It snowed last night, and this morning!!!  Huzzah!

All of this was dead bare 12 hours previous.  Looks like I need to get my school shit further in order so that dawn patrol at Lolo can be put back into rotation tomorrow.  It hasn’t been up at all in 2010, as the snow has just not been worth it.

I’m also ready to unveil the latest pack in my long line of tinkering and obsessing: the race pack.

Built around the guts (straps, belt, backpad, side pockets) of a donated Talon 22 (mine is still intact), and based loosely on Roman’s Seal Line pack, it is what all the packs I’ve ever modded or built are intended to be: one pack to rule them all.

Between M and I we don’t own that many packs.
-Dana Designs Arcflex Alpine circa 1997 (hardly counts as I haven’t used it in over five years, but it represents the pinnacle of DDs pre K2, so I’ll keep it forever)
-The All Pack
-Talon 22
-Talon 11
-Black Diamond Bullet pack circa 2003 (one of the last years it was still 100% Ballistics, and came in any color you wanted so long as it was black, the current Bullet is a weenie-ed down, pale shadow)
-Black Diamond Zippo circa 2001 (one of the last Tom Jones designed packs BD ever made, has been hacked and rehacked, and the fact that it is still in one piece after all the canyons it has been down is impressive)
-Cold Cold World Ozone
-The new race pack

I really think that eight is quite reasonable.  But believe it or not, seven wasn’t enough.  I needed a small pack that could carry skis, and a pack bigger than the 22 that would provide bottle access on the go (the abundance of water in Montana makes hydro bladders kinda silly for summer hiking).  I also wanted to try out the dry bag harness style, and see if it would provide extra benefits (like easily carrying ski boots.

Besides what is obvious from the pictures, the pack has a special shovel flap behind the beavertail which should also contain things like raingear or a tarp.  The top compression straps are quick release and the buckles are oppossed, to that one strap can be run through the daisy chains and the pack can be cinched down very small.

So, I ought to be able to come down to Utah in a few weeks and go mountain biking, hiking, canyoneering, backpacking, and skiing, and do it all out of one pack.  That is all.

PS: Keeping with the video trend, the following is worth watching for the one point of contact crux move, and the blood.