EP 26 - Shadowlight Backpack Launch

Tayson / Brigham: Here's the big question, how do we live a life? Full of Adventures travel and memories on our terms without being millionaires without previous experience? And without unlimited amounts of time, that's the big question and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm your co-host Tayson Whittaker and I'm Dave Keim and you're listening to the Live Ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals. Hey, what's up? We'll be tried and Live Ultralight podcast. Listeners today is the day. It is finally time that we get to start revealing some of the secrets, some of the secret C, and all of the features behind our new Ultra Lite. Backpack, the Shadowlight backpack, there's something, we've been teasing for quite a while on the podcast of its easing, it in videos of teasing an emails, something even working on, it's just been a big part of what we've been doing.

Tayson / Brigham: The last, I don't know, six to eight months, maybe longer than that. For sure longer than that actually. I think about it, but it's finally time that we get to start releasing and talking about a little bit. So I've got Brigham our lead designer here with me and we've got some notes on, a whole bunch of things to talk about. But really, what we wanted to talk about is the story behind The Shadow life backpack. Where did this idea come from? You know, what are we hope to solve with this and what is the finish product going to be? Also on top of that and I do want you to pay attention and listen to this. Because there is a way that during the month of August, when you're hearing this, you're going to be able to save 25% off of this pack, which is a good number. It's an incredible number, but that's only available during the month of August.

Tayson / Brigham: So we'll cover the details on that at the end of this. Now, Just Dive Right In Brigham for starters. We kind of wanted to talk a little bit about when we when we decided that we needed to redesign a new backpack, we need to make a new backpack and and have it be something different. We we definitely took a hard look around the industry. And what were some of the things we saw? What were some of the things we didn't? Like about the current offerings? there were, there's a lot of packs out there in this market that are They all kind of have the same basic. I don't know, Foundation or I want to say design because they all have their own little design. But Kind of, they're out this the platform's kind of the same. There's a lot of similarity between them in that. There's generally Just a big main compartment with maybe a stretch pocket on the back. And that's pretty much it. There.

Tayson / Brigham: I mean, that's pretty common. It's like side water bottle Pockets. Yeah, it's kind of a common Base design. I guess you'd say, I think this I think the idea of that too is really pioneered around some of these Cottage companies from Wild back to started using DCF. You know, they just like they made it so simple, just trying to shave weight and figure out how to sew and use that stuff that it became kind of the norm when it came to ultralight, backpacking, from then on. Duffel bag that's on your back now. Yeah, yeah. There's just there's not much to him. it doesn't mean they're they're bad or you know, it just there was just a lot of sameness across a lot of the the pack offerings out there. You know, and I guess I get why they are that way on top of like the manufacturing side and kind of the ultralight side.

Tayson / Brigham: But yeah, we really wanted to just to tackle and ultralight backpack that Just offered more. Yeah, you know. Yeah yeah. I mean like you said like there's a few options out there. There's kind of the frameless, there's the non frame. There's this one's got two pockets, you know an outside and inside pocket. But for the most part. Yeah. They they work really well if you're very specific type of person and for everyone else, they're trying to make it work for them. If that makes sense. Like there is definitely a base group of people that are so ultralight, they're based weights are like, not even 10 pounds, they're sub 10 pounds, there's so minimalist and they're just so content with the duffel bag on your back.

Tayson / Brigham: But there's a lot of people that we've I've seen and heard of the kind of try to make that design work for them, even though it might not be the best design for them, you know, they're not necessarily a seven pound bass weight guy, and they're trying to run a frameless pack in their, you know, here in Utah. You know, there's times when we're carrying 10 plus pounds of just water on water carries and, you know, and that's for Wyoming. Sometimes that goes for Arizona, I mean, all sorts of areas that we've hiked personally where you can easily start to stretch the limits of that design. So, knowing all that and considering all that, and Wing.

Tayson / Brigham: Our audience you guys, and what you're asking for, we, we went to the drawing board and we started to lay out You know what we wanted and so we, we set some parameters me and Brigham we set some parameters early on, and that was that we needed a pack that was ultralight. And so to us, that meant that it was two pounds or less. But rather than going from there and saying, okay how do we make it as far under two pounds, as we can get it, we said know what can we end up giving the customers at a two-pounder less area? So as long as it's under two pounds, we're doing our job on the Wayside but what additional things can we now offer them on that side of that and that meant things like organization that things like access. I mean, things like comfort and just overall approachability, right?

Tayson / Brigham: It's not that approachable to some people to see such an extremist level of an ultralight pack, you know, that that can almost hurt the industry or scare people away from getting into backpacking to begin to. Just not that approachable. Unfortunately, for us approachability can also mean price points, but as a direct to Consumer brand, we're able to produce. An expensive pack, you know, per se but because of the directed consumer price point, we can make it a little bit more approachable for people. So that was really, our goal is okay, two pounds. We gotta be under two pounds, but what can we give you rather than, what can we take away? So as we started to develop these ideas and we continue to develop these ideas. We also know that we needed a new backpack, manufacturer we needed someone who could play at the level we wanted to play at.

Tayson / Brigham: And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you heard us talk about our trip to Vietnam, I was back in December, right? And a big part of that trip was to meet and walk through some some backpack factories and we did find a phenomenal partner. If you want to hear more about that, go listen to that podcast, for sure. But you know, we were able to source and and find a partner who was building some of the highest impacts for some of the highest in countries in the world and get in with them and work with them which has been a great, a great stereo, that's really kind of where this all starts as we needed, we needed a fantastic partner to develop and build this pack and we'll get into some of the things that they were able to introduce us to and allow us to do as we as the development went on. But that was a big first part.

Tayson / Brigham: So we got kind of the manufacturing side, we were very happy with that side and then we knew, okay, now let's let's really get into the Nitty Gritty of this and and make sure that we have all of our ideas straight and then let's prototype it. So Getting getting into all of our ideas. I guess I don't know what were some additional parameters. Were there any additional parameters? Besides, what? I've already touched on that. We wanted to be in this pack. I don't know if I can think of anything like, very specific. right now, other than I guess more in Broad terms, you know, we still we still look at The ultra right backpacking market and wanted to identify things that people like, you know what I mean?

