T-3 Weeks

T-3 weeks and counting. Anyone who's been following what's going on on the Continental Divide Trail and Colorado this year knows that it's been a crazy snow-pack year. Not only a big snow year, but a lot of late snow, coupled with a very cool spring. Parts of the San Juan's are still in pretty much winter mountaineering conditions.

Our original plan had been to do the Colorado Trail starting in mid August, including both the Colorado West and Colorado East full Collegiate loop. I'm ready for a break from Ohio and Glide is theoretically retiring from her job this week. Time will tell how many daily phone calls she gets from her former employer to deal with day to day issues. But with that said, we've decided to take a quickie trip to Colorado to get away from Ohio and be a bit of a retirement vacation for Glide. (Isn't retirement permanent vacation?)

So we've decided that while we're out there, we'll do the Collegiate East segment of the Colorado Trail. This will give us a good 70 mile /  four or  five day shakedown cruise to try out our new ULA packs and the new quilt that hopefully (better!) will be done for that trip. This also gives us an opportunity figure out what else needs to be adjusted in our gear before we come back to complete the CT and August.

With less than two weeks before we hit the road. I'm shifting into panic mode with what seems like a million things to do before we leave. We purchased a food dehydrator food dehydrator last weekend at Cabela's (on sale, $50 off!) and are starting to dry some fruits and veggies for the trip.

And our MYOG, two person quilt is still not done. And it's a critical item before we leave. But it will get done as well all the other critical items. And those things that don't get done well, they'll just have to wait.

The good news is the snow is melting fast, especially on the northern sections near Twin Lakes where I was worried about deep and steep snow crossings. But now it looks like the snow will be melted down to manageable levels and we should be able to complete this section without ice axes or snow tracks.

We're both excited. And this should be a fun shakedown cruise for us.

Gear Review: ULA Circuit First Impressions

Glide, and I have our shiny new ULA Circuits. We are excited to get to try them out in Colorado in a few weeks. 

Although we ordered them directly from the company, we initially checked out the packs on two separate trips to Atlanta, where we stopped in at the Little River Trading Company in Maryville, Tennessee. On both trips, the service we receive there was amazing. Dolphin and Bert both spent a lot of time helping us look at packs, try various pack models on and even spent some time fitting the packs correctly so that we knew exactly what size and what system we wanted on the ULA packs. The store also has an amazing amount of other backpacking and ultra light gear at the store. So if you're in the area, I highly recommend that you make the detour and stop in and say hi and see what they have to offer. 

I got a medium Circuit with the standard "J" straps and a medium belt while Glide who is the same height as me, but obviously female and a different body configuration ended up being better fit by a small Circuit using the "S" straps. And since we now obviously have both sizes at our disposal, a quick try on of each other's packs did confirm that the size selections for correct. So pay attention to their sizing recommendations, they seem to be pretty much spot on. 

I ordered mine with the two color customization mostly because it wasn't a lot of money and I wanted a pack that was slightly different than everybody else's. So I have a red pack with a purple top flap. Since it was a custom pack, I asked them to change the top roll flap buckles to the yellow buckles they offer on their higher customization packs. And they did this for no charge. Thank you ULA! An order note:  I place the order late at night and got an order confirmation the next morning.  Several hours later I received a shipping notice. Ummmm, did they miss the customization? Nope. They did the work and shipped same day.

The first thing I did when I got the pack was remove a bunch of extraneous items on the pack.

There's some hand loops on the shoulder straps that I'm just not sure I'm going to use. And along with some elastic water bottle loops that I may or may not use, but more on that later.

On the inside the pack, there's a small zipper pouch, which is actually pretty nice, I took it out but it will probably go back in and get used for small valuable items that get lost in packs like wallets and keys and things like that. 

And there's also a hydration sleeve that I'm positive I will not use as a personal preference. I just don't like putting water inside my pack. I've seen enough water disasters, and I like my sleeping bag and clothes to be dry. Not to mention how hard it is to slide a full water bag in and out of a full pack into the hydration sleeve. 

