Group
The Contour 35 has a basic roll-top that may be strapped to the perimeters like a dry bag or clipped collectively on the highest. The highest of the principle pack bag has a stiffener to facilitate rolling as a substitute of the Velcro closure Hyperlite used beforehand on their bigger packs. Velcro doesn’t get together with out of doors clothes, notably a fuzzy fleece like Polartec Alpha, so it is a welcome enhancement.
What the Contour 35 lacks in options, it makes up for in six exterior pockets able to holding 6.5 liters of substances and meals. There are two stretch pockets on the shoulder straps, two aspect pockets, a entrance stretch pocket, and a backside pocket on the underside of the pack bag for holding snacks and trash. The pockets allow you to retailer every little thing you want in the course of the day shut at hand, so that you don’t should cease to open the principle compartment and dig round to search out stuff. Meaning you possibly can preserve strolling continuous all day, which is how critical thru-hikers crush huge miles.
The aspect bottle pockets are deep sufficient to retailer tall bottles, like Smartwater bottles, in them, they usually have a easy compression strap above them in the event you prefer to hike along with your water filter connected. The aspect pockets are closely bolstered at their base to resist abrasion and have elastic shock cords on the prime you could tighten to stop the contents from falling out. Whereas I can attain again and pull a bottle out of the aspect pockets, placing it again in could be a problem due to these elastic shock cords.
The shoulder straps have sewn-on pockets sized for holding electronics and small water bottles, as much as about 20 oz. Should you’d reasonably use completely different pockets, the shoulder straps have daisy chains, which might function anchor factors. Personally, I like utilizing the shoulder strap pockets to retailer my Garmin inReach Mini2 and my iPhone since they supply simple and safe entry to each.
The entrance stretch pocket isn’t large, however it’s sufficiently big to retailer a light-weight shell or wind shirt, a moist water filter and reservoir, or a day’s value of meals. It’s made with a sturdy Dyneema Stretch mesh and has a buckle on prime that connects to the pack’s prime strap to maintain contents safe.
The Dyneema Stretch Mesh pocket on the underside of the pack has two openings: a big one on the aspect that’s massive sufficient to stay your hand into and a small finger-sized one which can be utilized as a trash port to stay used snack wrappers into. Whereas these pockets have turn into modern on frameless backpacks, I’m not satisfied you need to retailer used snack wrappers in a pocket on the base of your pack, notably since their odor will appeal to bears and rodents, even after the wrappers are gone. I’m additionally skeptical whether or not Dyneema Stretch Mesh, made with nylon 66 and bolstered with Dyneema threads, is sufficiently abrasion-resistant for use on the backside of a backpack. However I suppose time will inform.
Backpack Suspension
Being frameless and missing a load-bearing hipbelt, the load of the Contour 35 and its contents relaxation fully in your shoulders. For the reason that pack has no padding behind the shoulder straps, it should be fastidiously packed to stop sharp-cornered gadgets from poking you within the again when the pack is worn.
I cope with this by inserting a cut-down foam pad (Thermarest Z-lite Sol) inside the principle pack bag behind the shoulder straps to cushion my again. Sadly, this takes up worthwhile inside house. A extra environment friendly design strategy is to incorporate an exterior pad pocket like that on the Gossamer Gear Kumo 36 or exterior pad bungees as on the Zpacks Nero 38 since they don’t use any inner quantity and will also be used as handy sit pads.
The Contour 35 hipbelt is a straightforward webbing strap that retains the backpack near your torso, notably in case you are fastpacking or scrambling. It’s simply detachable by unclipping it from its two anchor factors on the perimeters of the pack; nonetheless, you may use it to carry a fanny pack at your waist for additional storage.
Attachment Factors and Compression
The Contour 35 doesn’t include a Y-strap, making it harder to hold cumbersome gear, even a full foam pad, on prime of the pack. I can’t fathom the explanation for this omission when Hyperlight’s Waypoint 35, which is similar to the Contour 35, contains one.
That single prime strap additionally closes with a hook as a substitute of a daily plastic buckle…and takes a stunning quantity of dexterity to shut. That is “good” as a result of it discourages opening the principle compartment in the course of the day and forces extra dependence on the exterior pockets. However that little hook is surprisingly troublesome to see in the event you’re of an age the place you want studying glasses to see issues up shut…an accessibility function that the 20-somethings who designed the Contour 35 most likely failed to contemplate. A plastic buckle would have been higher, along with a Y-strap.
That mentioned, there are just a few different methods to lash gear to the skin of the Contour. Along with an ice axe loop and a easy shaft holder, the aspect compression cords have line locs and buckles, making it simpler to lash objects to the aspect of the pack even when carrying gloves. As well as, the aspect straps used to lash the roll prime down could be linked over the entrance pocket, which could be useful if you wish to lash a cumbersome foam pad there. Lastly, there are six small webbing loops within the perimeter seams of the entrance mesh pocket that you may run cordage by and are helpful for drying moist laundry.
Comparable Ultralight Frameless Backpacks
Suggestion
The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Contour 35 is a streamlined, frameless backpack made with Dyneema DCF that weighs 16.2 oz. Designed for thru-hikers with minimal equipment, it’s loaded with exterior pockets so you possibly can hike all day with out having to cease and get gadgets out of the principle pack bag. Whereas the Contour 35 is completely ample for that process, it has just a few quirks that make it considerably much less optimum when in comparison with different frameless ultralight backpacks. I believe the pack could be a a lot stronger contender if it had vest-style shoulder straps to steadiness the load throughout the chest along with the shoulders, a prime Y-strap, and an exterior pad sleeve or elastic twine to hold a pad on the pack’s exterior reasonably than utilizing inner storage for that goal. Try our 10 Greatest Frameless Ultralight Backpack Checklist for beneficial options. If space for storing is much less of a precedence, the Contour 35 makes a pleasant day pack so long as you may get through the use of the exterior pockets and don’t must entry the principle compartment fairly often.
I’d additionally advocate trying on the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Waypoint 35 (23.5 oz), which is sort of just like the Contour 35 however extra versatile and a greater worth. It has a single (detachable) body keep, so it might comfortably carry 5-10 extra kilos, a prime Y-strap, and an optionally available hip belt with hip belt pockets.
Disclosure: Hyperlite Mtn Gear donated a backpack for assessment.
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