Tayson / Brigham: Where we're just gonna just design a backpack with no attention to what people already do like and so there were some things that we wanted to for sure include In our pack, but do it in in our way and only do it if it's meaningful functional. And and Adds real practicality to the pack. Yeah, totally such as say the outside mesh pocket, that was something that just was, it was an extremely, and is an extremely useful feature, whether it be stuffing, your rain fly in there. That's might be a little bit wet in the mornings have commentation on it. Whether it means stuffing a rain jacket in there or just something you want quick access to that. Can expand and contract really easily. So, You know, we wanted to make sure we could build that in.

Tayson / Brigham: But another thing we wanted to build in was a full length zipper on the pack and be able to give us access to the bottom, the top of the pack, whatever it is that you need out of that pack without unstuffing, the whole thing and just make it more work for you, but that did a lot that, you know, that was maybe the first part of some things that we needed to, we thought we needed to prototype in house to figure out. If we could make it work, which was, can we build a full length zipper on this thing and still utilize mesh stuff Pockets. So we ended up designing this double barrel mesh stuff Pockets, which we've been very happy with and a big thing that we kind of have the parameter set there for was. Can we get a two-person tent or two person rain fly. If you just have the rain fly in one of those side pockets, right?

Tayson / Brigham: And that was like I feel like that was just a really good addition of being very aware of what the market needed. But how could we slightly adapt that to our user? Yeah, just add you know, add to it with while still Staying in our parameters, you know? So it you can constantly add an add to a backpack and then you're going to end up with a five-pound backpack. But, you know, so that was the challenge for us is like what um, not just adding things for the sake of adding things, but Let's make an ultralight backpack that adds onto what's already there while staying, you know, very, very lightweight. Yeah. So we we kind of continue down this. We knew that hip belts or hip belt pocketing. Was a really big one. It's really important on an ultralight backpack because you don't have infinite organizations. So that becomes a big organization piece of it.

Tayson / Brigham: We also knew we wanted to add, you know, some additional pocketing, which is just above Beyond thing for a lot of ultralight packs out there. So we put a couple Pockets, a little bit higher up on the pack. So where I store things like, my, my stove, my titanium stove, and Cooking System, toilet paper. And, and other things, I might need You know, separate and easy to find throughout the day because I'm going to be using my water filters. Usually something I tuck up in there which again is just kind of one of those are the extra benefits. So we have these ideas circulating and we decided to prototype. It in-house. So Brigham starts going to work patterning, and installing this. And at the same time that we're doing that, we start the process of researching frames frame materials, start the process of researching fabrics and start the process of researching.

Tayson / Brigham: You know what, what buckling systems and what Foams do we want to use? So kind of diving into those we did. This is where our manufacturing partner really did come into play and was very useful. You know, we got to really work through the Foams that they had. We ended up using, you know, some perforated Foams and testing some of those different thicknesses densities, all sorts of different things and really dial it in for exactly how we wanted it, but one that I'm really excited to talk about because it is so different and unique is we had it on ongoing debate. I would say or issue within our office on Fabrics now, it's it's kind of gone back and forth. The pendulum seems to swing back and forth inside of the community whether you know, a DCF a Cuban.

Tayson / Brigham: Fiber, a dynamic pack is is like the standard for like this is what an ultralight pack should be this fabric is the ultimate, this is this and then there's some other guy pack makers out there that are you know, utilizing robot, fabrics and extracts that. Are also really really great Fabrics but there's pros and cons to each of these fabrics. And you know we were I wouldn't say we're struggling with it but we weren't fully happy with either side. I don't think that for a minute we were on the train of. Let's Make a Cuban fiber, you know, Dynamo backpack but but also you know, we were looking at the the robotics side and we wanted to push it farther and and unfortunately, we were, we were able to write yeah, and honestly Early on.

Tayson / Brigham: I think it was if we were to have ruled one out early, it probably would have been the DCF because You know, we talked about wanting to make the pack approachable DCF is really expensive and frankly if we wanted to make it in DCF the cost of that would not have been the reason. I mean our cost wouldn't have been the reason we wouldn't want to do it, right? Like we have the advantages of Not really having to worry about our materials cost. However, The customer ends up paying, you know, what I mean? So it was more in along lines of like, you know, we could do DCF pack for sure. But this is right. Choice is just didn't seem like the right choice because we want the back to be approachable in terms of its function but also what the customers going to pay for it. But we also don't want to introduce a pact with just a very Adequate fabric, but that's not really special for advanced in any way.

Tayson / Brigham: so I mean some of that, let's just list, some of the I'll have you list some of the pros and cons of a full CF backpack. Yeah, or fabric. I mean yeah I mean the number one pro is going to be lightweight like you know yarn for yarn it's just it's a very lightweight fabric. That's probably okay. The other one I guess functionally would be that it's it's a waterproof fabric, it's impermeable. however, the backpack is only going to be as waterproof As It Seems. S e a m s. So then if you want, if you're going to clean waterproof, then you need to take the seams or seal the seams which is I'm not interested in doing frankly. So those are really the two main benefits. The I'd say the Navy to cons or B. It's very expensive. It's crinkly it's loud. And it. tends to from From my research, the vulnerable to pinholes punctures. I'm getting a lot of. because of its kind of crinkling this.

Tayson / Brigham: It'll develop. Like abrasion lines and fold lines that those will fail. Pretty quickly relative to like a strong nylon fabric, right? Yeah, if you were to take DCF compared to like let's say a Cordura, just a strong nylon. And you were to like rub them, throw them in the back, your truck and let them drag around in there for a while, is there one that's more durable? Yeah, the Cordura is going to be more durable. So like DCF isn't a specialty abrasion resistant. Yeah, it's it. And that's been my research and understanding with it is that like when you get it off the roll like Put it in a lab and it performs phenomenally it's like for like pure strength of it. Right. But but it's kind of weird because durability over time seems to have more of a negative than a positive even though like when it's a brand new thing it's really an impressive and impressive thing. And yeah.

