My Day Pack - Outdoor Products Skyline 8.0

My last post made me think that I need to write a quick gear review of my day pack.  I love my day pack.  I love that it was cheap yet it's been amazingly durable.  I love that it fits great and carries a day's worth of gear effortlessly and feels great on my back.  I love that it thumbs its nose at more expensive brand name packs.  Sometimes you stumble on a cheap-o product that works great and keeps on chugging - this is one of the few items I've bought that has endeared me to it thoroughly in that regard.  You get what you pay for but sometimes you get more than what you paid for.

Outdoor Products Skyline 8.0

Never heard of Outdoor Products?  Think maybe that's a type-o and I meant Outdoor Research?  Well, no, it's not a brand name and it's not a brand that many self respecting, "serious" hikers would consider.  Wal-Mart sells Outdoor Products gear.  As does Big 5 (home of not-quite-household name gear but enough big names to make you think that the off brands are major brands).

The Skyline is a frameless bag with a big (for its size) main compartment, a long narrow front compartment (perfect for maps), two water bottle pockets, two hip belt pockets, and a large hydration sleeve. It also has a side zipper hidden by the left side water bottle holder that you can use to access the main compartment to retrieve small items without going through the top.  It's made of tough ripstop fabric that is lined with waterproofing.  Neither of my backpacking bags have this level of waterproofing.  One of my favorite features is the clip on the left shoulder strap for the hydration tube.  None of my name brand backpacks have this. For fit, it has a pretty respectable hip belt, sternum strap, load lifters, and two side compression straps.  I've carried as much as 15 pounds in it and it supports that kind of load admirably.  I'd imagine you could carry about 20 pounds comfortably with it.  Anything above that and the frameless nature of the bag would be apparent - but who carries that much in a day pack anyway?  I should also say that it's not technically a "frameless" bag -  it does have a single aluminum stay that keeps it from sagging or crumpling.

Even though it does have a lot of nice features for the price, it has many strange features - what I like to call the "WTF??" features of the bag. Features that seem to be there because a "backpack engineer" at Outdoor Products saw some pictures of hiking backpacks and decided to throw some stuff on the bag that look good (I guess) but have no real use.  The #1 weird feature is the stretchy not-quite-net thingy on the top.  I can see no reasonable use for this feature.  If it was bigger and lower on the bag, you could maybe use it to stow rain gear but where it is, it makes no sense whatsoever.  My other favorite non-features are the two gear loops on the bottom of the pack.  What on earth are you going to secure with these things?  Trekking poles?  Maybe, I guess.  Ice axe? Um no.  Finally, are you wondering what the 8.0 in Skyline 8.0 means?  Yeah me too.  Liters?  Kilograms?  No idea.  I guess it just sounds cool. Outdoor Products has other bags with "8.0" in the name so maybe it's the 8th iteration of the backpack.

I've had the bag for about 5 years and it just keeps on trucking with absolutely zero wear.  Originally I bought it to carry my gear for work but it's slowly crept into being my go-to day hiking bag.  Even carrying as much as 15 pounds, I put it on and forget it's there.  The sleek design means my arms have full range of motion and it compresses down and stays put on my back.  I've worn it in some pretty serious rain and it hasn't leaked yet.  I keep waiting for the top zipper to fail but it hasn't.  The Skyline is still available but it's now all black, which I don't find as attractive as my blue and grey model. I'm sorely tempted to order one of Outdoor Products framed backpacking bags for overnight hikes.  The Outdoor Products Stargazer is only $60 at Wal-Mart.

What on earth is this supposed to do?

Gear loops.  Yeah right.