EP 44 - Best Ultralight Backpack?

Tayson: So here's the big question, how do we lighten our gear and build our confidence. So we can start living a life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories without having unlimited amounts of time, money and previous experience. That's the big question and we are here to help you find the answers. This is the little Trilogy podcast power, bi Outdoor Vitals. Hey welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Today we are going to be talking all things backpacks.

Tayson: This week at the shadow, light backpack, just launched to everyone else. It's been launched a little on pre-sell to our little members. However, the backpack just hit our main website. So the average Joe off the street can now purchase the Shadowlight backpack. So today, that's what we're really really diving into. We pre-sold 100s, really surprised us how many we pre-sold and I can tell you we're going to be trying to get more on the way soon because the demand for

Tayson: this pack has really surprised us and it's been really fun to see. So if you're interested in the pack, make sure you pay special attention to this particular podcast because all right, now we're running our launch event, where you're going to get some free bonuses if you purchase during the launch events. So check out the website over to the website and you'll see the additional things. We're going to throw in your box when you do order the shadowlight during this launch

Tayson: event. With that. We wanted to talk a little bit about why we build this, but we also want to talk a little bit about who really should care to listen to this podcast first off, when we set out to build the satellite backpack, we really had some parameters that we did not want the satellite to be and some things, we did want it to be. And that set a very clear trajectory for us when it came to building this backpack and

Tayson: something that I think resonates with all of us. But I can kind of share from my perspective is, I remember way back when I was first getting into backpacking. I mean, really, before I started the company or anything like that. I, it was very clear that I could go and get an ultralight Ultra expensive for that matter backpack. You know what Dynamite backpack that is going to weigh nothing? But it's was, but they were basically just a big sack on your

Tayson: back. I mean, they were duffel bag, whatever you want to put it with, maybe a water bottle pocket or two, and maybe a mesh piece and that was really interesting because the weight, but When it came to me, spending my dollars, I ended up going with a more traditional, I'll call it a traditional backpack. That's not a full size, frame had more Comfort. When it was loaded up, had more organization, just had these other benefits. And honestly, at that point in

Tayson: time, too. They were a lot cheaper because they weren't using Dynamo Fabrics, they're using just plain nylons. And so, when I came to spending my own money, I went with the more traditional backpack that was more like four plus pounds and and had these other features in it, but it's been ever since that time in my opinion, a clear issue point, I guess you might say. And so, when we set out to build this backpack, we wanted to build something that

Tayson: both Ultra like guys could be extremely happy with and people that were not used to being ultralight or not committed, or ready yet to delete almost every feature off of a backpack or every pocket off of a backpack, or however, you want to look at it that this pack would also speak to them. So that was the goal. Make a sub two pound backpack. That felt like a actual backpack and not a duffel bag. I guess I didn't introduce Brigham here,

Tayson: but bring him, he's kind of my face, will sidekick lately on the podcast. We love to talk gear. But what am I missing here? Bring him with, with just. Like when we set out to build this thing and who this backpack should speak to

Brigham: Well I think you addressed it pretty well. You know the backpack we want it to be a good backpack for the current ultralight Backpacker. but also, like you said, people that Frankly, we want to. Push to think more ultralight and simplify and minimalize their systems. So maybe somebody's been using that for five pound traditional backpack. But we want to bring this to them. To because there's such a benefit to going ultralight and just just shedding the pounds because that's what it

Brigham: does. Is it sheds the pounds with this pack, compared to those traditional packs. So the existing Backpacker that may not Feel like there's a good option for them. We want to present a good option and then all. So if somebody's just getting into backpacking, Why not start? With an with a, you know, a really lightweight backpack, as of post to, you know, a traditional backpack. That's four pounds even three pounds, but So we really wanted to be appealing to the broad

Brigham: spectrum and have something to offer for all of those groups. You know what I mean? Because there are people that have a very dialed in system for ultralight backpacking. but because of the length of their trips or just the way they do things, it's helpful to have

Brigham: a little bit more function in the backpack. And so, yeah, we really wanted to have something to offer kind of for the broad spectrum of Backpackers

Tayson: And I think why we're seeing such high demand on this product so far while we're seeing so many of our members pre-ordered it and why we're seeing so many people commenting on it and why it's it's like the most traffic like one of the highest traffic pages on our website. I think it is because it speaks super well to both sides of the coin like ultralight. Let's say through hikers could be would be and will be extremely happy with this

Tayson: pack yet. The average weekend guy who's 20 plus pounds every week and his base weight easily as also going to be extremely happy. So anyways, we set out with those kind of parameters as far as what we were trying to do and if that speaks to you you're going to want to listen to this because we're about to dive super deep into the design process going way deeper than almost. I think any other company that I know of will talk about

Tayson: their products. Down to like, where we're Perforating Foams. And you know what ties, we used here and what we compared during that, you know, we'll get very, very specific and why we do the things that we do. And the reason that we do that, and why I don't know, I can't I guess speak for other companies and why they don't do that, but but they don't right. There's there's almost no one would ever go into, you know, an hour-long podcast or

Tayson: whatever this ends up being detailing, all these different points. Because a lot of times, they're operating out of a place of fear, they're really scared of copycats which I promise you. We have our fair share of copycats around here. But to me, that hinders what we can actually tell to our customers people using the pack and here at we really, really believe that. If you understand things, it eliminates fear, right? Fear to me is a lack of understanding, not the light.

Tayson: Why are you scared? Just because you can't see, right? Like, it's the unknown. And so, by eliminating these unknowns, we are able to build confidence and we're able to Inspire you to get out on the trail and that's why we do all of what we do. We believe that getting Outdoors is a huge reset. It's extremely important in these crazy times that we live in and, you know, nature is the big connector. And so anyway, so we want to eliminate those

Tayson: fears by talking about very, very detailed specifics and it goes back to everything. We do with our owl. The whole reason we have the owl is we believe the owl is a symbol of wisdom and that's what we believe our customers are. It's a time where customers are getting informed where customers figure out their own answers and we are happy to show those things to empower. Our customers and our followers with that though, let's dive in and get very, very specific.

Tayson: I feel like we kind of touched on the overall approachability of the pack, but I will say during the R&D process during design, I did give this backpack to multiple first time or new level Backpackers and it was really exciting to me to watch them without any explanation. Grab the pack. Load it up and hit the trail with it without talking about. Like how is there? Is it do this? Is it do this is there like they just loaded it up

Tayson: in a very intuitive way which was one of the best things I feel like I saw and it really helped me realize like how approachable this pack is and is going to be for the average weekend, warrior or brand new Backpacker, whoever it was. And so I feel like we really did accomplish that with the approachability of the pack. Um, from there. We let's kind of talk about the comfort and support so what did we do? Specifically Brigham when I mean

Tayson: to me, I guess let's back this up. One more step. What's the purpose of a backpack? The purpose of a backpack is the literally carry things, right? And not just that like heavy things because you can carry things, a million different ways you can carry them in your hands. There's nothing comfortable about that. So when you peel the layers back on a backpack, what's it supposed to do? Supposed to carry things? Let's carry heavier things and supposed to carry them in the most comfortable way

Tayson: possible. And that's how I would kind of Define what a backpack is, what it's supposed to do. And so, when we looked at this, we really, really wanted it to carry loads effectively and comfortably we'd had, I had personally, had different backpacks that just Couldn't carry like you break the threshold of like 15 pounds. And like, you could just fill the backpack, almost like a starting to break down. I had one backpack that literally, when I, when I loaded it up

Tayson: with 20 pounds, the whole frame was was flexing, intensely, you know, just different things like that. And so when we came to build our backpack, Brigham, we were very conscious about this. So where did we start with trying to make sure this could carry loads and carry him comfortably.

Brigham: well, I guess it's kind of a philosophical thing that It's like in order for it to carry. A wide range of weight or loads. We kind of have a belief that it should have certain things or be able to do certain things or have certain functions. So In order to carry heavier, loads comfortably and and something I don't think is always touched on as frequently as like stability. stably comfortable and stable like the two need to go hand in hand and so

Tayson: What would be an example of lack of stability? Like so we can kind of so people can resonate with like what does it mean that my backpack's not stable well like as you're walking down the trail or

Brigham: You know, a trail is not flat and even like a sidewalk, right? So there's rocks, there's Hills, there's undulations, there's off-camber, you know, side Hills. And so your body is not able to maintain like this this level stance as you're walking. So when you have basically weight hanging off your body, Is not natural to your body then. every time your body moves and sways or you get knocked off, balance that weight wants to pull your body, whatever Direction it's headed, When

Brigham: your body wants to stay put. So that's, that's the stability factor is like if it's not stable, if a backpack isn't keeping the weight close to your body and keeping the, the contents of the backpack and the backpack itself from moving around as you're moving, that's a lack of stability.