Tayson / Brigham: So yes, that was some of the reasons that we weren't fully in love with the DCF and like he said, like Freedom said, it wasn't necessarily just the price. I mean the price was not the number one reason that we weren't interested in it by any means I think durability was for me when I was waiting on this. Durability was my number one concern with DCF. So then we started looking at the nylon side, right? And so, we started looking at You know, the Cordura is the aerobics. we actually had a few meetings with different like aerobics suppliers and learning about the Yarns that they're using and we looked at some extremas and That. Essentially, you know, we started to move a little bit more in the extrema range, right? Yeah, we did, which is aerobic fabric using an extremely yarn. That is the ripstop inside of the rubic fabric.

Tayson / Brigham: So Robuck is a nylon that you're going to find very commonly on other pack, makers in the industry, you know, just to say, some some references out there, I believe like, say Gregory and an osprey and a gospel or gear. They're using a lot of Rubik's right? And we're not knocking. If any means we're going to talk about how we're utilizing it as well. But it's very common. Nylon fabric for backpacks. and so we were looking at rovick and then using a ripstop inside of it that Stream a yarn, which is going to be a bigger yarn that has more strength to it. Correct. Yeah, yeah. And to like be transparent like rope like we were our interest was in Aerobic because it's a good fabric, you know what I mean? Like that's, we were headed kind of that direction going with aerobic with a reinforced stronger yarn for the ripstop. And that's what kind of led us in that direction.

Tayson / Brigham: Towards like the Rope extrema fabric, But then you probably lead us to where we're going with the storyline. But, yeah, I mean, essentially when we sat down with our manufacturer, our manufacturer said, hey, you know, we know that you have your own Fabric Mill because we did, we had Some lined up, but they said these guys can also Supply it but we, we know them. We like them. We trust them a lot. Why don't you go sit down with these guys and see if they can do the same thing that you're looking for? So we did. So in sat down, Met our buddy, Justin, and we started to talk to him and said, hey, this is, this is what we're looking for. We're looking for this Robuck extrema with the Xtreme stop Fabric and he kind of looked at us and he scratched his head. He started telling us that a different fabric. No, no. We want this fabric right here and we're like no, no extreme, no no Spectra.

Tayson / Brigham: And so it took it was kind of this funny thing where there was some communication or trying to figure out, I'm trying to fall on Brigham was following along because he understood the the terminology a little bit more. But essentially we left the conversation learning that we could do the same thing that we wanted to do with the extreme a fabric, but we could do it better because we could use Spectrum yarn, right? So what we could get is we could get a high-end Heights, nasty nylon robic nylon and put it with a grid stop using a spectrum yarn. So what's different about Spectrum? What is Spectrum yarn? So the The base fiber is a completely different fiber. So like the The makeup. It basically, the ingredients of Specter is completely different than nylon if you were to, you know, look at all the the letters involved, you know what I mean?

Tayson / Brigham: But, so Spectra, there are there may be one other one but I believe there's really only two there. The fiber itself is called ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene and that's the kind of stuff that you see. Like in the the Jeeping industry all the strongest winches are going to these synthetic winches that they steal. Yeah. That's what most of a lot of those what are whoopie slings are. Yeah. Yeah that's what that's that's what that is. Because it's incredibly strong. It's like fiber for fiber ounce or gram for gram. It's stronger than steel and so you can see why on a Jeep on a winch. You can have the strength of it for a fraction of the weight. So that's that's the big difference. It's it's just a stronger more durable fiber and then that fiber is made into Yarns and we're able to take that yarn and put that in the rip stop grid as a pose to just a larger nylon ripstop, you know.

Tayson / Brigham: So Brigham is not going to say this. I'm going to say this to dumb it down a little bit more, but the ultra high maniculatus you might know it as its greatest kind of Similar competitive, I would say competitor, but other people companies, two different companies that are making the similar product would be the Dyna composite company or a DCF and Spectra. Dynamite Spectra. Basically go head-to-head. Have the highest quality product in this space. And so essentially to dumb this down really well what we're doing is we're building a nylon base fabric backpack using a Spectre grid stop in there, like almost like a DCF grid, stop in there. So what's so unique about this is we can use lighter weight, nylon Fabrics. Put a heavier weight. Spectra yarn through it. And create a much more durable, strong.

Tayson / Brigham: I don't know all around trustworthy backpack material and keep the weights really low doesn't really cool is because like, in a portion of our backpack, we've got a 200 gives me a 100 weight nylon thread, but we use the Spectra and a 200 weight and it kind of creates like a chain leak affect. We're like a grid effect where if you are going to rub that on a rock, Spectra is going to take a lot of that abrasion over the nylon, but the nylons obviously, still there. And so it creates a really, really cool scenario where we can use a much lighter Fabric and get really, really phenomenal. It's almost it's right down the middle kind of between the nylon and the DCF arguments. We're able to basically build this hybrid fabric that's being custom run. Just for us and build it into a backpack where I feel like it just thrives perfectly.

Tayson / Brigham: Yeah, so it was really our our manufacturing, our backpack manufacturer, that kind of hooked us up with This fabric because we were, we're at oar. And we were talking about it. and they kind of said like we should introduce you to these guys and like We could tell immediately like they were pretty tight and us being like kind of the smaller the smaller brand, you know, on this, this massive backpack manufacturer. We need to kind of could perceive their connections but they're like, oh, let's just go right now. So they got up and walked us over to this booth. And they like just walked us right into their Booth. No appointment or anything which Kind of at or you generally need them appointment with a lot of these bigger. Suppliers. But there's like, hey, you know, a lot of credibility was instantly handed to us. Yeah. Walking in the booth with, with our back. Yeah, it was.

