customer reviews
Dear CiloGear,
First of all, I have to say that this is the best pack I"ve ever owned--stripped down for backpacking, compressed for carry-on, loaded down with groceries and taking on all kinds of non-intended use without all the useless add-ons, I'm stoked...
The awesome:
-The modularity combined with the light weight. Sure I guess I could get some kind of Gregory pack for backpacking, a Patagonia bag for carry-on, some something else for cragging and keep this in the garage for peak ascents but that isn't the way my life works. Everything I do always is pretty minimalist, owning lots of stuff is not practical or socially responsible, and seriously these are tools to use not toys to collect. Versatility without sacrificing simplicity is your biggest asset.
-Weight is everything. Thank you for realizing this. Gregory, Mtn. Hardwear, pretty much everyone, hello?????????
-Little things like the 2nd handle on the front, the thin webbing atop the shoulder straps allowing them to fold more easily, the crampon/everything pouch, the second zipper in the lid go a long way to make my life easier.
-No logo. I loooove this. Also I really like knowing how involved you are with the production staff in Turkey and their general welfare.
So that is basically that is my non-alpine feedback for your alpine pack. Definitely recommending it to all the folks at work, even though they keep asking if it's a Golite. Happy new year halfway around the globe!
Cheers,
Dirk P. in China.
Dear CiloGear, Here is my feedback about the Cilogear 60L pack. I really like the pack. It saw about 100 days of use in the Cascades and Sierra, including numerous 6 day trips, cragging days, and ‘light & fast’ alpine routes (both personally and for work). I'm psyched about its weight, configuration options, and compressibility. I'd like to see some durability improvements [zippers, framesheet pocket and a longer sternum strap] made before I would consider it ready to be the best alpine pack on the market (but it's so close!). I like the ability to carry heavy loads comfortably, which is problematic for me usually due to an old shoulder injury. -Kurt H.
CiloGear responds: We're using now zippers made in the USA and used on the International Space Station, 210d Cordura Taffeta for the framesheet pocket and we've upgraded the QA and QC in our sewing operations. The V3 packs are the best yet. Feedback from our customers, be they guides, professional climbers or folks like me and you, is our touchstone to improve our product.
Dear CiloGear, In my work as a backcountry ranger here in Yosemite, I took [my 60L V2] on a 4 day patrol, and it carried beautifully, despite me picking up 20 additional pounds of garbage in the form of coils of wire, that I strapped (awkwardly, due to their size) to the outside of the pack. Overall, I'm very happy with the pack, and will keep you posted if any of that changes. -Matt N.
Dear CiloGear, I'm just back from 16 days of backpacking through Auyuittuq park on Baffin Island, which was a fabulous trip through a remote and spectacular part of Canada. The trip gave me a good opportunity to test out the 60l v2 and 20l Cilogear packs. Given the duration of the trip and the fact that we had no caches or porters, the 60l, even extended, would have been barely big enough to handle our starting loads. As I rarely need a really large capacity pack, an obvious solution was to also take along the 20l, which could then serve as a travel bag during transit, a day pack for side trips, a pillow (when stuffed with spare clothes and wrapped in a fleece) and, when mated to the back of the 60l, became an easily accessible repository for a vest, rain gear, camera lenses and a water bottle while schlepping loads. The combo worked great (the addition of the 20l didn’t noticeably change the balance or feel of the 60l) and was the envy of the “bird” brand packers (Osprey, Arc’teryx…) as whenever we did a side trip or a scramble, they found themselves either having to haul their large packs or rig a fanny pack from their lids. Despite a starting pack weight of close to 65lbs, the load balance and weight distribution of the system was excellent. Although there’s little in the way of elevation gain on the hike, the terrain is very rough, with numerous large moraines, boulder fields and creeks. The pack felt rock solid, even while clambering over wet talus or hopping from rock to rock across streams. Although I was always happy to get the pack off at the end of the day, I never had problems with sore shoulders, hips or back. By the time we’d eaten the loads down to around 40lbs, the pack was (almost) unnoticeable. One key feature of the 60l Cilogear pack which I really came appreciated is its’ weight (or lack thereof). The system gives amazing performance for such a lightweight product. Compared to most other packs used on this trip, my Cilogear weighed 3lbs less out of the gate and yet was just as capable and comfortable for moving gear. The 60l v2’s construction turned out to be bomber as well, emerging unscathed from baggage holds, airport transfers, boat rides which left some of the other packs scarred and ventilated. -Grant M.