Tayson: Yeah, I think I think that's really where I was going with. That is, is yes I did. It just needs to be planted against you. It needs to be firm against you. It doesn't need to be, you know, floppy around and maybe. I mean literally watched the video last night where someone had one of our sleeping bags. Actually was just strapped to the outside of their backpack. like

Tayson: through one of the

Tayson: compression straps, meaning you should flopping around on the outside of their backpack and now would be a good example of an unstable backpack and That that wears on you. I mean and that can throw you off, balance it can and make you tense up. It just takes more energy and whatnot. So anyways, that's the ability. So comfortability Is the goal here. Keep going. Yeah,

Brigham: so it to address

Tayson: that. How do you

Brigham: How do you make sure that say you're getting up to a heavy weight? Say something like 30 plus pounds? How do you make sure that that remains comfortable? Well, there are backpacks out there that well, I'll just go there. So there's a, there's a, I don't know if it's a trend, but there is a segment in the backpacking Market. That's all about frameless backpacks. And those backpacks, they're lightweight. And let me explain by lightweight. It's not necessarily just the lack of

Brigham: a frame that makes that backpack the weight that it is. It's the lack of a frame and the lack of a bunch of other things. Added together. Make a very lightweight backpack. But if if all you do is take out the frame, you're only talking a matter of like three, three and a half ounces. So that's the kind of weight savings. We're talking about by losing a frame. However, In the frameless backpacks. Basically what I see everybody doing and and this

Brigham: is a matter of research so backing up a little bit. We have a project to tackle. We have objectives, we want to meet one of the two of those objectives are comforted and stability so I research what are people doing? What? What do people like? So I notice yep. There's frameless backpacks. Well, as I'm researching, I also notice what people are doing with those frameless backpacks and every single person that uses one. What are they doing? They're saying, This is my

Brigham: sit pad or this is my foam pad that I use and here was I folded up and I put it right up against my back to add stability and comfort. so it's like, okay well Then where's the benefit of the frameless pack? Because You're now supplementing the frameless pack with something to add stability and comfort. And that's a foam pad. Well yeah I guess incredibly lightweight thin foam pad might weigh less than for example our frame but the point is is

Brigham: there they're like the that segment of backpacks is wanting to go frameless ditch the frame to lose weight. except their backing up and then putting more support back in the back panel area because it lacks The ports. So

Tayson: a lot of times they're adding that, right? Like that's not something that they really need on the trail but it's like and because I need it for stability. I also have other uses I can use it for, but it's not like a necessity,

Brigham: right? Yeah. It's not like they're I mean to give those people credit because we're not disrespecting that those people or anything or Freestyle. Insult. It's just that. You know, they're saying well I take this pad anyway. The point is is there, there are supplementing the frameless pack with something, to give it support, which leads to comfort and stability. So To us that if I want to have Max Comfort, it means I want the best load transfer possible. I want the most

Brigham: ability possible, and, and to me, and kind of our company Philosophy is that we need a support structure, which in this case is an aluminum frame, its a thin tubular aluminum frame that weighs I don't even know if it's three and a half ounces, it's very lightweight but it in it adds an incredible load transfer and stability to the whole frame. so that's kind of how we wanted to tackle, the comfort and support is just with the belief that if you

Brigham: have a support structure in the backpack, it just eliminates that it's just a Dundee deal. You have stability, you have the load transfer in the comfort. There's

Tayson: a few things I want to touch on here. So the first one I want to say is break them in your opinion and I'm thinking of this because literally the last time we went out, I won't name this person but someone on our team did not bring the foam pad like somehow they took the foam pad out of the back of our backpack. So in our in the Shadowlight backpack, there is a foam pad that you can pull out and

Tayson: sit on or put your feet on or whatever you want to do. It's removable piece. That's that's built to be versatile, but it's also there to add Comfort. Well, this individual Didn't realize that when they grab this pack and oftentimes, we got so many prototypes laying around and doing different things. Like I can't blame them too much but they got out on the trail. We got all the way to camp and he's like, hey, I don't have my phone pad in

Tayson: here, this is just the frame without the back panel. And so in your opinion Brigham like Because that's kind of two different things. But like, what's more comfortable, a foam pad, with no frame, or a frame with no foam pad?

Brigham: Yeah, that was crazy. I mean if I'm honest I would have said I would have thought that having a foam pad would be more comfortable than a frame. Just with no pad up against

Tayson: your body but I

Brigham: don't know. I wouldn't say that's an anomaly. I would maybe

Tayson: we were backpacking in the winter so I lost like more layers on. So maybe it wasn't as apparent. Like yeah a t-shirt. Maybe it would have been more noticeable. Yeah,

Brigham: that was pretty fascinating, though. but, yeah, to your point though, you know, the the frame if the way the backpack is designed it, it kind of doesn't surprise me that he didn't really notice because really The way you wear, you wear the pack. If you're wearing it correctly, the weight is on your hips. And we have a very comfortable hip belt and so it's not like it's pushing against the back a lot, and there's not a lot of weight on. Shoulders.

Brigham: So I guess I can see how You know, he was fine, he wasn't complaining about it on that he didn't notice.

Tayson: At all Telly. Got to camp and took it off. I believe the first time he took it off. He's like, oh Okay. So that was kind of first part but the second part is we have to talk about frame height, this is maybe it's I'm super sensitive to it, but I firmly believe that our frame height is one of the biggest differentiators that is going to make this package so much more comfortable than any other pack. Excuse me. You might be

Tayson: saying out there and you might see it. You'll see a video actually. When this releases, you'll see a video on her YouTube channel where I put two ultralight backpacks on the table ones, are ones. Another one that I tested and the frame height was nearly, I want to say like four inches difference. and the difference between what that frame does being, you know, 20 or 18 inches versus 24 inches, you can't even like It's hard to put it in words because

Tayson: it basically takes it from being what? What I feel like, Brigham won't agree with this, but I feel like a backpack that has that smaller frame. Is almost useless, the frame only provides some level of stability. It does not take any load off my shoulders and so on and so forth. But I mean there's something to it, but just I don't get 30% of the benefits of having a frame when it's not tall enough. So with ours, it is 24 inches.

Tayson: And what that means when you're looking at it on a person, is that it should, if we're properly, should absolutely extend a few inches above your shoulders, which then allows the load lifters to pull the straps up and transfer that weight down to your waist. So, I don't know. What are your thoughts on the 24-inch frame? Compared to what we see out there so much?

Brigham: Like why do we go four inch frame? Yeah, that was one of the things early on where where we just we defined quickly is like if we want to be comfortable. With heavier weight. The really the only way to get the weight off shoulders is to have the top of the frame. Where the load lifter tensioners sit, right? That has to be higher than your shoulders. Otherwise it's impossible to lift something higher than your shoulders from a point that's lower than

Brigham: your shoulders, it's just physically impossible. So with that kind of parameter. It was, I mean, it was a clear, it was a clear choice and and that just comes back to the philosophical understanding of We design the backpack for maximum Comfort because sure there could be somebody like if somebody has like a seven or eight pound base weight and they're carrying only a liter of water. Loaded out pack weighs like 12 pounds with all consumables. Yeah, like that might not be

Brigham: that noticeable to them. But if a loaded out packs, 20 pounds, you can't tell me that. After a 15 to 20 mile day, that weight is not sitting on your shoulders, I mean, you can crank down your hip belt, but all that's doing is squeezing your hips more, and Actually transferring the load. There's no transferring of the load to your hips.

Tayson: I think that's a really good visual. Like if you were to do exactly. You said visualize you put a backpack on and the frame is lower than your shoulders. How can it lift any weight off of your shoulders from a point of being lower? You literally have to have like a Object reaching up and above your shoulders, you know, flexing up above your shoulders, to get it off your shoulders. And so really, you have to have a frame that extends higher

Tayson: than your shoulders. And that's where that 24 inch frame comes in. And I will say like, I'm pretty sensitive to this, but most being both me and Brigham have experienced caring, very, very heavy loads. And a lot of us you know can be researched within like the hunting Market where they're carrying an immensely heavy loads. And so studying that side of the market, you can really see the benefits. I mean they're getting up to 26 inch frames and

Brigham: just higher. And then when

Tayson: when I jumped down to a different frame, there's a different pack that I was testing. Even at a even going from a 24 inch frame to 22 inch frame. I could absolutely notice. It, it was it was immediately noticeable. and then you get down below, 22 inch frame, and that's where it becomes That there's really no benefit, there's zero, there's zero possible lift. And

Brigham: yeah, I'm sensitive to it, too. I

Tayson: Like these. Once you see the light, you cannot see, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Well what you've had it? Bad enough then? So

Brigham: I'm sensitive to it from a lot of the experience from a couple different worlds. See when I was in the military, we would carry I don't know if I ever carried anything less than 100 pounds on my back and when I say on my back, anybody that's Done my job in the military knows what I'm talking about. It's literally all the way to design your shoulders. So we weren't giving backpacks that transferred load to your hips. We're giving backpacks that frankly

Brigham: had what was called a kidney pad and all it was, was this thing that sat against the lower part of your back. So it was physically not even possible to use a hit belt and so You know, we're running around. Doing 10 to 12 miles movements with over 100 pounds on my path in my pack. Like like all the time all the time and you know how to rescue know, like not an uncommon thing to do 15, 20 miles in a

Brigham: day with that load and so yeah, I'm very sensitive to it because I've been backpacking, my whole life and when I was in the military, it was just so frustrating to not have the equipment. And to realize what the effect and frankly I still have effects from that, in my lower back because of the amount of time I spent under that kind of load without any any help from my gear. So Definitely sensitive to that. And it's almost like yeah, maybe

Brigham: you kind of have to experience that suffering to Really see the value in it.

Tayson: Let's just give our customers a challenge. If you've got a shot like backpack you've got a removable frame. So when you get this pack go ahead and pull that frame out. If you've got a test this personally and and try to hike with it like that, You'll you'll see it very quickly or just hike with our backpack and hike with your old backpack. That does not have the same level of frame and you'll notice it really, really quickly, but totally agree.

Tayson: We spent a ton of time on the frames but it is that that critical to me. So, well, we'll leave it at that jumping into some other things we did for Comfort. Let's talk a little bit about Foams, I know that we tested multiple different phones and kind of where did that land and why did we land where we ended up Landing for that? Harness system and waste system?

Brigham: Yeah, so here we kind of started just with some general ideas of foam, thickness and density and Whether that's on the hip belt or the shoulder, the shoulder patch shoulder straps at the back panel. And you know, one prototype from the other we were just trying different combinations. and, A little bit of stories at the beginning. You know? The shoulder straps were too wide. I can't remember. The early prototypes the thickness, if we if we if they were good or not

Brigham: but what we, what we really ended up doing is just finding the right combination of of density which kind of equates to softness and how it conforms to your body, right?

Tayson: Soft and it's just more like a strap and two and into dense and it's also not comfortable because it won't form to your body. It's yeah harsh. Yeah.