Tayson / Brigham: And, and yeah, we sat down with Justin and kind of like, you talked about it was well, as funny as he was, I remember, we kind of talked about it as we were leaving, like He was kind of pushy about like he was really pushing us towards that. And it took a it took us like Some time to ponder that like huh? Yeah we oughta we really had a Pay more attention to this but more thought into it. And the more thought we put into the more questions we asked. We know is the right thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. For, for sure. I mean, it for me, you know, I was kind of coming into this and I was like, are these Not the same things you know and and the price went up significantly to to use this fabric. I mean significantly jumped and I was like is that is that the right thing to do?

Tayson / Brigham: But the more we were able to study it you know and test it and whatnot doors like oh yeah, this fabric is worth every penny and our and you know, it's kind of be. I mean our customers are. I think they're going to be very pleased using that fabric in its strength, its durability, its function. And for those of you that like the idea of, you know, Spectra DCF type Fabrics. It's a good, like, a coachable way to start utilizing it too, because you can't turn your Blind Eye to to its Effectiveness. Like you said even down to winches and jeeps, but but I think this is the right and a great application for us. So we're super excited about the fabric side, so that was like, I don't want to make that a huge tangent because it wasn't. It's a baseline for this. But to get back to some of this other stuff, you know. So we've got this sample.

Tayson / Brigham: Now, we've got suppliers Fabrics, all these things lining out, and we were able to start testing out these. These backpacks. First, we're testing out our in-house backpack, and then we're able to utilize that to get some samples rolling from from our other manufacturers. And that's when I started getting to dial in foams, You know making sure that all the stitching was Barack attacked in the right place and that it's sewn up the right way. We started playing around with different compression ideas for different pockets and you know maybe getting away from webbing in certain areas and using different courses and things like that, and yeah, that was That that's where the pack really started to take shape, I guess for me. We ran through a handful of samples. And and this is all so I guess I don't know.

Tayson / Brigham: Just this is a surprising thing for me is we're getting to the stage is you know we designed this whole thing really focused on weight like like breaking that two-pound limit with a 24 inch frame. And With a full-size hit belt, you know, for comfort and and all these things that were adding into it, it really started to shock me so I'm like, oh yeah, this will be under two pounds, like it's not gonna be that hard to be two pounds. And when we started getting down to crunch time, it was like, wow. You know, we we gotta start making very focused, very careful decisions, whether you know, in every aspect and I'm really happy with a lot of those decisions. But let's, let's backstep just for a second and talk about the frame because that was another big part that we, the Prototype, you know, in-house, we tested it. We worked on different bins.

Tayson / Brigham: So what is the frame and and what are you thoughts on? On it? Well, the frames. It's aluminum. It's kind of like a Upside down square-ish. You, I don't know like how to describe the shape, but you know, we, you know, in our early early kind of design discussions, we we were we were it was easy for us to settle on that. We we wanted it to have a frame. You know, we may talk about that. Farther down in the podcast but we wanted to frame. and so having, Kind of just want to frame? Why do you think? I mean what? Okay so I mean we really wanted to frame because it goes back to the approachability of the pack again in the versatility is Making the lightest possible pack was not the priority, but wait was a priority. If that makes sense. We were trying to keep it light but we wanted to frame because with a frame it gives you options. It gives you Four Season options.

Tayson / Brigham: Meaning you can use the pack year round. It's going and like that does not stop us from backpacking. We still do everything in all four seasons. Well. If you're doing things all for Seasons, your your base weight can increase substantially like just by going on a winter backpacking trip. I wouldn't even say it's out of the question that your base weight goes up eight pounds. If you're adding Increased insulation, a more insulated pad. Sometimes an extra pad so foam pad, you know they are shovel that you're taking snow Stakes, snow Stakes, extra fuel, just all the stuff that you need. You also need more food to fuel your body because it's colder in your body needs extra fuel. So it's it was kind of without question if we want a Four Season pack that we can tell people like you can just buy one pack.

Tayson / Brigham: And instead of having a pack that oh you use this one in the summer and then when it's winter time, now you break out the pack that you paid an extra x amount of dollars for Just For Those few months. So you can carry 15 extra pounds. Now, let's let's Be the first to just raise our hands and and call this out in our industry right now. It is so popular to be like, oh, Geo 10 pound base weight. What your base weight? Like, we got to know your base weight. If you're not a 10 pound base weight, you're not a serious Backpacker and it's it's it's to the point where I feel like it's a negative thing.

Tayson / Brigham: And and I don't want to get like political here, but inside of our own office where we're designing ultralight products, it's not very uncommon for us to be over a 10-pound base weight because we're choosing to like we're consciously choosing to, we have the all the ability to easily go 10 pound bass. With, I've done 10 pounds. I've done, you know, I've done that multiple times, but for whatever reason and sometimes it's because I'm taking things for our D sometimes. I'm taking, I don't know our drone, or camera footage or different things. But but the thing is life happens and it happens to most of us. If you're a through hiker yeah you can really dial in your system, you can really get things to wear like I don't like it can be, it can be very meticulous on every single piece but there's a lot of us that are, you know, two nights three nights, four night type hikers.

Tayson / Brigham: And some of us, you know, that that maybe we want a bigger thicker pad. We don't sleep as well on that little closed cell phone pad. We maybe we want this, maybe we want that and so I think in general people are doing a fantastic job at going lightweight, if they're base, weight is between 10 and 15 pounds. Like I'm never gonna shame you if you're between 10 and 15 pounds. I hopefully, I never shame you anyways, but I think you're doing a great job. And the thing is, if you're 10 to 15 pounds, pre water and food, you're gonna be 20 plus and when you've got water and food in there, and when you're 20 plus and you don't have a frame things change, it's not a great scenario. Yeah, that's to me. That's the biggest issue that our pack design kind of revolves around. Is like, you're basically never carrying your base weight.