Dear CiloGear, Well, I used the 60L WorkSack all week in Jackson over spring break. I skied inbounds at Jackson Hole and out of bounds at Teton Pass with it. What can I say. The greatest compliment that I can give to Cilogear and to my WorkSack is that I never notice it when I'm using it. It's so light and comfortable that it's like it isn't even there. From a helmet and backcountry gear to some lunch, a hydration system and an extra layer, its light weight and versatility were sweet! I can't wait until I've used it in a greater diversity of situations. It's kind of funny how removing some of your burden and using a product that demonstrate REAL intelligent design gets me so psyched to go play outside. Thanks for making such a superb product. -Pat
CiloGear- I'm back from Peru. What a great trip! The biggest line we ended up doing was the French Direct on Alpamayo, what a beautiful peak. I'm digitally processing all the pictures now, so I hope to have some images for you soon. The pack ROCKED the house. I carried some huge loads while helping porter for some people and also used it for all my ascents. Your trick with bending the framesheet worked great for my shoulder, no issues the whole trip. Doug S.
Dear CiloGear, I ordered a 60L V1 from you about a year ago, and I thought I’d get back to you with my thanks. I work for Outward Bound in North Carolina. Since then I’ve taken the pack to Devil´s tower for a month of guiding, the Creek, the Valley, and now Patagonia. My stable of packs includes packs from Black Diamond, Trango(the always classic Alpine Pack), Marmot, Dana Design, Arc´teryx, and Osprey. However, I had the dilemna of choosing one main pack for my trip to patagonia, and I chose the Cilogear pack over the others. I haven´t regretted my choice whether I´ve been on a climb or shuttling loads along the Torre Valley to high camp. Calvin
Cilogear: The packs work GREAT!!! Easily worth a couple of hours setting them up right. Super light, very comfy, hauls tons of stuff up, then compresses down super easy...I definitely use these packs all the time! Greg Barnes, American Safe Climbing Association
Dear CiloGear, I am very impressed with the 30L WorkSack I just got, and will very likely purchase a 60L sometime this spring. I love the customizable nature of the pack. It is nice to see a piece of gear that expects the user to customize it, and which requires some personal responsibility for choices in order to use it well. The D-Clip/Sliplock combination of compression is freaking brilliant. Brilliant! … And don’t sell out to a big corporation, supporting the little guy is one reason I am glad to pay retail to Cilogear or CCW rather than get a pro/bro deal Black Diamond, etc. pack. Brian
Hey CiloGear, My 60L pack made it through the summer and is in great shape! It made it up Mt Baker and Mt Shasta in the Cascades, and numerous peaks throughout the Sierra! It has worked great! Dave S.
Dear CiloGear, I own one of the v1 60L packs. I took the pack into the Rockies for 3 weeks over the summer and it performed perfectly. It worked great in every situation whether climbing or just trekking from base to base. Thanks, Todd
Dear CiloGear, The packs are fantastic. Please let me compliment you on your pack designing skills – even if I had designed it myself I’d have only made a few changes, and since you’re probably smarter than me about pack making, I expect I’ll like your design better anyway. J The 40L is also great. I actually think I like the 40L designed that way better than the basic way since mostly I’m guiding cragging or otherwise ignoring-weight-and-abusing my pack when I can fit everything in 40L. And I really like the red extension sleeve... (whoah, was I being girly and caring about color schemes there for a second?) Thanks again CiloGear, and have a great day. Cora
Dear CiloGear, Just received my pack. It took me a while to figure out the straps, but really no big deal. Very cool strap system. At first glance, the pack is extremely well designed. It's clear that a lot of thought went into it. I also tossed in some rope and gear, and walking around the house, it appears to be VERY comfy. The overall bag shape is near perfect. Crampon pocket and size, strap location etc. all dead on as far as I can tell. Aaron N.