I also remove the black, 1/8" black elastic cord on the back of the pack and replaced it with some bright pink shock cord that I got from Paracord Planet . A little bling never hurt any pack and the brightly colored shock cord is just easier to find and grab on where the original was black shock cord on a black back panel. It looks spiffy.

I also took some of the same bright shock cord and used it to replace the shock cord on the bottle loops that were on the shoulder harnesses. This is a huge help in reaching down and finding what you're grabbing when you need to grab that cord to put your bottle on or off. The original black with all of its black hardware was pretty much camouflage on the shoulder straps.

On my first impressions, was there anything I didn't like? The answer is yes.

The one inch adjustment webbing on the bottom of the shoulder strap is just a little bit too short. When I take the pack off and loosen one of my shoulder straps, it literally runs all the way out to the end of the strap to be barely loose enough for me to easily slide it off my shoulder. And now I end up with the doubled over end of the adjustment strap being jammed into the buckle, which makes it difficult to pull the strap back tight when I put the pack on. If the straps for a bit longer, I don't think this would be an issue. 

However, I resolved the issue by taking a short section of para-cord and creating a loop at the end of both straps to give me a handle to grab to tighten the strap. I think I may like this better than long straps anyway. It is easier to feel that you are grabbing para-cord versus just another strap when you're tightening the straps. But it also gives me a loop that I could clip something to while I'm hiking (i.e. hat gloves, etc) while I'm doing something else like eating or drinking

The jury's out on the pockets on the waist belt. This is really a personal preference item. But if I'm walking without poles, the swing of my arms will rub against the pockets, especially if they're packed full of stuff. On the other side, it is really convenient to have them to stuff things into. So I'm just gonna have to hike for a while and keep adjusting and figure out what works and doesn't work with the waist belt pockets

And again, a preference item, but the zippers on the pockets open from the back to the front. It is really easy to grab the zipper pulls I added, and pull the zip them forward to open the pocket. However, when you zip the pocket up, the closed end of the zipper is all the way back near your hip. And almost impossible to visually see. If the zippers were oriented in the opposite direction, then it would be easy to visually confirm that the pockets were fully closed.

I have several observations on the side pockets. 


Overall they are fairly large, and I'm certain they will be functional. But I'm a bit concerned that they just aren't deep enough and that things will fall out of them while I'm doing gymnastics over dead fall and other such maneuvers on the trail. Time will tell. 

Also, the design of the bottom of the shoulder straps actually goes through a slot on the side of these pockets all the way to the back of the pack. While this attachment point on the back of the pack is really good engineering to help to pull the weight of the pack forward towards your body, it does result in a several inch long opening on the bottom front side of the pocket. If you're putting a two liter Smart Water bottle in your pack, this probably isn't going to be a problem. If you put something small, like a knife or a compass, then I would say there's a high possibility that it could work its way out through this opening. So I think I will restrict the use of these pockets to big stuff.

There is a pair of shoe lace type ice axe / hiking pole attachment points on the back of the pack.


While they're very lightweight, so far, I think they're a total fail. Since we hiked together, we generally stow or deploy our hiking poles, for each other with out taking our packs off. So something that is fast and easy on the back of the pack is really the solution we're looking for. And the provided straps don't fulfill that. The best solution we found so far is to put the hiking poles with the handles down in the outside pockets. And I will work out a easy attachment loop for the top of them probably using a G hook that I can clip around the existing elastic on the back of the pack. 

I'm also working on a removable top pocket to clip on the top of the pack. For almost 50 years I've always had packs with top pockets. And I've gotten very accustomed to having them there to stash all sorts of smaller fragile items that I need access to during the day. Everything from sunglasses to TP to cameras to sunscreen, gets stuffed up there. I also needed an attachment point for my GPS recorder which needs a clear view of the sky for accurate recording. My design is for removable pocket,  so that when in camp, I can unclip it easily from the pack and use it to gain access to the items I need without running into my pack all the time. I will do a separate post on that.

Overall, I'm happy and excited with my new purchase. I'm really looking forward to give it a giving it a real trail test. 

And to all those gear junkies out there with a dozen packs in their closet. You understand the finer points of the observations in this blog as we're all continuously on that quest for the absolutely perfect pack that probably doesn't exist.