External Frame Backpack for Hiking, and Thru-Hiking

That looks like a great pack! I live in the deepest south of all (not the swamp, north of the coast, and not in the delta, but mississippi nonetheless) where we have a lot of water. I don't need to be able to carry days worth of water, but it is nice to be able to carry more water than you think you need. I had an experience with a Stanley thermos, Alabama in summer, cowboy boots, a small but steep canyon, and a long sleeve medium weight wool shirt. I didn't suffer any major injuries, but the second day I repeated the hike and came very close to falling off the side of the canyon into the rocks from a good 8 or 10 yards up. Now, I really do understand the need for a good water supply, medical kit, and trekking poles. Strangely enough I didn't fall wearing the boots and big shirt. It was the second day when I brought more water, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. I actually balance better in riding boots than tennis shoes, but then again I don't ever really wear tennis shoes or t-shirts, even outdoors. 

Wide isn’t the problem necessarily, it’s the tall. That’s what makes them tippy.

Iirc Drollingsr was not a small guy: look at the pack going over his head. Now think of the too frequent, just a bit more packload and you’ve really built yourself a tower.

Yep, still got it. As I do my Berkeley Ski Hut Chevron sleeping bag, Sierra Designs 60/40 mountain parka, Sigg pots, Optima 8R stove and bunch of other stuff including old hiking guides that are fun to flip through even today, those things that got out of favor just move to the back of the storage room.

ETA: though wide can be an issue, for Nordic skiing it limits hand and pole swing and in narrow or brush overgrown trails or steep slopes cross trails the wider pack hits things along the trail edge, pulls you off balance and on a cliff face maybe pushes off the cliff. Check out “the tunnel” on the Hamilton Gorge section of the High Sierra Route for one place in a very popular route you don’t want to be extra wide or tall. Lol.

Ironically that may be the last major time I used that A16: I needed load hauling since I was looping off the standard route and had about 14 days penciled in, and that’s a lot of food weight…

I totally agree: getting pulled backwards from a load that’s too far in back of your center of gravity that you’ll have to fight all day is far worse than the occasional bit of topheavy sway from the once in a while high step.

Not doing a great deal of Nordic skiing over night snow camping these days it’d be mostly the wider pack grabbing trail side brush and trees I’d find annoying.

The other thing thinking about that A16 pack, but it’s not a mandatory feature of external frames in general, is that one had a lot of fixed volume pockets: which are difficult to efficiently fill and for me anyway led to a lot of searching when I needed something. But a lot of classic external frame packs then were, to paraphrase a backpacking author of the time Collin Fletcher, “big bloody sacks”; essentially one central undivided sack with maybe a pocket or two down the sides. My internal frame preference was and is for that style: I find it’s better space efficiency when I can just cram it all in.

I’m remembering my old external-frame pack, and that when I did my longest trip, 200 miles in 1990, I used a (borrowed) external frame pack, as at that time I didn’t have a good pack of my own. I’d have to say there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the pack, but that while my first good internal (we won’t count the very cheap one I bought for European travel and carried for a couple of years after that) was actually heavier, it was also way more comfortable.

Hard to believe, now that I own a 2# pack, that my Dana Designs Alpine was something like 7#. So internals weren’t always lighter, and the switch was both partly peer-pressure (in a manner of speaking) and mostly about comfort. Later I started to get old and looked more at weight.

I used to carry a 120 lb pack. I used a Golite strapped to my Eureka Eagle external frame pack. I have shared pics of it quite a few times over the years. I am now one of those McHale converts. I can carry 100 lbs in my McHale (and have) comfortably. However, I am on off-trail backpacker so I strive to strip down as much weight as possible. I now snowshoe in the winter in temps down to 0 and below regularly and my pack loaded weighs in at a whopping 26lbs with two bottled beers and my flask of whiskey. My Quilt is rated at 0. Here is the strategy as I see it. If I can carry a couple steaks and a six pack and still be at under 30 lbs, why not? I understand the thought of a frame pack being comfortable, but my McHale fits flawlessly to my frame. That means I can carry more (if I desire) and don't feel the weight nearly as much when I am climbing that scree field or log jam, ducking under log fall, or crossing that river. And you want to talk durable? I used to go through packs every two years. I purchased my McHale some 15-18 years ago...and it is still going strong. I love durable and will carry the weight if it makes sense to me. I use a Military Gore-Tex shell and it isn't light, but I am constantly scraping through brush and sliding down hills which would shred more technical shells on the market. I hike in the PNW where it is either raining/snowing or will be within a day or two on most of my hikes and I want to stay dry in the soggy wet brush. If you have a good waist belt that transfers the weight to your hips/legs like it should and rides closer to your body, you can carry more weight comfortably. That's where a McHale or other custom pack shines above the off-the-shelf pack. My belt is double buckled and the cant fits my hips like a glove without grinding into my waist. It floats and helps my loads feel like they are part of me. Durability is a factor of strong fabric and great stitching. McHale packs are bombproof.

Please also keep in mind that generally there aren't reasons for us to exclude use of an external frame pack but the benefits of internal frame packs are a very good reasons to use them. And so the market went with what most people want.

“ Honestly, I don't really see what the big fuss is over 5#'s on a pack”

I had to laugh at this. At my size and age, my max pack weight is about 38 lbs. Max comfortable about 30. 5# is about 17% of that, and represents 3 days food, give or take. I have spent a lot of effort and not a little money at dropping my base weight by 5 pounds, so that I can continue to do week-long trips. The significance of a few pounds one way or the other does vary a lot from person to person, but ultimately it will all come down to food 😜

As a young man, you may underestimate the ravages of time. When I was in my 20s I could, and did, carry a 50# pack. It may be part of why my feet hate me now.

Still—as Jazzmom said, HYOH. If you have found a pack that works for you and is comfortable at the weights you regularly carry, you don’t need our validation.

Oh, one thing no one has brought up is external frames breaking. I am assuming that with better materials than we had 40 years ago that’s not so much of a problem anymore.