Hi, As you may remember, I summitted Mt. Rainier with it and brought my gear to a 12,000-plus foot basecamp on the Mountaineer Route on Mt. Whitney (I summitted the next day with a daypack). It is indeed very comfortable (relatively speaking, of course) with a heavy load. Norm M.
Dear CiloGear, Here is my feedback about the Cilogear 60L pack. I really like the pack. It saw about 100 days of use in the Cascades and Sierra, including numerous 6 day trips, cragging days, and ‘light & fast’ alpine routes (both personally and for work). I'm psyched about its weight, configuration options, and compressibility. I'd like to see some durability improvements [zippers, framesheet pocket and a longer sternum strap] made before I would consider it ready to be the best alpine pack on the market (but it's so close!). I like the ability to carry heavy loads comfortably, which is problematic for me usually due to an old shoulder injury. -Kurt H.
CiloGear responds: We're using now zippers made in the USA and used on the International Space Station, 210d Cordura Taffeta for the framesheet pocket and we've upgraded the QA and QC in our sewing operations. The V3 packs are the best yet. Feedback from our customers, be they guides, professional climbers or folks like me and you, is our touchstone to improve our product.
Dear CiloGear, In my work as a backcountry ranger here in Yosemite, I took [my 60L V2] on a 4 day patrol, and it carried beautifully, despite me picking up 20 additional pounds of garbage in the form of coils of wire, that I strapped (awkwardly, due to their size) to the outside of the pack. Overall, I'm very happy with the pack, and will keep you posted if any of that changes. -Matt N.
Dear CiloGear, I'm just back from 16 days of backpacking through Auyuittuq park on Baffin Island, which was a fabulous trip through a remote and spectacular part of Canada. The trip gave me a good opportunity to test out the 60l v2 and 20l Cilogear packs. Given the duration of the trip and the fact that we had no caches or porters, the 60l, even extended, would have been barely big enough to handle our starting loads. As I rarely need a really large capacity pack, an obvious solution was to also take along the 20l, which could then serve as a travel bag during transit, a day pack for side trips, a pillow (when stuffed with spare clothes and wrapped in a fleece) and, when mated to the back of the 60l, became an easily accessible repository for a vest, rain gear, camera lenses and a water bottle while schlepping loads. The combo worked great (the addition of the 20l didn’t noticeably change the balance or feel of the 60l) and was the envy of the “bird” brand packers (Osprey, Arc’teryx…) as whenever we did a side trip or a scramble, they found themselves either having to haul their large packs or rig a fanny pack from their lids. Despite a starting pack weight of close to 65lbs, the load balance and weight distribution of the system was excellent. Although there’s little in the way of elevation gain on the hike, the terrain is very rough, with numerous large moraines, boulder fields and creeks. The pack felt rock solid, even while clambering over wet talus or hopping from rock to rock across streams. Although I was always happy to get the pack off at the end of the day, I never had problems with sore shoulders, hips or back. By the time we’d eaten the loads down to around 40lbs, the pack was (almost) unnoticeable. One key feature of the 60l Cilogear pack which I really came appreciated is its’ weight (or lack thereof). The system gives amazing performance for such a lightweight product. Compared to most other packs used on this trip, my Cilogear weighed 3lbs less out of the gate and yet was just as capable and comfortable for moving gear. The 60l v2’s construction turned out to be bomber as well, emerging unscathed from baggage holds, airport transfers, boat rides which left some of the other packs scarred and ventilated. -Grant M.
