This is one of those advances that could have serious repercussions in the outdoor gear industry. A researcher has developed a better backpack, one that promises to make lugging crap into the wilderness a whole lot easier. I mean, how long has it been since you heard of radically new backpacking technology? The whole padded belt thingie, sure. Those elastic pull string locks, yeah, those are cool too.
But this new model, developed by biologists at the University of Pennsylvania, works by shifting the weight of the pack up and down with your body. The backpack is based on a rigid frame pack, like we all know and love/loathe, but rather than being rigidly attached to the frame, the sack carrying the load is suspended from the frame by bungee cords. The pack supposedly remains suspended in place with the bungee cords and stays almost motionless while your body moves around. Of course, it was not devised with you, dear gadling reader, in mind. Not to help pack in more water or your back country skis, but rather for soldiers and emergency workers. You were an afterthought. But, hey, that’s how a lot of our technologies come to be. The Internet?
Anyway, I thought, perhaps it was a bit of a gimmick and did not live up to its promise, but media outlets as prestigious as Science Daily and NPR did pieces on the new pack, so I suppose it’s got some cred. We’ll have to see how long it takes to come up with a viable commercial version you can get at REI.