If you see through all the commercially available ruck sacks in the markets and most of them tell you that you'll get perhaps 80L.. They probably give you a rucksack that is 80L in total or even less, not true when it comes to the Norwegian Army ruck sacks, they give you more than they promisse, a lot more. I have filled this rucksack up with absolutely all my gear, every single piece of equipment, left my winter sleeping bag uncompressed 2.3kg synthetic sleeping bag (LARGE ONE) good for -35c extreme temperature, in the bag and still I had room for more. This is not about size regardless, this is just awesome.
The pictures will always lie, size wise and I would need to undergo quite an effort to give you a good idea, for many of you who are familiar with the British Army rucksacks (Bergen used by SAS amongst others) You may understand what I mean. This is a Norwegian Bergen variation (and quite appropriate since bergen is a City in Norway). Anyway. The side pockets them selfs rooms 8 liters (officially, they can store more than that but will be harder to close up (dry bag style closing method))
They are extractable:
Two zippers on each side takes them off, and this can come in handy.
The backside holds may adjustment systems and as you can see I have a hydration bladder installed (just 2L) but in Norway at this time we have snow.. Water is not a problem. regardless this is a feature that the rucksack provides.
This pack is very comfortable to carry, amusing that they made it so comfortable, but I can understand it, this is not the standard rucksack for field use, this is the scout, recon and special operations pack that is supposed to keep soldiers alive for weeks out in the field.
Here you can see a hint of the rucksacks back length height adjustment system hidden below the lower back support pad.
And here is the top of the rucksack, there are two straps that are singed completely down in this picture, and much of the secrets to the scalability of this rucksack rests in this portion, the lid is fixed to the ruck sack but it's still floating, so by default like this it supports the complete 80L volume of the main compartment but lossing up those to straps on the top, expands it to go way above the 80L's of the top compartment and there are room because the inside has room and attachment possibilities way above the 80L main compartment space.
This picture is taken from the lower portion of the pack and you are looking into the top of the pack, I'm not sure if this picture says a whole lot to you but it is what it is, I guess.
The top compartment, if you have ever carried this pack, I guess you have managed to overfill this space, it's risky! This compartment is so large, I see no problem storing 4 liters in there or maybe more if I want to, and that is still with the main compartment filled up to maximum capacity.
The Hellsport fjellduken that I mentioned in the previous post, I put it inside of the top compartment
Once again, size is hard to measure visually but the Fjellduken is around the size of a 1.5Litre milk carton and I can easily store 3 of these inside the top pocket, so I estimate the size of this compartment to be around 4.5 to 5 Liters of space.
To wrap it up: 2x 8 Liters that is 16 Liters + 4.5 equals 20.5 Liters + 80L = 100 Liters. This is only a nice rough estimate, until I actually fill this pack with trashbags full of water we wont know the real size and thats not going to happen either. So I settle for 100 Liters but I am confident that there is more space to be had here, it's simply to flexible...
Regardless, it's actually quite comfy to carry even at the maximum load that I managed to put it through, the difficult part was to get it of the floor and onto my back, which I managed by basically using both arms and just throw it on there :) Amazing backpack.
The new price on one of these are about 545 US Dollars. I payed 127 US Dollars for mine.
I did not pay in dollars but I convert it for you so that you dont have to (I exemplify by 1 USD staying at around 5.5 NOK).
No comments:
Post a Comment