Brigham: And so and thickness as well. So you can kind of tweak density and thickness. for The Listener like density just equates to softness or hardness. So, density and thickness. We played with many combinations of that to find what I feel like is a very good combination that frankly, if you have just a really thick hip belt it to me and through testing, it just doesn't conform to your body and does you don't get the best contact. You want like really good

Brigham: contact around your hips because that's what's holding the load. So we played with that same with the back panel. You know, finding that good combination of comfort and the right density, the right thickness, not being too thick but also not being too thin. And then what was interesting is on the shoulder straps. I just it was several prototypes and I just was not happy with the shoulder straps, the phone. I they were a little too wide and then I don't I

Brigham: wasn't sure if the thickness was good, but I just felt like I wanted them to be a little more comfortable. And where we ended up is started playing with. Not just the thickness of the density but by Perforating it. Basically punching holes at certain spacing in the foam. that, as an element of Softness and pliability and being able to conform to the body. And I think we found a really good combination. I it was very noticeable. That first prototype that we

Brigham: got to have the perforated shoulder straps. It was like immediately noticeable in terms of just getting that dialed in Comfort. Yeah. And the other side of that too is we were, you know,

Tayson: looking to shave another ounce or so off the pack to get it under sub two pounds and yeah, Stephen that little perforation added the Comfort. But it also like little tiny things like that are the difference between breaking two pounds and getting yeah. Pounds with a feature Rich backpack like this. So yeah, it was definitely a kind of a side benefit that was

Brigham: pretty deliberate, at the same time, so yeah, so with the

Tayson: Comfort, we did three different torso sizes, we've got three different hip belts sizes and So you can, you can go on our website, look at a size chart, I Believe. By the time this goes live, there should be a little question thing or you can plug in how tall you are and your inseam and it'll spit out, you know what, what torso size you should get. We have had a lot of people pre-order the tolls, in fact, the matter is, they

Tayson: shouldn't be way too many people that are ordering calls. Like so for instance, I'm six two, I used to be almost six three, I'm not at all. I'm a regular, we used to have someone work here. That was an inch tall with me. It was 64 and he was a regular, borderline small torso. So just be aware just because your height is tall. It does not mean your torso is tall, but dialing that in and having that fixed for you is

Tayson: definitely comfortable, getting the right size on the pack, right out of the gate is definitely going to help you as well. But those three different sizes and hit belts and everything are all going to equate to a more comfortable pack. So putting this all together. Brigham. What do we have like what can people expect to be able to carry in this obviously, you know? Our goal for would be for our customers to, you know, becoming in well under 15 pound base,

Tayson: weight closer to 10 pound base weight. Well if you can get lighter, kudos to you but that's kind of where we hope people are out. But the fact that matter is most people's basements will be higher plus water. So where people going to be comfortable you know wearing this pack

Brigham: Yeah, that's really that kind of goes back into like the overall goal of the backpack is we don't just want people to be comfortable for three seasons or for short trips. We want anybody to be comfortable every season of the year, whatever they're doing to be able to take their load and be comfortable in this backpack. Because here's the thing. Base weights are great. But Nobody's base weight is going to be the same say a person in Florida. Can go backpacking

Brigham: basically with the same stuff year round and be incredibly light. That's what comes out to the Rocky Mountains in the winter time, sorry that that base weight is going to change. That, you know, 8 pound base weight is now going to be 12. Gear requirements change with seasons and geography and where you're positioned on the earth. So, The pack has to be comfortable for all of that. So in the desert, you're going to carry a ton of water. I don't care.

Brigham: If you have a five pound base weight, if you have to walk all day and you only have one place to resupply water, that's dangerous. And that's another thing is that comes into really safety is we don't want people having to ration water throughout the day. Carry four extra leaders, the pack can handle it. You know what I mean? So like, I see people that carry a single one, liter smart water bottle for a day and to me like there's no

Brigham: way I'm doing that I'll just and I do it all the time. I'll just bring an extra three or four liter bladder. Throw out in the pack and I don't have to worry about water. So the point is, is we can have people, you know, with base plates of over 20 pounds, comfortable all day long. You can comfortably carry 35 pounds in this backpack. I'm pretty sure on that last trip. I was probably more than that. Just because it was a

Brigham: It was a trip like carry some extra water because I didn't know. It's

Tayson: winter time winner now. Working extra stove. You had it all.

Brigham: Yeah, so That kind of what it comes down to is, you know, we want people to be comfortable, caring, 35 pounds.

Tayson: Well, let me let me just popped in my head as you're talking because I know like we talked I think we talked about this in like, the last shadowlight, know,

Tayson: it would, we wouldn't have been, but we talked on a podcast where we were, I don't know. On a trip with some, with some guys, some of our buddies and they were carrying very minimal amounts of water, because of weight because Essentially, I mean I don't think it was comfortable for them to carry more. I know some didn't have, you know, hip belts, maybe not frames. I can't remember, you know at different things but no me Being having an all-cause that's

Tayson: on this too. But like I I carried extra water for me and for them because I was like my backpack can handle it. I would rather dump out this water when we get closer to the vehicle then to not have it and stop backs up to this next part, which is the scariest most threatening times I've ever had on a trail. And maybe I'm just lucky have been dehydration related like yeah, I'm

Tayson: in the middle of nowhere. I am. I am. Trying to get here. I got off trail and I am, I don't know where there's water. It's maybe I'm. I mean one time for sure. We were, it was after dark. We're trying to find a trail. I had heavy load on and we ran out of water quick. And Man, by the time I got to the vehicle, I could barely get down a bottle of water without throwing it back up. Like it

Tayson: was, that's probably the most one of the more dangerous times I've ever been out there. But when I think back at, you know, the scariest or, you know, when things, when things start to get, like, critical Tech discount on time, or starts, in my head is when I run out of water, and that is not a position you want to be in. And so as you transition to these other ways of backpacking, it can get scary fast. Even you watched I

Tayson: was just watching a video on YouTube of a lady who does through hiking and she was out in Arizona you know they're doing the CDT and she started on this Trail and it's like man we really hope there's water if there's not water there like we're in critical condition and that type of stuff is The opposite of what I want to feel and when I have got a tool when I've got a backpack, they can't support carrying a little extra water

Tayson: at times. That tool is not gonna be very effective and not as safe. Well,

Brigham: it deters. You, it turns the user from from Them being safe? Yeah, because they know you know what I frankly I either don't have room or it's just gonna be too heavy to carry these two extra leaders of water, you know, that's basically about five pounds. You know, five pounds of the ultralight guy is is massive. And it's just like this card and when you you know, so it's like

Tayson: when you get out of a frameless pack and you add five pounds, that feels like 100 pounds, by the end of the day, you just cutting into you. They are cutting. And and this goes like so I kind of laid out more dangerous situations but when I go anytime we're, we're summoning a peek. Brigham every time. Someone in our group will get a headache. And almost every single time they think that they're drinking enough water. But they're just not, they do they

Brigham: think they are and like, they'll explain it away. They'll say, oh, I just have eaten enough that they'll explain it, but some people don't know what they don't know, and So, if you do know, this is a great teacher experience teaches you things. And once, you know it, you know, it and when I know, I know dehydration, when I see it, I've seen it so many times, and I've seen it lead to the worst of things. So, I mean, I People don't

Brigham: it's almost like they don't want to like admit that it's just something that they could have control. Because it's a little bit. Discouraging, like, hey, I could have prevented this by just drinking more water, but I didn't because I only I hear this. People say, well, I know my body. I know I only need a liter a day. I mean, go talk to a doctor about that. He'll put you in place but you know,

Tayson: I I will say I will never fall someone for getting dehydrated when there's summoning a peak because the amount of time that I've under hydrated or just not, you know, there's so many factors when you're up that high, the winds always blowing. You don't even notice your sweating half the time. You don't even notice the level of output that you're doing. You can't, you can't feel you can't control because it's just the winds blowing. It's blowing that sweat off you so

Tayson: quickly that you're not even getting damp. Like, there's all these things, you know, there's, there's minerals that come into play, but but hydration is massive and and Gosh, for the extra two to three ounces that a frame ads and and the bill it in a pack that's gonna be comfortable. It's so much safer. It's so much Mark enjoyable, you put yourself in less risky situations, but also like just it's uncomfortable to have a hydration headache. Like, you don't want to be

Tayson: out in the middle of your hike, trying to enjoy life, and just have this massive hydration headache, that's not fun, and then what? And then you don't want to like you know, you see people like I just need to pop some ibuprofen. I'll be fine. It's like you can do that but like it's not fixing. What your body's trying to tell you and anyways we've we've we've talked probably enough about we've, but hopefully that was that was very beneficial for you

Tayson: guys and go prove what we're saying if you need to because I think once you see this stuff you can't unsee it and you'll become a firm believer and a lot of this stuff so you can carry, good loads in this Brigham kind of said you know, up to like 35 pounds comfortably, we've tested it above and beyond that but you're still gonna be very comfortable, you know, getting up to 35 pounds plus with this pack So man, where should we

Tayson: go? Next. There's so many So many things to cover in this pack. We? Obviously, when you look at the pack you'll see that there's there's a bunch of pockets on it. I counted them up today. Just I don't even know why I never thought about this but there's eight pockets on the pack. Between hip belt Pockets, you're kind of water bottle Pockets, I'll call them the lower Pockets, your upper pockets and then your mesh Pockets, eight different organizational pockets on this

Tayson: plus key Clips, which is a lot for a pack, that's under two pounds. It gives you a lot of ability and kind of going back to like that intuitive nature. One thing that you'd notice down was the fact that like you can store a lot of things that you might need quickly on the outside of your pack. So that even though this has a quick zip into the pack, A lot of times you don't need to even access that because you're

Tayson: able to organize and put things on the outside of the pack.

Brigham: yeah, that's I guess that was kind of the goal was just to have the option for people to keep everything that they may need throughout a day on the on the exterior of the pack. And Four of those pockets are usable without taking the backpack off. So whether it's Water bottles in the water bottle Pockets. The lower Pockets, those are accessible, you don't, you know, you reach back and grab them. They're accessible while you're wearing the backpack and then the hip

Brigham: belt Pockets, we built Big. We build them to, I mean, so you could, you could basically put an entire lunch at one hit belt pocket.

Brigham: Um, so for they are

Tayson: they, I lose stuff in there.

Brigham: Yes. So I mean, if you want to just eat a meal while you're walking, you know, your lunch or breakfast while you're on the trail like We

Brigham: want that accessibility to be there. We want the option to do that. We want to offer people, the option, rather than not the option where they have to stop and take off their backpack or you know, hip belt Pockets, they're not like a rarity, but It's really nice to be able to have your flashlight, or your headlamp right there. So if you're needing to walk into the well, let's let's talk about

Tayson: this. What is a rarity with? Some of these though is volume in the pocketing.