Tayson / Brigham: Yeah, unless you plan on not eating, you're never caring your base weight, you know what I mean? So that's true. So To focus so much on base weight to me as just in Practical. And it's it's kind of just room entry. It's important to like, have that always in your mind of kind of I just think it's a light isn't quality. It's a, it's a constant process. You're, if you're maintaining an ultralight mentality, then you're constantly. Eliminating the unnecessary and the unneeded, right? But you know kind of back to Four Season use like reality sets in and you know if you want to go try camping and five degrees with Show me what you're taking that weighs less than 10 pounds, all set, and done, you know, and sleeping in the snow, or on the snow, or, you know, then that's great. so, but back to kind of the The approachability and just the frame.

Tayson / Brigham: When when you are going extended time and It's just became basically a requirement for us to have a frame so that we know that if the weight does get up to the limit to the heavier, you know, what is the limit? Honestly, I'd say it's 40 pounds. Like if you load that if your Trail weight is 40 pounds or less you will be comfortable. Yeah. And frankly the materials and the frame can hold more but you must kind of crazy is our old. Rhyolite pack from years ago I have personally carried upwards of a 100 pounds in that thing. And I would say that the materials were using in this pack are actually stronger materials than what is what we're using and that was like a 420 Oxford. Nylon I was just like a very straightforward nothing fancy about it. So I mean I just kind of want to throw that out there as yes.

Tayson / Brigham: I think this could go very high but but to stay comfortable at 40 pounds is very significant for a two-pound. Backpack. Not only that another thing that really waited into our decision to use a frame is if you buy a backpack that does not have a frame, you cannot usually to my knowledge and almost all of them, you could not go backwards and add a frame later. But if you buy say our backpack, you can remove the frame, you can remove the hit belt. And you can go super light. So if there are times of the year you want to use a 70 pound base weight, and it's summer, and you're using like a sheet And a uninsulated pad. You know, I mean you name it you just you can go super light guess. What your frame out?

Tayson / Brigham: Drop your hip belt off if you don't want it or need it cut, you know eight plus Oz out of our packet, get it close to you know closer to one pound backpack and you use it and then when time calls for it add that frame back in you don't when you take your partner out or your kids out or something like that and you're carrying some of their gear, add that frame back on and add that hip belt back on. It gives you so much more and the best part about it is Feel, you know, our backpack is going to come in. Still a more approachable value. With the hip belt in the frame included, then some of these packs with no frame and no hip belt included. So, Anyway, so we decided for a frame. It creates a ton of comfort. So we've put this on a ton of different people and I kind of want to touch on this.

Tayson / Brigham: I've given this to people that are not Avid Backpackers they're doing this to people that are Avid Backpackers and I just give it to them with no explanation and it is amazing how quickly they just load up the backpack. And we go, we hiked we backpack and I ask them like, how is the backpack? Doing it? How, you know, are you liking the features? Are they laid out right? And they're like, oh yeah, I love I put all this stuff right where I want it. And it's great. Like it was so in to them, where to where they wanted to put their stuff in the layout of the backpack and and it just picked it up and go and some of these people that we were taking, they're not the 10 pound, beet, guys, and it wasn't extremely comfortable pack because what you can do when you have a 24 inch frame, is you can get the the appropriate load lifter angles, that's the strap that's coming off.

Tayson / Brigham: The top of your shoulder up to the top of the frame and it pulls the strap off of your shoulder. Those load lifters, if they have, you know, a zero percent ending. Well, if they don't have an angle on them, they're not able to lift it up, off your shoulders very much, which means you're carrying a lot of that weight on your shoulders. It's very uncommon and ultralight pack even with the frame to have a tall enough. A big enough frame to clear your shoulders and actually get the comfort of lifting it up and off of your shoulders. And Transfer, all that weight down to your hip. So just something I really wanted to note on there is the frame can create a ton of comfort, and if you don't want it, you can pull it out, but it does make the backpack very approachable, and it gives you a ton of benefits for for being able to just meet every demand that you might have thrown at you.

Tayson / Brigham: Whether that's seasonality or yeah you're going with totally just gives you just gives you more options. It's less. Whereas I think a frameless pack is very limiting Back our pact with the frame, just gives you more options, whether that's taking a child that can't necessarily carry all their stuff which is what I do. Then you goodbye 10 pound base weight. You're now carrying your child's stuff in your, in the same backpack or going with a group or going with a new Backpacker. So there's just so many options to the new Backpacker that is in that Ultra Lite process, where they're whittling down and getting comfortable with eliminating one. One thing at a time. um, it is it's just it's just opens up a lot of options in terms of Who can use it when you can use it? And what kind of Loadout you can use it for totally.

Tayson / Brigham: So let's move on to some of these other features because we still have a lot of features to cover For starters, I guess let's talk about some of the pockets. So we talked about the back mesh Pockets, we talked about, we can upper high pockets that actually close up pretty. Well, the cord on that actually cinches the backpack down at the same time, it closes the pocket, I'm really happy with with the design of that, the lower water bottle Pockets can carry basically, a 1.5 liter smart water bottle plus, another one liter bottle. So you can get about two and a half liters of water bottles, smart water bottles, in those side pockets. With the, strapping, the strap on the side that allows you to lash something down. So let's say, you want to carry a tripod right there. You can drop a tripod and lash it on. If you want to carry your fishing poor, you can drop it and lash it on.

Tayson / Brigham: We've got some great abilities to work with things there. And we also knew, from from comments experience, surveys, that it was important, that people could try, you know, have access to their water while it was on them. And so we, we designed it. So that we could drop that water bottle pocket as low as we possibly can, we put the pocket on the slide angle but but really by dropping as low as we could and using our heavier weight fabric on the bottom of that pocket. So that it when it does take a little abrasion, it's well protected that you can typically access that water bottle.

Tayson / Brigham: Now I don't want to say that 100% of people are going to be able to access that water bottle because there is still a little bit of the arm bent but I would say of the people that I've always put the pack on well, past 75%, of people can pretty easily snag that water bottle without taking the backpack off of them. Yeah, that was that was a big deal and that was you know, like tasting so that was totally delivered. It was How do you? Make because ideally you want to wear your pack kind of high. Like, that's the proper fit of a backpack. And so if the pockets not designed just right, it makes it really hard or uncomfortable to get the the water bottle out. So that was a big thing for me, was in all the pockets, designing them for maximum function and and maximizing the volume. If we're going to put a pocket there, I like having volume in a pocket as a just Putting a patch of fabric.

