EVERY PACK TELLS A STORY

I suspect I’m not alone in owning a closet full of packs; one for every type of adventure. Some of them date back a few years but are too cherished to be passed on or disposed of and, like old photographs, they each help elicit memories of specific adventures and moments in the hills. My pack museum also reflects the changing technologies and trends of the outdoor industry, as well as my own approach to outdoor recreation which over the years has seen me undertake bigger adventures while maintaining an increasingly minimal approach to equipment and pack weight.

Every pack tells a story, here are a few of mine.

7 years old

THE SMALL BLUE FRAMEPACK

I don’t recall the brand of my first pack, but it was a blue Cordura one, with a basic external frame of aluminium tubes, like a schoolboy-sized version of the Mountain Mule all the grownups used.

I remember looking out the cab window and watching it drift from side to side in the back of our ute as we zoomed around the Remutaka Hill road on our way to the Wairarapa.

We were setting out from Holdsworth Road end to