Brigham: Yeah, so that was the other kind of thing. I wanted to tackle was like, pockets are great but a lot of times I see Pockets that become unusable once the backpack main compartment is full. because it's just basically a piece of fabric slapped on that the exterior and sometimes people will or you know Brands will add a little bit of volume by putting a couple pleats in that piece of fabric that's sewn to the outside that adds a little bit of

Brigham: volume but what it also does is Prevents being able to put the contents or whatever, you're putting in that pocket. All the way down into that pocket, right? So

Tayson: still that Gap at the bottom, where it gets sewn into the seam or whatever, where you just, it's unusable. Yeah.

Brigham: So so for me, it was like, if, if I'm gonna put pockets on this backpack, I want them to be useful Pockets. When the backpack is full, I want them to be able to hold things On the backpack is full. So we built volume. To the backpack into the pockets. So for example, the water bottle Pockets, couple things to pay attention to. There are Volume built into them by meaning the bottom of the pocket is built outward. And then the pocket

Brigham: extends upward and then has some elastic inside it to keep the contents in. But That adds volume. So that when the backpack is full, The volume of the pocket stays the same. It's not taking up by the inside of the backpack. So what that also does Is that puts the bottom of that pocket at the same level as the bottom of the backpack? So that's what makes it so easy to get the water bottles out is because there's

Brigham: basically a panel at the bottom of the pocket. So it sits flush with the bottom of the backpack so that bottle can sit all the way down. It makes it a lot easier to grab a lot easier for sure. And then we will cover

Tayson: Fabrics later. But then we've we've, you know, coated the bottom of our pockets with a heavier thickness fabric because it is gonna hit the ground now where sometimes it wouldn't before. But yeah. The and going back to like, the hip belt thing, like, put a whole lunch in there. Well, those hit belts are very volumized. So, I mean, I can get my full, you know, cell phone in there. With some things that's where I kind of joke about losing stuff in

Tayson: there is they are volume eyes tip though Pockets. They're not those kind of pockets like you're struggling to get the zipper undone and then you can like barely fit your fingers down in there. Like I've had, I've had those These, These are quite volumized and you'll have plenty of space to add things in there. And it makes really nice because I like you say I put like things I don't want to lose in their smaller things, that's where the key clip

Tayson: is. But headlamps chapstick sunscreen, they're big enough. I can put sunglasses in there and it doesn't squish them or I'm not scared. I'm going to break them because of that. They're that volume is. So that's that's all very nice little feature on that pocket.

Brigham: Yeah. I mean it kind of the purpose is just to be more efficient is just so people can be more efficient on the trail because if you're covering a lot of miles really every little stop adds up. So one thing that I think is very interesting and a great application for the hip belt pocket is to like if you have a Divine beef free, To put your be free in the pocket or your filter. If it's a sawyer squeeze, put that

Brigham: in your hip belt pocket. So when you stop at a water source, you do not have to take your backpack off. You grab your water bottle out of the water bottle, pack pocket, unzip, your hip belt, grab your filter. Fill up all without taking off your backpack. and, you know, I can't stand taking on my backpack. You give me a hard time, everybody. Everybody laughs at that. Because like, we'll take a break. And I I just would rather not take my

Tayson: 30 minute break. And he'll stand. There is backpack on I. Yeah, but

Brigham: it's like, if I don't need to, if everything I have was Within Reach. Then what is the, the thought there? I just don't like taking the time to like readjust because once I get settled in, it's like, I feel the backpack is in its happy place. Like it's, everything is sitting exactly where I like it and, you know, we've gone a few miles. And so everything is sitting perfect and I don't, I would rather not spend a few seconds, putting a

Brigham: backpack on and then Getting that perfect settled fit. I just it's like

Tayson: That's pretty weird. It's Unique to you. Yeah, for sure.

Tayson: all right, so with pockets or organization, Is there anything that we that we haven't covered? We did. So one of the cool things that we did do with it on the upper Pockets. So, above like your will call your water bottle pocket, we actually added a compression option. So, this compression option does two things. It's not meant to be a like, serious compression. Like don't it's right, like crank down on this thing. It's meant for snugging and, and locking things into

Tayson: that top pocket. So essentially, there is a string that's going to run along the top edge of that pocket. You snug that down to lock contents into the pocket, and it's just going to give it a little bit more tension to hold it tight up against your back. And, and one thing I'll notice I'll note too, is we also have a another compression bag and we have like side strap. I should say. And then we've got another tighten up on the top.

Brigham: Yeah, the thing about it is

Tayson: We've been proactive, I would say about how the load is carried. Meaning we've curved the bottom of the pack so that it carries the load higher and up against your back. We've the way we've cut this and the way that we like, how far it sits off your back, the volume, right? Because we have taller frame, we're able to get use the taller frame to not have a stick so far off of your back. So, that's another thing I didn't even

Tayson: mention this. And in that video, I just shot. But like these other packs that don't have a call frame, but are still like a 60 liter pack. Well, that means it's going farther off the back of my back the way from my back. Exactly.

Tayson: And so I find a lot of times like even though this does have compression on it, the only one I consistently use is the top one that goes up and over the roll top. I always have that one. Nice and tight. The side ones. I snug them sometimes but like I just don't have to use them that much because this pack carries it so far from Lees and it's really hard to explain but a lot of this just has to do

Tayson: with the way that we've curved the seams on the bottom. The height of the pack. And and the overall like width. I guess I would say of the backpack, it really lends itself to not have to like crunch down on these side, compression straps and stuff but We're going back to that pocket though. There is like a nice little compression option there, for snugging things into that pocket, locking them into that pocket, but also just gives it just a little bit

Tayson: more of Another Touch point to to Snug that up against your pack and and keep everything locked in and tight. The back. Let's talk about the first second about the back to Pockets the stretch Pockets. Yeah, I

Tayson: know when I presented the idea of putting the zipper in there and doing this it was like He's gonna be usable. That was a big question we had. And so getting it and testing that I feel like everyone was quite happy with that because everyone in on other packs. That's something that's very widely known. Is that people love that big massive stretchy pocket on the back of their ultralight backpack. They are they're absolutely useful, right? You put you put your

Tayson: tent in there when it's got frost on it or compensation. You put your jackets in there that might have gotten a little sweaty year, need to dry out or that you just need quick access to, but they're very forgiving Pockets, they're very useful Pockets. So what do you, what are your thoughts on the fact that we've split that massive one into two medium sized ones?

Brigham: Yeah. Well, that was I mean that was an attention point for sure on the design because We know everybody really likes that pocket, and it's very functional. so, to split that in half, we had to absolutely make sure that those Pockets were still functional and usable and that, Like a user would quickly be able to recognize the usability of it and not be turned off by it. So they have to, you know, we still had to make them wide enough to

Brigham: be able to get in and out of or, you know, get things in and out of and but I also, Saw that some of those. Kind of the standard stretch mesh Pockets. Doesn't have a center zip. They're very short. If you look at them in proportional to the height of a backpack and granted. Nobody even has a backpack as tall as ours, they still look short. So that stretch mesh pocket may only be 12 inches. Deep,

Tayson: so why? But frankly,

Brigham: yeah, like I think I think visually, like people that are used to that looking at. This would be would maybe I don't know be turned off but maybe have a question mark in their head. Like, how's that going to work? Well, I'll tell you that. You can hold a lot more in our two stretch mesh Pockets then any backpack out, theirs, The traditional mesh pocket, they're they're way bigger so you can hold a lot more. The only difference is you can

Brigham: organize it and you don't have to have a wet tent next to if you want to keep it in the other one like so you can separate your wet tent in one or wet rain jacket in one. That's So, I'll just tell you that. they hold a lot of stuff and it's actually kind of helpful because say you have a long item or like a set of 10 poles, those are pretty long. and if you don't have a lot of contents

Brigham: in a traditional stretch mesh pocket, that's 10 inches wide, and you slide your poles in there because you haven't plan for that, you don't have a good place for it, they're kind of flopping around but You know, this, there's great applications for longer items that you just need a good secure place to put, but there I've just found them, credibly useful, and we're glad at how they turn. We're happy with how they turned out, because Because they had to turn out.

Brigham: Well you know, because we know that people like that those stretch mesh Pockets so ours had to have to work and I feel like they work very well.

Tayson: yeah, one of the thresholds that we were conscious of was Fitting a two-person tent, you know, essentially in one of those side pockets it's a very common thing is to put your two-person sized hand, into a stretch mesh pocket, to let it dry. And and they do that, you know, we've put our trekking pole tent which is a full tenth not just the rainfly or anything like that but the entire tent can fit in one side of the stretch mesh pocket

Tayson: on this and that that test is like, all right. That's plenty. That's plenty. Big for one side and I'd agree. I actually hadn't thought about that as kind of like the way that you're seeing it but that's absolutely true. On a lot of these other ones that have that Big Stretch mesh pocket all the way across the back. Very Square. They're not that tall. A lot of them at least, aren't that tall? And so volume wise, I do think you get

Tayson: more volume, you know, total out of this one for sure. And you get a separation if you want it that's typically putting in the mornings that, you know, I might have a tent in one side and then all one, keep my jacket or something, very accessible easy on and off or easy place to take it off once we get moving and heat up, and it's a great place for it to breathe and and whatnot. So, The. We kind of touched on

Tayson: this before. I want to say, we talked about this in a different time but let's talk about the symmetric nature of the pack. So other packs that we tested sometimes. They forced organizations certain way with the pocketing. And, you know, like this is the tenth pocket, the tent, your tent and your poles, go on this side and your water bottle is going on this side and and that type of force organization was not our favorite

Brigham: know. And again, it kind of just comes back to wanting the user to have the option to pack it in whatever makes sense to them. And so, Instead of channeling them a direction or the other versus like, well this pocket is really for your tent. You know. Like that's that's Kind of channeling or pushing them, one way, or the other. And limiting, we want to our pocket system to be Like enabling or just whatever people. They look at it and think,

Brigham: well, I'll put these items there because it makes sense to me, and that's what we want. And so, The to the Symmetry aspect. Again, we've really stressed the comfort and support and stability. Yeah, balancing a load and load distribution is a critical factor in comfort. So Again channeling somebody to have to put a larger heavier item. On one side that creates. Now a problem, they have to solve in the way they pack the rest of their contents because now the one

Brigham: side of their backpacks heavier. So if we're going to give people the option for Pockets, we want them to be symmetrical so that they can balance everything out and have it ride well because again it comes down to You know,

Tayson: Comfort Sports stability. So, I'm just kind of looking at the pack right now and I'm gonna put you on the hot seat here. So, on the top of the pack, there is a strap that goes up and over and I talked about like I loved that down and carries the load up and tight against your back. It's a really nice strap. But you could absolutely like strap something there. Like, you could put like a like a princess, a foam pad. That's

Tayson: where we typically are going to put a foam pad, it's a great place for it, we did not put anything. To allow people to strap something to the bottom of the pack. Why why did Why did we not do that?