Tayson / Brigham: That's pleaded that can expand a little bit. These packets, these pockets are fully volumized, meaning they're, they're built outward of the pack. So when you stuff them full, they're not squeezing into the main volume of the pack, right? So the upper side pockets, the lower water bottle Pockets, even the stretch mesh Pockets that are reinforced on the bottom, they're not just pleated to expand, its stretch Mets, stretch mesh with basically, kind of like, A shroud or something, it expands out at the bottom. So you just get a lot more use out of each pocket. And that's how those water bottle Pockets. Sit low. They sit flush with the bottom of the pack because they're they're building out with the volume. Yeah, not. And that actually takes extra weight. That's extra Fabrics that we're building into this, but I'm sure all of you can relate to, like, you pack.

Tayson / Brigham: You the inside of your your backpack. And then you're like, okay, let me turn my water bottle and you're like, oh my gosh, I can, I can't even fit it in this pocket machine or outward because outside Pockets. Yeah, because like, you don't realize it but those pockets are kind of sharing space with the inside of the the pack. And so with this you don't get that you can pack the backpack is full as you want and still access the pockets easily because we've basically made them 3D they stick out from the backpack and it makes it very useful. It makes you get the water on the water topic, too. We do Make this water bladder compatible. So if you've got a Camelbak or a platypus something like that that you want to stick inside of this, there is a removable water bottle, water bladder pocket that you can drop it in there and pour it out of the backpack.

Tayson / Brigham: So that's just an extra benefit that you get. That's just just at it, use it, don't use it. I ended up using I end up leaving mine in a lot of times and just stuffing smaller items in there, but it's it's very easy to just remove but if you're someone who likes water, bladders, that is inside of there. Hip-hop Pockets. We made sure that these are big and also the hip belt, the hip belt is big and comfortable, it's not some little two inch, webbing, essentially that cuts around you. This is something that is big. It's plush. It's very comfortable with using this perforated foam. Very nice build. We've dialed in the foam very well and it belt. Going to really carry that load. Well, the hip belt Pockets because they hit those are big. We can make those hip belt Pockets, big and also 3D meaning, they don't lay flat against the hip belt, they built off of the hip belt.

Tayson / Brigham: And so I typically laugh and joke that I often feel like I lose things inside these hip belt Pockets because typically I'm Stuck Small Things, ChapStick and little sticks of sunscreen and bug repellent and my keys that has a little key clip inside there. That was something that came about from me being afraid, that's gonna lose my keys on one trip. We had that on headlamps my little headlamp but like, they're so big and I usually sticks such small items that you can almost lose things in these hip belt Pockets because they are so big, which I'm a huge fan of. Typically, I stuff those things over full on every other pack and what this pack I don't which is nice because when I unzip it, I don't have stuff coming out and becoming a yard sale on the mountain. Right? Like I I can unzip it and stuff's not falling out because of the volume of the hip belt Pockets.

Tayson / Brigham: So That's another great benefit. I do love the way that you've shaped this pack the way that you've sewn. These angles on the pack, really helps the load carry up and into your back without having to have extra compression straps here. And there, we do have a compression strap on the side and then, like I said, the top pocket also helps compress the pack, but the bottom corner about, you know, far apart farthest away from your back on that bottom section. The way that that curves up and around was done, very, very nicely. It helps the load carry extremely comfortable. This is all.

Tayson / Brigham: So, besides having the zipper to enter the main compartment, it also has a Roll top on the top, which also gives you the ability to expand and contract and then it does have a strap to go over the top that you can lash something to the Top, If that's something you like to do, if you want to reject it on there or something that is very easy to do. It does have places for trekking poles to be to be set on there as well. Just trying to run through some of these features that we haven't touched up that. Well, let's let's spend a minute on the, on the, on the zipper, it's a center zipper, okay? So the zipper goes, the full height of the backpack, right down the middle. And that's why we, that's why we've got the two long stretch mesh Pockets, but um, it You know, from looking at what's on the market.

Tayson / Brigham: These a lot of these kind of just call them bucket style, backpacks, you know, everybody just the, those mesh Pockets that they put on the back of them, everybody loves them because it gives them someplace to put the small things, right. It's like, oh, we have a place to put the small things that we want throughout the day. So we really wanted to kind of like one up or two up this by saying, well, how about, let's just make it. So it's really easy to get things out of your pack at any time. So there's two sliders on the zipper, you can move the zipper up and down open it up and access single items if you want. And then a pack them is like, almost instantaneous. You won't unzip the zip or all the way and you can have everything out of your pack and in seconds.

Tayson / Brigham: And then well, I mean it's just adds kind of like to the versatility and the The approachability of the pack for people that aren't used to just stuffing everything down through the top, it just gives that added option. That as far as I know everybody that's tested the pack including your brother-in-law who'd like totally. Yeah, it was so intuitive for him. Like he just Like everything about the pack, he didn't get any instruction like hey put this here, put that there. It's just you look at it and somebody can very easily in their mind say well I have this item that would fit perfectly here. And it's not like useless, they're not trying to find a reason to use this pocket or that pocket, it just makes sense. Yeah. So we put the folding zipper on the rhyolite and that was the most favorited feature on the pack. I have had other packs that have it.

Tayson / Brigham: I've had other packs that don't and it again comes down to be one of the most favorited features I've ever used. But again, back from our customers, it was something that they absolutely loved and to improve upon the Rio light, just to note here, the Rhino, light only had one zipper head on it. Now, I think about it. You how does it down from the top down? This pack? Has two zipper heads on it, which means just when we were out two days ago, using it, I quickly ran both zipper heads to the bottom of the pack. He did open for inches grabbed my first aid kit out of the bottom of the pack, which I almost never need, but I needed a first second. And then zipped it back closed without like, even though that thing was stuffed to the brim, it was full. I had a compressed. I didn't even have to uncompress anything. I just ran both zipper heads to the bottom peaked. It open grabbed, what?

