Gear Review - Rab Alpine 45 Backpack - Ultralight Backpacking Gear

Description

We review the Rab Alpine 45 backpack, provided to us by Sierra Trading Post. This backpack is a durable, water resistant pack which ultralighters, climbers, and outdoor enthusiasts in general may find interesting. It would also make a suitable bug out bag. We'll run through the features and give our thoughts on it.

Get it here: http://www.sierratradingpost.com/rab-alpine-45-backpack-internal-frame~p~8457f/?filterString=s~rab-alpine-45%2F&colorFamily=01

See more: http://www.sierratradingpost.com/

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SierraTradingPost

NOTE: What we refer to as the "headcrab" you may know better as the lid or brain of the pack.

--SCENE SELECTION--

0:11 - Basic Specs Overview

0:24 - Backpack Features

0:40 - Comfort

1:24 - Build Quality

1:53 - Pockets & Straps

2:59 - Backpack Size

3:29 - Field Test Discussion

5:24 - Pros & Cons and Summary

--OUR CAMPING GEAR!--

Condor Bushlore Knife - http://amzn.to/1JaBBv7

Equinox Egret Tarp - http://amzn.to/1BIqkmW

Kelty Grand Mesa 2 Tent - http://amzn.to/1TrK9Fc

Eureka Casper Sleeping Bag - http://amzn.to/1BXhlxH

Buck 119 Knife - http://amzn.to/1TrKgQY

Mora Craftline Q Knife - http://amzn.to/1TrKffT

Katadyn Water Filter - http://amzn.to/1onus3P

Platypus Bladder - http://amzn.to/1TrKfNc

Columbia Silver Ridge Convertible Pants - http://amzn.to/1pR5qXL

Sketchers Waterproof Boots - http://amzn.to/1JaBKyL

--RECOMMENDED BOOKS--

http://astore.amazon.com/advarch-20?_...

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All of the musical compositions or arrangements and footage in this video are original, and were composed, recorded, and captured by Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, and Robby Huang

Original content and music is copyright Adventure Archives/Team Scoog Production (c) 2015

Tags: Backpack,Review (Media Genre),outdoor gear review,Outdoor Education (Literature Subject),Outdoor Recreation (Interest),Backpacking (Sport),Hiking (Sport),Camping (Literature Subject),Wilderness (Quotation Subject),Gear (Product Category),ultralight,Sierra Trading Post (Business Operation),bushcraft,Survival Skills (TV Genre),bug out bag

Video Transcription

this is the RAB alpine 45 backpack and this is our unbiased review let's start with the specs nylon construction internal frame light water resistance 45 litres and 2 pounds 8 ounces this is a smaller backpack recommended for either shorter trips or ultra lighters right here's the headcrab and a cool features that it's fully detachable here we've got a tent attached using the straps on the side there's some small side pockets here for water bottles and other items and finally there's a small pocket at the bottom that can be used to carry ice axes or other items so a good design backpack will actually keep the weight off of your shoulders and you can see that there is some space here between the strap and its shoulders so that over long you know hiking period there won't be any extra pressure there and it won't hurt the waist strap keeps the most of the weight sitting on his hips rather than the pressure on his shoulders so one thing you don't always see in our videos is that Robbie and ice backpack are sort of not properly fitted and a lot of times they dig into our shoulders one thing I noticed immediately about this is that it's really comfortable and when you have a backpack that just doesn't fit very well and digs into your shoulders you often find yourself doing this type of thing a lot and trudging through the forest and that's not very pleasant but this backpack actually fits quite well so you might have seen in our Smoky Mountain videos that it was pretty wet this backpack actually has the advantage of having a waterproof zipper for the top compartment and then the main compartment actually has a rollover clip to keep water out in addition to that the material is actually water resistant to when you pour water on it you can see that the water kind of just rolls off of it so it does have some water resistance one of the first things I noticed when we unbox this is that the build quality is really good it just has a really nice feel to it and you can tell that it's well-constructed so one thing I really look for in a backpack are a lot of options to customize it and put things on to it this one doesn't have as much because it's more designed for an ultralight backpack