Dear CiloGear, Well, I used the 60L WorkSack all week in Jackson over spring break. I skied inbounds at Jackson Hole and out of bounds at Teton Pass with it. What can I say. The greatest compliment that I can give to Cilogear and to my WorkSack is that I never notice it when I'm using it. It's so light and comfortable that it's like it isn't even there. From a helmet and backcountry gear to some lunch, a hydration system and an extra layer, its light weight and versatility were sweet! I can't wait until I've used it in a greater diversity of situations. It's kind of funny how removing some of your burden and using a product that demonstrate REAL intelligent design gets me so psyched to go play outside. Thanks for making such a superb product. -Pat
CiloGear- I'm back from Peru. What a great trip! The biggest line we ended up doing was the French Direct on Alpamayo, what a beautiful peak. I'm digitally processing all the pictures now, so I hope to have some images for you soon. The pack ROCKED the house. I carried some huge loads while helping porter for some people and also used it for all my ascents. Your trick with bending the framesheet worked great for my shoulder, no issues the whole trip. Doug S.
Dear CiloGear, I ordered a 60L V1 from you about a year ago, and I thought I’d get back to you with my thanks. I work for Outward Bound in North Carolina. Since then I’ve taken the pack to Devil´s tower for a month of guiding, the Creek, the Valley, and now Patagonia. My stable of packs includes packs from Black Diamond, Trango(the always classic Alpine Pack), Marmot, Dana Design, Arc´teryx, and Osprey. However, I had the dilemna of choosing one main pack for my trip to patagonia, and I chose the Cilogear pack over the others. I haven´t regretted my choice whether I´ve been on a climb or shuttling loads along the Torre Valley to high camp. Calvin
Cilogear: The packs work GREAT!!! Easily worth a couple of hours setting them up right. Super light, very comfy, hauls tons of stuff up, then compresses down super easy...I definitely use these packs all the time! Greg Barnes, American Safe Climbing Association
Dear CiloGear, I am very impressed with the 30L WorkSack I just got, and will very likely purchase a 60L sometime this spring. I love the customizable nature of the pack. It is nice to see a piece of gear that expects the user to customize it, and which requires some personal responsibility for choices in order to use it well. The D-Clip/Sliplock combination of compression is freaking brilliant. Brilliant! … And don’t sell out to a big corporation, supporting the little guy is one reason I am glad to pay retail to Cilogear or CCW rather than get a pro/bro deal Black Diamond, etc. pack. Brian
Hey CiloGear, My 60L pack made it through the summer and is in great shape! It made it up Mt Baker and Mt Shasta in the Cascades, and numerous peaks throughout the Sierra! It has worked great! Dave S.
Dear CiloGear, I own one of the v1 60L packs. I took the pack into the Rockies for 3 weeks over the summer and it performed perfectly. It worked great in every situation whether climbing or just trekking from base to base. Thanks, Todd
Dear CiloGear, The packs are fantastic. Please let me compliment you on your pack designing skills – even if I had designed it myself I’d have only made a few changes, and since you’re probably smarter than me about pack making, I expect I’ll like your design better anyway. J The 40L is also great. I actually think I like the 40L designed that way better than the basic way since mostly I’m guiding cragging or otherwise ignoring-weight-and-abusing my pack when I can fit everything in 40L. And I really like the red extension sleeve... (whoah, was I being girly and caring about color schemes there for a second?) Thanks again CiloGear, and have a great day. Cora
Dear CiloGear, Just received my pack. It took me a while to figure out the straps, but really no big deal. Very cool strap system. At first glance, the pack is extremely well designed. It's clear that a lot of thought went into it. I also tossed in some rope and gear, and walking around the house, it appears to be VERY comfy. The overall bag shape is near perfect. Crampon pocket and size, strap location etc. all dead on as far as I can tell. Aaron N.
Hi, As you may remember, I summitted Mt. Rainier with it and brought my gear to a 12,000-plus foot basecamp on the Mountaineer Route on Mt. Whitney (I summitted the next day with a daypack). It is indeed very comfortable (relatively speaking, of course) with a heavy load. Norm M.