Brigham: Yeah, that was delivered. Multiple reasons, you know, even something as simple as. Like, you know, what happened? Straps flapping around hanging down back there, if you're not using them, they're just gonna snag on things, it's one extra. Piece of webbing sewn to the backpack. So there's kind of that weight conscious thing but also I'm just not a believer in having things hanging from your backpack, I want everything in something. I want everything contained tight, nice and tight up against the body

Brigham: that just comes to stability. I don't like things. Bouncing around and and I don't want anything hanging lower.

Tayson: If they bounce on your head while you're walking like that's that's not that's

Brigham: loose, it's not stable. It's

Tayson: I think I think my answer to that too. Would be like if you want this pack. Yes, we want to like this is a great first step. But first product to get from us, But really, if you're interested in this pack, you're probably interested in being efficient and light in other aspects in the pack should be more than adequate in fitting in. All of your gear, right? So the people that end up dropping things to the bottom of their pack, like

Tayson: I know this is going to eliminate some of you that are listening. Listen, do that. But honestly, my answer is

Brigham: Keep working on your gear.

Tayson: Keep that underwear as a better way. And if you're not there yet, just keep tweaking and dialing your gear. Because that's not, that's not really where you want

Brigham: any weight or load or bulk don't want anything, you want the lowest part of the backpack to be the hip belt? Yeah,

Brigham: that should be the lowest part of the back

Tayson: build higher, right? Like the roll top of the backpack will allow you to extend it taller. That's a way easier place to carry that weight then to go lower than the hip belt. so, just wanted to throw that one out there because I'm looking at that and I know that there's so many packs like specially traditional level packs that have that kind of an option and it's not one that we entertained when it came down to it. So we'll talk about

Tayson: Factory selection, but I want to talk maybe more specifically about fabrics for a minute. That was a very big portion of the backpack, was dialing in the fabrics and and frankly, if you're trying to get below two pounds and a backpack that specially, if a full featured, backpack, is what I tend to call it but a backpack with all the features that were offering in it. You the fabric is critical, right? so we looked at dyneema, we've looked at aerobics we

Tayson: looked at What I don't expect. We I mean, we looked at, we looked at these different fabrics and entertained and different things and and we ended up with this particular fabric because to us, it gave us the best of both worlds. So before we tell them what we did, let's talk maybe about the pros and cons of. Let's say aerobic nylon just a straight-up nylon and then the pros and cons of a street Dynamo. Yeah, like a nylon.

Brigham: Traditional. Standard plain weave nylon like aerobic or even you know there's Cordura, they kind of do the same thing, they're very basic they're very good. They have their strong and durable for what they are and for their weight like aerobic nylon. that's kind of their their strength, or their Their strength is their strength to wait like their their strong for what they are, which is a nylon fiber. They're very, they're very basic and very, very common. I mean it's not Really

Brigham: rare to use aerobic and then

Tayson: it's almost like like they're the solid answer, very serious not they're not like the sexy answer but they're not like they're not really that big of cons but there's not really like any massive upgrades or

Brigham: I don't know, maybe we would call, maybe we would call this kind of like that should be a standard or you know what I mean? Like I would be skeptical of a backpack that was of lower quality than that. Yeah,

Tayson: that's the base level that

Brigham: have to be but kind of that. Classification of fabric of nylon something. Along those lines is a good solid bet. Now 100% dyneema composite fabric. Incredibly light. They have very high, tensile strength. they're, they're expensive, but that's not necessarily a drawback for, you know, if if you have to spend money to get what you want, then you gotta spend the money, but Very strong. Very light, very good. Tensile strength. however, they, they have some drawbacks that I'm just not really a

Brigham: fan of, and I think we basically agreed on this is that to me, they kind of have durability issues, which is really weird. If, because, all you hear about dynamos, how strong it is, That's

Tayson: all that's ever pitched. Like I so, I'll be like, when we came at this, I had done my level of research with anemia. You would have your level of research with AMA. And when we bought this project up, I actually said my opinions about Dynamo having no idea whether anyone in the world, even believed the same things because no one talks about it really, and even in, like, videos or things that I see where people like attempt to talk about it.

Tayson: They hardly say anything. They just like yeah you know, he's not the strongest. Well, everyone else says it is this strong. What do you mean, what, wait, Dynamo just is gonna get ripped apart on the trail. Like what are you talking about? I thought anymore was like the never get ripped apart because it's so strong

Brigham: obvious everything. Yeah. yeah, it's and again so let's we're talking about like a straight 100% Dynamo fabric. So like if the whole woven fabric is Dynamo because That's those that's the fabric I'm talking about that just gives me some concerns and it's

Tayson: well and what happens and to kind of build on that is essentially what you hear about dyneema is what is tested on brand new fabric? It's like laboratory results essentially, right?

Tayson: This is dynamic. Look at its tensile strength. We tested it in a lab, right?

Tayson: Look at look at its puncture resistance. We tested it in a lab. What we're not hearing and what is less common and I'm again I'm not knocking it because we very well could use an email for certain things in the future but it's the real world testing is totally different than a lab because the best way and you explain this yet the other day but I thought this may be would be a good example of this is imagine you have a

Tayson: piece of paper in front of you and you pull on each edge of that paper. You're pulling this hard as you can and you like you see the strength of that paper now. Imagine Like, you've had that paper for a while, right? It's been in your backpack, you've crumpled it up, you've uncrumpled it, you've crumpled it up, you've uncrumpled it. Now, do that same test, where you grab each edge of it and you pull, there's the strength of that paper is

Tayson: not nearly as much. Once you fold the paper 10 times. Crumple it up, 10 times and unfold. It, it loses some of that quote unquote laboratory results, it loses some of that rigidity or the Coatings or whatever is on there, you start to break it down. And so the real world testing of paper when it's brand new versus after you've had it a while is a totally different level of strength. And so that's a that's not a perfect example of what

Tayson: happens with that email. But but that's essentially what happens is you start crumbling down payment? You start on crumbling it, you start using it. You start doing all these different things and it starts putting folds in the Coatings, because dynamism is really a coating. And so, like over time and where I came from like what I presented to bring was like this is what I seen in anime is that essentially get started to get these four lines and like you first

Tayson: get it. And it's like, it right out of the gate, it fills in pervious and then 10 minutes later, it seems like you can See, it degrading.

Brigham: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's right. I mean the one thing I'll clarify is that like a Dynamo composite fabric? It is actually not just a coating. The fibers themselves that are woven those are Dynamic fibers which are an ultra high molecular weight. Polyethylene. So that's what the fiber is versus a nylon. So like aerobic that's woven nylon fibers versus a dynamic composite fabric is woven Dyna or uhmwpe, Fiber woven but it's held together and gets its waterproofness from basically the coating that

Brigham: you're talking about which is a resin basically or you know it's a solution that is applied to kind of adhere and bond it all together but they have to go together to achieve that lab test strength that everybody that is that is advertised or touted. Kind of like how carbon fiber carbon fiber is actually a textile because it's a woven fiber but carbon fibers is not become what people understand as carbon fiber, without the resin component. Yeah, that

Brigham: is bonded to it or Saturated into it. So, but yes, to your points about the drawbacks is I, that's This is for applications. We have to think about application. We're talking about a backpack and we've established, what we want the backpack to be and do. And we found that dyneema fabric just wasn't the best option because of the concerns that we have for durability sounds. So counterintuitive because all you hear is durability is so strong. People equate dyneema to strength and

Brigham: and strength durability, but I've seen it, in fact, when I was in school I have visited other backpack manufacturing facilities. That was very insightful and educational and that was kind of where I really started. Looking at Dynamo with a cautious. I for the application. You didn't even hear that like in the

Tayson: real world market, you heard that from a manufacturer who's manufactured with them, ultralight, backpack manufacturer. And they they

Brigham: showed us. And they said, you know, we used to use Dynamic composite fabric but we have so many warranty issues. It was killing us. So this is an ultralight backpack company saying we stopped using Dynamo Fabrics because of durability issues. so massive that resonated with me that really sunk in, and

Tayson: Care on fabric ever is killing us because its not the most durable fabric ever.

Brigham: Yeah. So their warranty costs were just too much. So yeah diverted away and and then they pulled them both out, they pulled them both out and showed us like a simple rip test. the Dynamo fabric was, Took a little bit of effort but you could rip it like a piece of paper. Which is a form of a ripstop fabric. I could not rip it. I couldn't rip it. And so how we were doing? This was starting it with a slit with scissors, mmm,

Brigham: cut it with scissors. Still couldn't rip it past the rib. Stop. Wow, very durable fabric. So that that sunken with me and that which is all so kind of how we ended up with the fabric. We have is like Dynamo to me is not very terroristic once it gets A puncture or or a hole. It's not very abrasion resistant and it just wears horribly. Like if you look at a Dynamo backpack that's been used a lot. I mean it's just looks

Brigham: like it looks like a soggy paper grocery bag. I mean it's just It looks terrible and the reason and it looks terrible because it's degraded. The

Brigham: fabric is literally degraded longevity there, and it maintained, it gets all these crease marks, and those crease marks are degraded sections of that fabric. So,

Tayson: Anyway. um, Yeah, we've seen I mean there's different things you can go look at this out there but I mean I remember one video from a friend of ours that took it out here to where we're at and grounded up against some sandstone and it just started falling apart at the seams like he that abrasiveness, you know, like it you start rubbing it and dragging it across even a little bit of sandstone and it just started to just fall apart crumble,

Tayson: right? So we've kind of talked about the cons of it, maybe before we leave completely and just just the cons, where is there an application? Because we're very heavy on matching, whatever it is, we're using with the right application, we've got whole podcast about, you know, this fabric, you know, let's say cotton cotton sucks for like, 90% of what we do but like you go to the tropics and Cotton's amazing, you know, I mean because it's just all property specific. So in your opinion,

Brigham: where does signing him a belong? and something where you need to use a lot of fabric which means a lot of fabric weight and you want to save a lot of fabric weight and that fabric is not going to be under a lot of stress or abrasion or susceptible to puncture. Yeah.