Tayson / Brigham: I needed, closed it back up. It creates access becomes easier, loading, it becomes easier. And it is it's a feature that like, once you have it, you're like, man, this is, this is very nice and if you have to get that in a sub, two pound backpack. 60 liter capacity. Backpack is, is It's really, really cool. So Definitely think that we naild on nailed it on the access side, the organization side. We've got so much more organization than other two pound or under backpacks. Fabric wise, I feel like we just we nailed this thing. There's there's so many things that I'm so excited for about this backpack. Yeah, we kind of hit on a little bit and terms of like the the process going through each of iteration of prototype.

Tayson / Brigham: But you know, we had to, we want the pack to be comfortable, we just don't want excess and so we did a lot of trimming of Foams and we get a pack and feel like it's just a little bit too dense or a little bit too hard. And so we're I mean, tweaking things like the foam thickness saying, hey, is there something that's a little less dense and then kind of where we ended up which I just think it is a good illustration of the deliberate detail that we that we do is Found the easiest, or the best way, or the best combination of getting the softness. And density of foam was to go to adjust the density, the thickness and then to perforate the foam. So the foam inside the shoulder straps is perforated. And so it ends up with just the right combination of all those things.

Tayson / Brigham: And we're doing the same thing with the hip belt, whereas like the hip belt, you know, we want it to be supportive and have good Comfort around your hips. But also not be excessive, we don't want to thick, we don't want to stiff and so we and we're kind of just finding that right combination. Thinking a little bit outside just thickness and density adding the perforation because that perforation really allowed us to dial in the softness. Yeah, so which reminds me we didn't even talk about this, but it's a key feature on the backpack which is the back panel on the backpack. the back pad phone is removable, you simply just tug it out of its You know, mesh housing there and you've got your sit pad, so that allows you to cut one more thing out of your, your weights, right? Like a lot of people use zc seats on a, we both own cc's.

Tayson / Brigham: But now this gives you the ability to leave your zc at home because you can just use your back backpack panel for your sit pad. And there's even been times when I've still taken a z-seat because we were backpacking in the winter. And then I had both, I could put my feet on one of the pads and my butt on the other pad and stay out of the snow and keep my feet dry. Like if I want to pull them out of the boots or something but that's just an extra benefit and we did we messed around with different foam thicknesses for that. We messed around with different verticals and horizontal variations of texture pattern. Yeah, the texture patterns there and but that'll work down and brings some some more usefulness and multifunctional. Specs to the backpack.

Tayson / Brigham: So we've gone through a ton, we've gone through a bunch, we've gone through lots of prototypes, who come through, how this all got started to manufacturing, the Fabrics, you know, and where we're at, to this point, is there anything I'm missing? I know there's a lot on this pack and we've missed it on multiple and done a little videos, different things. I've never hit every point, so I want to make sure we don't miss it. Yeah, I'll just touch on Kind of overall, quality of the backpack. that I want to make sure is very clear and some of the things we've talked about allude to that quality like, Our you know the fabric that we're specifically having made for us where cost is No Object we opted for a more expensive fabric than a good fabric. We could have used already. I believe if I remember, right? It went up more than double. To go from.

Tayson / Brigham: It was about what we were initially thinking into this. Yep. And that's significant when you're making large quantities of backpacks. But touching on quality, I think it's very good for our customers to know that, you know. Oh, so Hardware. You know, we're using Duraflex, Hardware. Well, Duraflex, Hardware. It's probably the most expensive Hardware out there and I'm not saying this great. Yeah, I'm not saying this flop, the cost of our rock materials but just A lot of a lot of brands have to be a lot more measured about their raw materials, the materials that go into a pack because they have a bottom line that they have to basically answer to a lot of times. It's set, not even by the company, it's set by the retailer. They're selling through, right? I need to hit this. 200 dollar price point for the Shelf. Yeah.

Tayson / Brigham: And we've got to make 40% margin or more where we can't put your thing on our Shelf. Yeah, so just things like that. Where we're for sure using the highest quality materials, you know, Duraflex, Hardware, YKK, zippers the Specter aerobic fabric that we're using. And and you know, I get I get very nitty-gritty because that's my job, but there are certain things that I feel like our must-haves that a pack. Almost is not high quality. If it doesn't have certain things and I believe I'm a believer that there is a right way to finish a backpack. And that means every single seam on that backpack is properly finished. It's not just so double stitched over. You'll find zero raw edges in our backpack from the insides of the water bottle Pockets to every pocket reinforcement.

Tayson / Brigham: Every single seam has seam finishing grow green binding on it, which I have looked at many, many other competitors, backpacks, and I can find on almost all of them unfinished seams. What I call an unfinished seam. Yeah, structurally sure. It's, it's quote finished, but I'm just a big believer and that was something I insisted on with our manufacturer. And I'll be honest, I actually haven't turned her backpack inside out to, to pick up on that. But I know that I bought a very expensive pack for a different purpose, this year. And on the inside it, it had all these loose. Yeah, unfinished edges in. It, took away from my 400 dollar back. I, yeah.

Tayson / Brigham: And you know, that's the, I guess, maybe that's the, the stickler part of me where, you know, what, maybe if we were to take all that that binding Ribbon or webbing off the backpack and put it on a scale, where we might have, you know, added Announcer to to it but it's just one of those things that I insist on from a quality standpoint. So rest assured that quality is is very high priority with with this backpack. Yeah we've gone through many a prototype and Say a prototype. That means we're getting a set of prototypes that were able to put on multiple people and do big. High mileage trips sometimes as well as just. All sorts of trips, right? And yeah, I would say that we have proven this backpack, very, very well and continually improved, it improved it as it's gone forward. And yeah, I mean, I Hands down.