you wouldn't have as many things you can see how on this backpack we kind of use the compression straps to get the tent on the side my backpack has a lot of extra pockets and just things that you can you know hang carabiners on there would be no problem attaching my tent to this backpack I kind of like having extra pockets just so I can keep everything organized when I go hiking there are some straps here inside pockets as well and there's some loops on these little hip hip huggers I guess so there's some good customization and of course you've got the main pocket and the little pocket on the lid here with a little bit of effort you can undo the straps for the hip and remove it but in addition to that the headcrab is also fully removable so that's actually kind of kind of a nice feature you don't have all this extra bulk on there so after testing the backpack in the field in Red River Gorge

we got a feel for how this backpack would or wouldn't work for us it even rained so we're able to test out the water resistance probably our main concern was a storage space so to give you an idea of how much space there is we're going to pack the following right now a tent a sleeping bag a hammock a tarp a two liter platypus a water filter a small camping stove a pot and a food bag which we forgot to film here so everything goes in and the tarp goes on one side and a tent on another this is a backpack so we finally got to take this out to Red River Gorge and you're the one who got to wear it the whole time yes what are your general overall thoughts so far the first thing that I want to say about is that it's a really nice looking backpack in the construction is really good I felt like the material is really solid so as far as like just a backpack that I feel like I could take out and really get some good use out of and not feel like it's gonna fall apart on me it's super solid so I just had food in my sleeping bag it's huge so at first like I I was kind of thinking that it wasn't big enough because we just took up the entire cavity and then after we're just filling this up just now I kind of feel like space is actually not much of an issue for this because we put a lot of stuff in here

and there's still room to strap these things on the outside we put three shelter systems on it so my main complaint is that there is a lack of customizability with extra straps and everything because there's not on the bottom sure I usually put my sleeping bag the other thing is it's supposed to be water-resistant and we got caught in some pretty hefty rain yeah so it's actually funny because we just got a camera that's water-resistant too so we didn't put any rain covers on this didn't putting rain covers on the camera and just let everything go and I will say that the water resistance is actually pretty good it's not waterproof for sure but my sleeping bag itself which was inside the main compartment that didn't get wet at all so it'll give you some water protection and this was without any sort of extra cover or yeah it didn't have any extra cover or anything on it so and I guess one of the most important things is how comfortable is it because that's one of the main reasons we were looking into other backpack that's true it fits really well I was actually able to get a good fit from it but I will say that the hip straps are not the most padded after a while I did started digging to my hips a little bit but I'm also kind of bony so maybe if you've got a little more padding on your body it won't be so bad but for me it was a little bit hard okay so overall what are the pros what are the cons would you recommend this as far as pros go I'll say like I said earlier the construction and build quality are really good the water resistance is actually quite good too and it's surprisingly spacious for how small it is you can you can fit quite a bit into it Conn's I'll say that the hip straps are not the most comfortable there are not that many straps on the outside for customizing with different configurations it is surprisingly spacious but it's not as big as other backpacks it's a 45 litre pack I think we tend to pack a lot because of camera here especially so this is not exactly a perfect fit for us but if you pack on the light side or if you're an ultralight camper it's actually a decent size would I recommend this backpack yes I would I would recommend this backpack if you pack on the light side if you pack on the heavy side and you're the type of person who wants to have lots of stuff maybe not the best fit I didn't give it as much of a test as you did but the comfort seemed great it's great durability great quality so I guess I would recommend it to most people yeah I've never heard of the brand Rab before had you mm-hmm but that might be a good thing because some brands you hear a lot are not necessarily the best that's true thanks again to Sierra Trading Post for providing this for us and letting us review it you can go to the description to check out Sierra Trading Post channel website and the link to this backpack Sun is setting on this review Wow dude