Tayson: Here, we'll come back to that. I mean, hopefully,

Brigham: I think people can kind of fill in the blanks there, but

Tayson: yeah, sales on sailboats. Anyways, um, So back to this. So so we saw both of these, we could see the pros and the cons of each and thankfully, we got paired up with the fabric know where we could custom weave something. Well yeah, let's talk about why we decided we had the custom weave. Something

Brigham: was because nothing was off the table for us. I think that's valuable for people to understand is like nothing was off the table. Like we're, we're willing to do whatever for this backpack but back including buying us fabric, that's three times more

Tayson: expensive than our competitors.

Brigham: Yeah. So going back another step. What are we making? We're making an ultralight backpack so we have to you know we're trying to make it as light as possible. And it's not a secret and we're not revealing anything new that. When you go the lighter, you go on fabric. Your compromising something and with most nylon Fabrics your compromising strength and durability. So here we are. We're trying to make a very light. Strong functional backpack, that's comfortable. So, With that in mind

Brigham: I we had to be aware of like well we got to use the best, most durable fabric that we can to meet this weight threshold. Right. Right. So that was where we came to the conclusion that like we're just going to have to find a mill that can make us fabric that meets what we need. Yeah. And so what we did

Tayson: and and essentially we started by saying, okay what what meets that threshold that we know of right now and that was extrema right? Yeah. So

Tayson: we were looking at robek with an extrema of ripstop and

Tayson: an extreme a ripstop is essentially just a you'd probably explain that better what is extrema. Well

Brigham: so extreme I use his And HDPE. Fiber on the for the ripstop, that's a high-density. polyethylene HDPE, which is stronger than a robot nylon fiber. But Extreme and and so what we found is like we could get that quite easily. It was basically I'd consider Off the Shelf ready, we could have got that would have it would have been good. Um, but what happened? The one guy we were talking to from the from the Mills. He Suggested going.

Tayson: So why are you using? This is like, literally what he's saying to us and I was fighting him on this because I wasn't fully understanding the difference in these ultra-high molecular compound structures at first. And basically, it's like, why are you using the cheap stuff? Let's make a real expensive fabric that does better things and I'm like, what do you mean? No extreme is good stuff. What do you? Lots of people think it's really good stuff and he's like, no, no,

Tayson: like the the compound, the high density, polyurethane, whatever you're saying, he's like that's like the cheaper version of of dino or Spectra. Or like, you know and you understood what's going on on my okay. What is, you know he's like if you're going to make a custom Fabric and and price isn't the biggest differentiator for you, then why don't we use the top shelf stuff which is

Brigham: Spectrum. Yep, Specter Yarn. Yeah, so I mean it was like That's kind of where we went down, the just customizing exactly what we want. And so, we were able to specify kind of the the base. fabric weight as a New. Kind of from the get-go. We've tried to use as light as Fabrics as possible, but we also knew that in certain areas of the backpack, we wanted to use more heavier, durable Fabrics because that's where they need hack, that's where it's

Brigham: needed. Meaning, the bottoms of pockets, the bottom of the backpack, the shoulder straps places they're gonna have high abrasion have be set up against maybe potentially sharp or hard or abrasive items and so So we need. Okay, we're we need to look at two Fabrics to accomplish this backpack, so I don't know. We're gonna use a lighter Fabric and a little bit heavier fabric for the lighter fabric. We decided okay, we want something that is a base weight of 100 D

Brigham: fabric. 100 denier fibers are using are used to weave the fabric but the rips stop We once we kind of got the hook up with being able to custom make using Spectra fibers. We decided we wanted to use spectral fibers for the ripstop portion of the backpack. What that does is. your maximizing, the best characteristic of All just say it ultra. High molecular weight. Polyethylene fibers. So, Those are the fibers that are have incredible tensile strength so that's maximizing that property

Brigham: of tensile strength is having it be in the rip stop grid. That's basically kind of the the structure and what's actually going to hold the pressure from that the backpack receives. And it happens to also be way more abrasion resistant. Than the robot nylon, and very, very difficult to tear. So that fiber made the most sense for that portion of the fabric. but what we also found is that by, if we made the Specter fibers 200 denier fibre that basically, Is

Brigham: twice as thick as the fibers that the base fabric is

Tayson: made out of. So now you've got a 100 D nylon Rubicon nylon with a 200 denier d. Spectra.

Brigham: Yep. Okay, go on. So now you're using the strongest fiber. for the ripstop portion, which is going to Hold have all the tensile strength of the fabric but also carry the abrasion and tear resistance. Because what's going to kind of catch, if anything, what's going to get the most abrasion are those thicker fibers which are Spectra. So we are maximizing The properties of the Spectre. And using it in conjunction with a good quality. Lightweight nylon fabric that the 100d rovick. So,

Brigham: I'm trying to think of

Tayson: a good example of explain this, and this isn't the best example is first one off top my head, which is, if you think of a chain link fence, right? It's got that all the squares in there and then you think of like a chain link fence where they Slide the little privacy slats down each thing, imagine the chain link fence being our Specter yarn or 200 D Specter yarn and these privacy slots is the robotic. So it's not taking as much

Tayson: abrasion because it's, it's back a little bit. It's not a thick, so it sits a little bit off of like the Face-Off. If you were to look through like a microscope and you laid this out on the table, the Specter yarn would almost all be touching the table while the, by the robotic is just a tiny fraction off of the table. Yeah. And so

Tayson: that's what we're trying to refer to. Is it allows that Specter yarn to take the abbreviation, it allows it to give it the tensile strength, but at also allows us to get the benefits of what a traditional nylon pack would be, which is just incredible. Long-lasting

Brigham: durability. Yeah. And and it's also worth pointing out so, So, the Specter is bigger thicker stronger. Spectra fibers are inherently exponentially lighter in weight than nylon fibers. So we're not adding weight by reinforcing it with Spectra. Technically would be lighter than if we used a 200 denier. Nylon rooftop fiber. So

Tayson: that's that's where we cut massive weight, right? Is because we're using two Fabrics. One is 100 D. 100 denier robic and the other is a 200 denier Spectra inside. And that's the one that's the lighter weight Fabric and then we did a custom blend for the second one. Which is going to be like the bottom of the pack bottom of the pockets and that's a 200 denier. It's a 210. 210 Rubik nylon with the grip, stop being a 400 400

Brigham: Spectra. So basically we're essentially doubling the thickness of the fibers used for the ripstop and also making them Spectra. So the point is just you can't use, you can't use a straight 100 then

Tayson: your Robuck and a straight 200 Daniel robek. And have. And like, like, we couldn't do that without the Spectre, or we wouldn't believe it's durable enough,

Brigham: right? Right. It just wouldn't meet what we set as The requirements for,

Tayson: I think I have a pack honestly that used a 100 denier aerobic, just a straight aerobic. and, Puncture City, man. Like, we we I have like walk under a tree punctured. It my brother like you can't throw that backpack in the back of a truck, really? Or like the abrasion will start to wear on it quick. You know, just different things like that. Where with our Shadowlight pack just, and this is just real world testing from, like not, you know,

Tayson: taking a step back. I feel like texture with your hand, feel everything, using it feels three times more like usable strength and less, less worried on me and everything there, even though the weight, Is identical? Yeah, and those Fabrics.

Brigham: Yeah. So yeah, we use the we all so developed simultaneously. The the heavier fabric for the high wear areas of the backpack and Again, that's just, you know, we had to put requirements for

Tayson: ourselves that we got to meet. so so the last component of this is is there any coating on The fabric.

Tayson: There any Coatings at all?

Brigham: Yeah. On the, on the inside, there's a pu coating that, you know, gives it water resistance. Okay? So

Tayson: it only hit waterproof,

Brigham: not waterproof, not waterproof and turn, in terms of like it being a dry bag. It has the same hydrostatic head as a tent would so

Brigham: they experience different pressure, loads what makes it not?

Tayson: What makes it not a dry bag, then I guess just to make sure people are practically saw. One of our buddies. Kind of go through this just recently where they, you know, because it is a waterproof fabric, they kind of assume the pack was more waterproof, so, but it's not really, probably the biggest thing is the seams in the

Brigham: seats. Like, that's see, that's where the, the water can get him through way sooner than through, the actual

Tayson: woven fabrics. So, so what's our answer to people that are in hiring areas? What do we tell them? what we're

Brigham: shipping the bags with a backline or

Tayson: our answer to that is use a pack liner. I

Tayson: believe her a pack, liner over a rainfly. Like why? I mean, why did that come to be I guess?

Brigham: Well, And I'm not even sure like exactly what you're referring to. I just know that. Up. If you have everything in a pack liner, I can guarantee that stays dry. I can't guarantee that everything stays dry. If you just use a pack cover because it's at the pack is still not sealed. So it Shields, maybe the zippers and seems a little bit, but it's still not sealed. The only way I can guarantee you, your contents will stay dry is if they

Brigham: are in a A waterproof bag, right? So that and like, the pack liners, we sell, they're incredibly lightweight, they're very strong. but they're they're very lightweight and so they weigh less than

Tayson: a Rain cover, see you pack will come with one. We've been shifting one with every one of them and then we need to make this happen but we'll put more on the website. Just What Nile plume, right? Yeah. Eyeliner. Yeah. I love you.