Tayson / Brigham: You could put this pack in its quality up against any any sewn, backpack anything in its class especially and and feel very confident with the building and whatnot. So let's get to this. Now, we've talked about all of these. These essentially costs going into the backpack from build quality to raw materials and so on so forth. So I mean, I'm sure many of you are starting to wonder what is the cost of this if you don't already know. And that is The price and League. Best part about this pack is when you're doing a trick to Consumer, you get some some luxuries. So even doubling our fabric costs compared to many of our competitors and some tape cases tripling them compared to just Like non-extreme or like plain robe. If you're just go with kind of what they have available in Russia. If you're going with just Off shelf. Yep.

Tayson / Brigham: Stuff and Even with all of that, and everything we've built in frames. Hit belts included, like you don't buy the hip belt separate, it just comes with the pack to be able to offer this. And again, this is May tweak a tiny bit. By it right now is still in the pre-sale stage. Offer this for a hundred and ninety nine dollar. Price point is Extremely exciting to me. And especially for those of you that are listening to this right now and following us. If you go and join our brand new little light store credit membership. You can listen to that. But it's it's something that all of you that are listening to, this should be a part of, because you're only going to save money by being a part of it. But if you're a member of that, you can actually pre-order the pack right now for 25% off, which is all. So, really incredible.

Tayson / Brigham: The pack is expected to ship around October to November of this year, that's our current timelines on it. So she gonna be getting it pretty soon. It's really not that far out of this point. Let's say, 25%, you're getting this pack for 150 bucks. It's it's really incredible, especially if you're not familiar with ultralight packs. You're not familiar with this industry. Don't take our word for it. Go shop around. Go look around and you'll see that that's in a very tentative price especially now that you know, everything that's gone into this pack. And so I'm very, I'm very happy to be able to offer that. And again, if you want to pre-order this pack, we're pre-ordering or pre-selling this pack, at discounts to our little ultralight members. So go check out that membership, you can get a lot more details in the packaging to see the weights and more things visually there.

Tayson / Brigham: And also note that you get the 25% off discount just during the month of August. So you sign up, you can pre-order during the month of August for 25% off. After that, the discount will go down a little bit. I don't know, it'll be 15 or 20% off. Tween with the time we're shipping it and after August, but but go jump on it. You can get that right away and get that Stellar price in. Another thing that I will tease out to the listeners is this is a great pack for a through hike. Whether it's the you know at the PCT or the CDC any through hike really it's awesome pack for it. But I'll tease this out there. If a listener, if you are planning on doing one of these through hikes or you know, somebody Key them in on this podcast. Or key yourself in on the podcast and just listen up because kind of pay attention to what we're doing.

Tayson / Brigham: Because I'll tease this out there that we will be having some some kind of like special programs slash challenges that I think would be very interesting for anybody planning a through hike, you know for example next summer. Yeah. If you're gonna be doing a 2021 through hike, we were gonna kind of run a competition with our pack and and you may be able to get compensated for that pack and win some other stuff as a part of it. So, I'm getting on people's radar for for the through hiking and and every other way. So I think that covers the most of this, I'm sure we'll get some more questions which were very happy to answer. We're definitely. We're definitely pumped about this is something we've been working on for a long time.

Tayson / Brigham: We, we actually predict that you guys will start to get this pack and that ourselves will climb significantly more just based off of the user reviews because our feedback, our internal stuff that we've seen the friends, the family with loan things out to and got to see it's all been. So positive probably probably about as highly rated as like, our Loft tech jacket, which is a phenomenal product. Is an amazing thing. For us in our company and Still Remains to do so. And I'm excited. I'm excited to see where this pack takes us. So thank you for listening. If you haven't reviewed the podcast, make sure to go to the podcast. If you have not subscribed to the podcast, make sure you're subscribed and also make sure you go sign up for our new Live Ultralight. Store credit membership, where you able to pre-order this pack at a big discount, that membership just a touch on that you can get year.

Tayson / Brigham: Round discounts you build store credit every single month. You don't actually pay a penny for you just load up 10 dollars worth of the store credit every month. So into store credit that never expires, you gonna free priority shipping. You can get early access to stuff like this backpack. You can get members only colorways and options there which we didn't touch on the colors, but the colors are really cool. Really think you're gonna be impressed with the Arctic color As well as a little bit more, traditional blue. That looks really good. It's not any of the blue from the prototypes, if you're aware of that. Anyways, so the membership. You're also going to get into our closed Facebook group, where you're going to give us your feedback on things, more directly but more so you're going to get on live q&as with us. Talk to us directly.

Tayson / Brigham: We'll give you some expert coaching as well as hang out with with us and we'll moderate that really, really well. This one's one that we're building out currently. I'm super stoked about it and you'll hear more about this. But if you're part of the membership, you get Basically the best possible pricing on any products that we retail. We currently got signed up with toast to start moving some of the supplying or stocking, some of their titanium items, that's the stuff that we we currently use, you know? Tamiya long-handled spoons pots. My alcohol stove, which I'm a huge fan of alcohol stoves. Now, I've been using them for well over a year and just have loved them. In fact this in about two weeks I'm gonna have to switch back to a canister stove for something and it'll be the first time I've ever touched a canister stove and like 16 months.

Tayson / Brigham: Will also be we also signed up with katadyn to start supplying their water filters. We have nothing but good things to say about them but and then Mountain House meals and Peak refuel manual. That's that's something else we got to touch on because those meals are amazing and health-wise they're good. But there's always something to spend that store credit on and you get the best possible pricing with us because not only do you get the lowest possible pricing that they allow us to advertise it for, but you also, after the purchases over, you're going to get a rebate back in store credit that you can spend at a later point in time. So anyways, go check out that membership pre-order. This backpack at a discount, I know it's going to be worth every penny of it. We're super excited about it. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you on the next podcast.

Tayson / Brigham: If you like to help us spread the word about the little lifestyle, please give us a five star review and tell your friends to subscribe where available on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, and have you made your listening app as well as little Ultra light.com. So, thanks for listening.