Tayson: I love you. I guess. I've read it more than I said it because it's spelled with a pH but Yeah, it's just I mean and honestly, like it's one option, but I've used trash bags, a lot of you through hikers will just use trash bags. But I agree the pack liners to me, they're big, they're bulky to deal with they come on off your I've had like wind. Rip them off my pack, the rain covers, the rain covers, sorry and so

Tayson: yeah, that's where we've gone Plus for us because the fabric is waterproof, but the seams aren't you know, 90% of the time for us and it's not a guaranteed but like It just sheds. The water that we see, right? It takes a lot of water to to I don't know really wet through that bag. But so anyways that's just kind of our thoughts and our answering. We've got that question a lot from people that were pre-ordering. The pack is like we

Tayson: saw a rain cover. We saw a rain cover and our answers. No, but we will offer pack liners and that's that's our personal recommendation on use and function and for sure, for sure, keeping your stuff dry. So yeah.

Tayson: Oh, okay, bring him. We've been going for a minute here and we've got we've covered a lot of stuff. What have we not covered? I mean I know there's there's tons to talk about because this is you know you're

Tayson: years essentially of R&D we've put into this pack and You know, just every little thing. I mean just like for instance, some of Littlest things. We're looking a lot, a lot at such as the roll top of the bag. You know, how we were looking at. We eliminated off extra velcro, we eliminated off extra wedding up there. Like we did I hadn't really seen it done this way, but we only put, like, webbing along one side of it so that gives

Tayson: you the role but we didn't have to use a full, another webbing strip and, you know, we looked at a super granular level at all sorts of things like that. That really come together to Just under that two pound Mark.

Brigham: Yeah, it actually took a lot of like tweaking scrupulous tweaking up because To to make a pact that can do what ours does. Like, it, we had to put it on our microscope and and really focus on It's still being able to do everything we want to do, but it came down to a lot of material selection, component selection, you know, like the rolltop that you're talking about what size Hardware, what's size, webbing? How much webbing eliminate this webbing and,

Tayson: and so on so forth, but this little touch points too that like we still kept on it, such as the rolltop still taper. So that the buckles don't get swallowed by the fabric. It's very easy used roll top. You know, it's it's still very everything we did function. Like, I'm looking at the side of the backpack right now, we went with this unflip compression string, right? So that it's shaved weight, but It's fully functional to compress to strap on a tripod

Tayson: on the side of it. Philly, like we did an amazing job at shaving that weight but not Feeling like we shaved, the weight as far as the feature set.

Brigham: Yeah. I mean, I'd say that was just another one of the design challenges was Being able to have the Comfort, the stability, the durability. All the functionality of the backpack. That was the challenge was selecting the right components and materials that. Will accomplish all that. Bare minimum of weight.

Tayson: You know, and we didn't even talk about the getting into the pack with those zipper system. I guess, maybe we just kind of assume people have seen that. But yeah, that

Tayson: was that feature was a feature that I had used on previous backpacks, way back when, and I love that, I could get into the bottom of my backpack without unloading all of my contents. When I designed the Rio white, we put that on there. And that was one of the most talked about features. And so when I brought this up, I said, Hey, what if we could build and I'll try back to still gave you the ability to get into the

Tayson: bottom of the pack? So it does, it has a full length zipper that gives you access to the bottom of the pack, the top of the pack, whatever it is without undoing the roll top without undoing these different things. Once again, just makes the pack more approachable for people that might not pack in a way that everything is just super accessible, right? All the time. Maybe accidentally pack something in the bottom and you forgot about or, you know, it's just these

Tayson: little little things, but they add up. And that's a, that's a really highly valued feature. We've seen so many people talk about that feature and our ingrained in love with that feature and and we pulled it off on a sub, two pound pack.

Brigham: yeah, it adds a just so many benefits, like, even like kind of the unexpected, you know, I don't know if there's any listeners that can relate to this but if you ever, You know, got your backpacked and then like have that like little OCD thought of like, oh crap, did I pack? You know did I get this thing in there? The nice thing is is like this is like an easy check, you just unzip and you can see oh yeah, I

Brigham: did pack the pad okay and and things like that but what I think it's Really functional for is like, at the end of the day, when you've been hiking all day and you're tired. Um, it's really nice to be able to just unzip that and you can get everything out so fast, like you can just do a pack down.

Tayson: You can keep it out of the dirt too, like if I just need to pull my pad out, at the end of the day, yeah,

Tayson: it doesn't mean I have to pull out my every nice sleeping bag yet. I load everything. Like I love my tent out first so I pull my tent out first. I said a tent up next thing I want my pad. Next thing is I want my sleeping bag when you're not doing it that way. A lot of times you got to pull out your food. You could kit your extra clothes then, oh, there's my sleep, there's my tent all and there's

Tayson: my pad but I've already unloaded The percent of my pack by the time I get to what I need. So it keeps a lot of your stuff out of the dirt or having a yard sale. There are mountain or on the trail. It just, it does like that. That's actually like. So, if you're someone who's like, I don't, I packing away. That it's not hard for me to get this stuff I need throughout the day. Well, think of it in the

Tayson: sense of what about when you get to camp at night. You got to figure out a way to unload everything, even though you need your tent and your tents towards the bottom of your pack. And that's the first thing you need. And that zipper eliminates that yeah,

Brigham: again, it just, it just gives them the option to do it another way. And I Think a lot of people will find that it does end up being a little more efficient. Yeah. Yeah.

Tayson: I think we've tackled almost everything. The last thing I want you to speak on Brigham is to finish work and, and Just just how the pack like, maybe I guess with that let's talk for just a quick second. I talked about this in a previous podcast about the Shadowlight about like Factory selection. Let's talk about Factory selection quality and finish work. So, when we selected this Factory, it was 100% based off of packs that I've seen come out of this

Tayson: Factory and being very impressed with the workmanship, the quality and then toward the factory, met with them and they run a tight ship. Like if you ran a business you would run their business like this company. Always. Yeah. Like,

Tayson: it is structured and like, it's basically it's a machine. I mean, it is a machine where everything just works the way it's supposed to work and, and their systems everywhere and it ends up being a struggle for companies like us to work with them. But we know the rules, we have to play by, it's like it's like, you know, the rest are going to call it the same way every time and so like, you know these are the rules and you

Tayson: have to play by those rules and so we we have had to stretch. What we normally do, the quantities that we've normally ordered and the way that we normally done things to work within their system. But we did it because their system is worth it, right?

Brigham: Yeah. Yeah. They they are so professional and I haven't every single person I deal with their just is so proficient. And competent and and they just know what they're doing. There's no question about did, are they going to be able to pull this off or So professional and and good at what they do. They just They're thinking five steps ahead. Right. You know, if you

Tayson: have a checklist they're working off of like man. You're thinking that far ahead. Yeah they do. They just it's all so systematized and the rate in which they can pump out the quantity. I

Tayson: mean literally we have to hit this moq which is a high moq from what we've ever dealt with. That's their minimums and they told us it will make those that number of packs in three days. And if you give us any less than that, then we can't reach efficiency because we'll finish him in a day or two days and they can't reach even maximum efficiency and stuff. So, that was like me and Brigham's eyes just like blew up when they're like,

Tayson: yeah. Well, we'll make this many thousands of packs. three days and you're like,

Brigham: What's impressive is? to play Devil's Advocate somebody listening, might say, well that's just There's so much opportunity for mistake because it's so mass-produced. Absolutely not. What's amazing, is the amount of quality checks that they have. they just Know their game and they are so good at it. So only there is nothing there is there's zero question about Quality control and something being, you know, being missed, it's so well executed. So there's no Definitely not. There's not in issue of will there

Brigham: producing so many of them so fast that there's all this room for are. Absolutely not. In fact, I'll kind of divulge just a little Situation. So we have this fabric custom made right? Well, that was made at a meal. in Korea and so, When our backpack Factory received the fabric, they started going through their standard quality. Checks of they check everything from the second Supply gets there. Checking it. Well

Tayson: they go through all the thousands of yards so they literally visually visually look at all every

Brigham: foot or every they unroll, it's crazy. They have people that monitor that literally watch as an entire thousands of yards of fabric is unrolled and they check it and they check it again. And what happened was they had started manufacturing or backpacks with the fabric that had been checked. And then I got an email saying, hey, we found A 200 yards of fabric that does not meet our standards, they took pictures of it, send it to me and said, this does

Brigham: not, you know, what

Tayson: did that look like, could you visually see it in the picture? I

Brigham: could see it because, I mean, this is how awesome they are to work with. They, she sent me very detailed close-up pictures of the good Fabric. And then this this Aaron's 200 yards that they had weeded out and they just cut it off, they just cut it off. And tossed it. And, you know, and it was up, but the communication was like, instantaneous and we got the

Tayson: male working on that extra fabric right away.

Brigham: And the nice thing is is like that, though. They do not mess around so I didn't have to Frankly reprimand, anybody. They did it for me there. I'm on the same side of remaining the mill, right? I'm on the same email thread as them. I'm copied in and, and I'll call her my gal. But she, I mean, she sent an email and said, hey, this is not okay. You guys need to fix this ASAP. These are customers are expecting this and

Brigham: this is not up to stuff and that and they've got sway. They do pack facility. They pump out.

Tayson: I don't, I think they even told us like what percentage of the world backpacks they make between all their different factories located all over the world and it was like they're a top Contender. Yeah. They have enough sway that when they say this doesn't mean our quality like Mills are gonna make it right. Yeah. And everyone's gonna make it right?

Brigham: Yeah. I mean it's so so for us that was just such a confidence booster to feel like It's partner of ours is really. I mean yeah they probably do this for everybody because they are so professional but like its it gives you the confidence of feeling like they're on your team and like they have our back because you know played out that they saved us. I mean that was 200 yards I mean it's over 100 backpacks that would have been unacceptable.

Tayson: It's fabric cost that we're paying for this fabric, you know, take what a typical aerobic. Nylon is going to be in times it by three. I mean that's that's the cost of this fabric. It's not and we'll get to that, I guess. But, you know, so back to it we didn't choose this Factory because they're the cheapest. But in chooses Factory for anything other than their quality was the highest. Then when it comes to the finish work on the pack, Brigham,

Tayson: you, you were pretty adamant that there's a certain way, a pack needs to get finished. And, and that's, that's what happened. The pack is finished, you know? Thoroughly?

Brigham: Yeah, I I just don't like seeing Corners cut and, and a lot of Corners can be cut with out a user even knowing, or maybe even not even being able to realize, a tangible benefit or the lack of a benefit by certain Corners being cut but Just I felt like if we're going to use the best Factor we can the best Fabrics we can try to make the best backpack we can, I just have to have things a certain way, you

Brigham: know, and I know there are backpacks out there, you know, some of the cottage backpacks their they make good products but in order for them to be to stay in business, they have to manufacture in a way that is the most efficient for them. And oftentimes, and this isn't just caught this could, this will be Big backpack Brands too that frankly, in my opinion, that cut corners on quality and finish work, you know? And and the one example, I always like

Brigham: to talk about is, is seams That you won't find an unfinished seam or a raw fabric Edge on our backpack and that's just just a requirement that I have was you know, I'm gonna have this backpack properly constructed, every seam will be finished and bound with with wet like all the seams are bound with grow grain webbing. So It's a quality thing because if a seam is has a raw Edge and you're putting things in and out of the backpack day

Brigham: in and day out, eventually that's going to start wearing on the edge and it's great to Great the Integrity of the fabric, you can have frame. And so this just increases the durability, the longevity of the backpack, and it's just something that I want our customers to see. And I want them to kind of set this as a benchmark or anybody looking at our backpack, as like, A quality level that people should expect.

Tayson: Completely, and I think that's, I think that's where we got to. when you look at the entirety of the pack, and when we build this out and when we got everything all aligned, And, you know, we again cost was never the starting point for any of our conversations with any of the factories, the Fabrics, the components, because we are direct to Consumer. We get the luxury of Designing, what we believe is the best stuff. Still, oftentimes coming in at a crazy

Tayson: competitive price. So, I remember when we got this pack, you know, when we got a dialed and we got a quoted with the Fabrics, the components and everything. When we were far enough in the design to be able to see that and then see what we'd be able to actually get that price down to for our customers, both of us. I think we're just Pretty ecstatic at that. Yeah, because we knew I mean, you know what? Everyone else sells packs for,

Tayson: right? Heating in this range of pack. I mean, it's gonna start, I would say a 250 but people paid all up close to 500 dollars and you get into the dynamos, right? Correctly, can be incredibly expensive. I'd say most people are spending. I don't know. What would you say like the average cost of a price of a backlight pack. Like this right now is like 300, let's say 300.

Tayson: Yeah and that doesn't have our exact fabric that doesn't have our exact you know it doesn't it

Brigham: won't do. What ours does meaning it doesn't have the functionality that our attack does it doesn't have the loads. Trent doesn't have the support, the structure, the comfort. So

Tayson: we got the pricing back and our pricing is very straight line. We're very, we're very honest with our pricing and our structure, we got a back and we saw that, we could get that price and drop it into the below 200 category. The 199 category we were ecstatic and we, I mean, I like we legit had conversations, which we didn't, you know, we didn't do this but like we legit had conversations of Our people leaving gonna take this backpack, seriously enough.

Tayson: Of because it's a 200 dollar backpack instead of a 300 plus dollar backpack. because we know that I mean, and I know from studies and learning and whatever like that, The biggest indicator of quality is Price Rite. You take the same product put it on the same corner of the street. And, you know, say this one's 200 dollars and 200 dollars. And you get asked anyone walking by their all going to say that 2001 is a better product even though they

Tayson: know nothing about it, or they don't compare it, you know, perception. The perception is the higher, the price, the higher, the quality, And so for us when we were like man we can sell this for $200. That is Crazy steal for this pack and everything you get in that. Our Hope. And why I'm saying this right now is that you guys realize Does not a 200 dollar pack. It does not compete even with anything that's going to be sub two hundred

Tayson: dollars. It clearly is going to compete with anything ranging from 300 plus to 500 dollars. It really will so take it that seriously and know that when you get this you are getting The benefits of our business model and in our hard work.

Brigham: Yeah. I mean it really, that's that's why we're doing this guy. We're going to be over an hour, that's why we're doing this podcast, just?

Brigham: Yeah, I mean like why why are we doing? Why are we talking so much about one product? You know, because we're selling the product, right? So you know, you one could argue will, you know, we're just trying to promote our product, but I guess it comes back to like, why do we even do product podcasts and, and the wisdom. It's because we want to inform and be transparent and and enable our listeners followers customers to think about these things themselves. so

Brigham: yeah, we're diving deep about a backpack because we want you to think about the backpack so that You know, ask yourself the question of the competitors out there. Are they? Talking to you because frankly, you know, to The Listener. We're talking to you right now. are the competitors talking to you in this grade of depth of detail about their, their products about their backpack and look at, you know, Not our competitors, make great products. There's so many great products out there

Brigham: but we just want to do more like. I think that kind of sums up the backpack. We want to offer more for the backpack and we want to offer more as a brand that we're talking to you about this. And that. Kind of falls into like, well, this isn't necessarily just a 200 dollar backpack. If you just, try and compared to what's out there, The 200 dollar backpack that we've gone into great detail to explain what it's made of the design

Brigham: process. Are you getting that from other people? And this isn't to say that, you know, our backpack is for everybody, because nothing is for everybody. but we want, I think we want people to think about these things, to take what we have to say, and That's what we're wanting to do. People to do is just gain that wisdom for themselves, so,

Tayson: Yeah, I think the takeaway here is examine the pack. See if it's gonna work for you, we think it has such a broad application for anyone getting out on the trail. But as you're doing so make sure that you know you're doing so with complete confidence. because we're confident in the pack and you know you get our warranties with the pack, you get you know you get those things but we have a lot of a lot of confidence in the pack

Tayson: that and we we know people are demanding it because we've pre-sold 100s of packs. and, and It's, it's in high demand and it's of high quality and to come into 200 dollars, I just don't think you can, you can go wrong and we just want you to believe that and have the confidence in that. And if you've already pre-ordered one, congrats, I hope that this just reconfirmed all the reasons why you pre-ordered this thing. And when you hit the trail, you

Tayson: notice these things. You notice the little pieces that went into this, because we, as I mean, and this is probably one of the funnest parts for Brigham honestly, is when you can tell, like, so many designers, build a product and then it just goes out the door. And then you just like hope that people recognize the work. You did on like every little component that you put into that product, whereas we're actually standing up and saying, this is everything that we

Tayson: really were looking at. And so now, you get the opportunity to pick up on it. Like, you, you're gonna be so much more. Likely that holy cow? Yeah, that does make a big difference that it's a 24 inch frame. It's over 22 inch frame, or 21 inch frame, or Point out like this does make a big difference that the way that we've cut the bottom of the pack to hug your back and to give you maximum stability and you know, you

Tayson: get to pick up on those things and you get to fill them and you get to know them which inspires confidence in the overall product and and but more. So the most important part is it inspires you to go farther to go out on the trail, to enjoy it, to bring others with you to disconnect. And to experience that side of life, that's why we do what we do. That's why we talk about what we talked about and and we hope

Tayson: that we are inspiring you with this pack. Brigham. I'll let you say any last thoughts. Otherwise, I'll go ahead and wrap this up. We've we've gone through a lot of the Packers are still more. I'm sure we did not cover, but any last Thoughts or comments. It's been good. It's been a good one. I've really enjoyed this. Yeah,

Brigham: it's fun to. It's fun to go deep. you know, as a designer it's always, I could talk gear, you know, all day long and That's what I enjoy about what I do and I, you know, we're excited about the pack. We've been using it constantly so it's like we already know, you know? But exciting to be releasing it to the general public and Yeah, I just hope that the information that we convey. Is. Useful. And Thought-provoking and and ends up making

Brigham: people's lives better. Yeah.

Tayson: Yep. If you have a pack or interested in a pack, make sure to watch the video. Me and Brigham did about how to get the most out of your Shadow light. It'll make sure that you're wearing a shadow like correctly, you got to set up properly for you. That's really critical to make sure that you're getting the most out of the backpack. So make sure you go watch that video. Also remember we're doing our launch event right now, so if you're

Tayson: listening to this, you can jump over there and get some freebies throwing in the box. When it goes out the door things, such as my favorite chocolate that I like to eat on the trail. My favorite powder, drink ignite. When I go out on the trail, you get a chance at some titanium products. I titanium spoon will be thrown in every couple boxes, some different bars will be throwing in. You get the Nile fume pack liner. You can get all that

Tayson: if you ordering launch event. So make sure to go check that out. And make sure to listen, if we can get enough time and get ahead of things, we may have a pretty fun competition type thing that we are going to we've talked on and off about with the shuttle light, which would be

Tayson: if you're planning like a through hike. Picked this up for through hike and you May be able to kind of be in the running for a competition that we're potentially going to run this year. So anyways, we really appreciate you guys listening. If you stuck with us this long, your champ you take this stuff seriously. Just like we take it seriously and it makes a difference and keep getting out there on the trail. Keep living ultralight, subscribe, share this podcast

Tayson: and we'll see on the next one. Hey everybody, this is Tayson again. And really quick. I wanted to invite you to join. Probably the best thing we've ever put out which is the Live Ultralight membership, buying and affording gear is arguably. The biggest reason that people don't get out and truly enjoy nature. You want to go but you don't trust your gear. It can't handle the expected, weather, or temperature ranges, or you simply don't have the right gear in the first

Tayson: place at all. That's exactly why we created the little trip membership. It works a lot. Like a simple savings account for your gear. You simply Auto load, 10 dollars, a store credit into your account every month, and you get instant access to year. Round discounts, you get free priority shipping and prioritize shipping. By the way, early access to New Gear, the world, leasing or early access to sales that are going on, you get limited edition gear. You're going to get expert

Tayson: coaching, and access to the obtained inside our closed, Facebook group, which is also gated not, anyone can join this, right? And something very, very cool where you can now get our most vetted, our favorite gear from other brands that we're now putting on the website, but members are going to get it at additional discounts and instant rebates. So, If you wanted that new cation, water filter that we've been talking about a ton lately, you can get it with your membership credits

Tayson: and you're also gonna be able to get with a membership discount and an instant store credit rebate, that's just Auto added to your account. After checkup, this membership has too many amazing things to cover. So what I want to recommend you do right now is stop everything. Pause this audio head over to Outer vitals.com forward slash membership to sign up and start building your credit. We're going to release some new products in there really soon at Big discounts. So go sign

Tayson: up today at Outdoor Vitals.com forward slash membership, and we will catch up inside the closed, Facebook group after that we can continue this conversation over there.