Review: Mystery Ranch Radix 57 Backpack

Backpack
Mystery Ranch Radix 57
$299, 57L/3,635 c.i., 3 lbs. 11 oz./1.67kg (men’s small)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-L
backcountry.com

With the Radix 57 backpack, Mystery Ranch challenges backpackers with this thought experiment: How light is just right? I had plenty of time to ponder that question, carrying the Radix 57 on backpacking trips in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and southern Utah’s Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon, plus two classic New Zealand hut treks, the Routeburn and Milford tracks. While I confess a bias toward ultralight backpacks (and I’ve used many), I found criticisms as well as much to recommend about the Radix 57.

I carried this pack with up to about 35 pounds inside on a four-day, roughly 38-mile, August backpacking trip in Idaho’s Sawtooths, including several miles of off-trail hiking over open ground and a pass over 9,000 feet that entailed a slow descent over steep and loose talus and scree. I also carried it for two days in April (a trip cut short by weather) in Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon, starting with about 40 pounds, including eight liters (17 pounds/7.7 kilos) of water; and with loads under 30 pounds on the three-day Routeburn Track and the four-day Milford Track in Mount Aspiring and Fiordland national parks in New Zealand in early December.

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For starters, Mystery Ranch offers the Radix in an unusually big range of four adjustable sizes each in men’s and women’s packs—even the most highly regarded makers of backpacking packs very rarely offer that many sizes, never mind adding adjustability (and the adjustability of these packs contributes to their higher weight; you don’t usually see ultralight packs with adjustable fit).

The fit adjusts like other MR packs, by pulling up on the yoke and removing the adjuster, using it to break the hook-and-loop bond between the yoke and the pack bag, and then adjusting the yoke to your torso length by aligning the seam between the shoulder strap and yoke body with the top of your shoulder blades. You then replace the adjuster in its original position (because it doubles as part of the frame).

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I like the fit and comfort, especially the pre-curved hipbelt, and the shoulder straps and back padding are adequate for this type of pack. Plus, it delivered the stability I wanted on the steep, loose talus and scree while crossing that off-trail pass in the Sawtooths. But I found that the hipbelt’s comfort limit was, at most, a bit over 30 pounds (and I’m sure that limit would vary between different users, as with any pack). Starting our hike into Buckskin Gulch with about 40 pounds felt like clearly too much weight for the pack, especially the hipbelt; but it carried much more comfortably once the weight dropped closer to 30 pounds.

The 7000 series aluminum frame system and the hipbelt are both removable, should you have such a light load that you don’t need a frame’s structure and support. I didn’t face a situation where I’d carry the pack without the frame. But I have carried frameless packs, and without a frame, all packs basically carry the same: with the weight hanging off your shoulders, because that’s what a frame does, provide structure to avoid that.

I can see a small percentage of users removing the frame, but it wouldn’t take much weight inside to make that uncomfortable; and a 57-liter pack seems too large to want to use it much so underloaded that you don’t want the frame. That might make more sense in the smaller Radix models.

I also like this pack’s organization and access—and it’s worth noting that Mystery Ranch chose a more traditional top-loading design rather than the roll-top closure seen in many ultralight packs, although the Radix also has the pockets layout typical of many ultralight packs. The six external pockets include:

• A spacious, removable, floating lid pocket with an internal, zippered mesh pocket;
• Deep, compressible front and side drop-in pockets, the side pockets large enough for a liter bottle;
• And two smallish zippered hipbelt pockets (too small for a standard smartphone).

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Unlike ultralight packs, the Radix sports an off-center zipper that opens up the main compartment from the top nearly to its bottom, providing access to the interior. Its one drawback is that, when the pack is underfilled, the lid overlaps the zipper pull, making it difficult to grab. It might be more useful if the zipper focused on accessing the middle of the pack bag, without extending all the way to the top of the bag.

The pack also has side compression straps that wrap fully around the bag to compress it when not full and enable you to attach stuff, like a foam pad, to the outside; and adjustable cords on the front for attaching trekking poles or an ice axe. Also, the removable and repairable compression web and repairable trim could help extend the pack’s life.

TheRadix 31L, 47L, and 57L packs are made with lightweight and tough Ultra-PE fabric in the pack’s bottom, 330-denier in the harness, and recycled 100-denier Robic Ripstop fabric in the body—the kind of durable construction Mystery Ranch is known for.

We encountered hours of torrential rain daily on the Milford Track (the trail was flooded up to thigh-deep in places), and water penetrated the pack—which also happened to everyone out there because of the rain’s intensity and duration. But the Radix pack fabric did not appear to absorb moisture, which would have made the pack heavier.

Finally, there’s that niggling question about the weight of the Radix 57. At three pounds, 11 ounces/1.67 kilograms, it’s certainly not an ultralight backpack. And its comfortable carrying capacity of maybe just a bit over 30 pounds seems low for a pack this heavy—certainly when compared to top competitors. It’s interesting that, instead of knocking out an ultralight pack, Mystery Ranch went in the direction of designing a lightweight backpacking pack without compromising their standards on comfort and functionality—and the Radix 57 was born of that process, adding features the functionality that also adds ounces.

I don’t think strict ultralight backpackers will see the Radix 57 meeting their demands, especially with the abundant, much lighter alternatives on the market today. But Mystery Ranch appears to be following a hunch that a sizable portion of backpackers feel that, to some extent, a bit more is actually a good amount more—and they want to see weight reduced wherever possible, while retaining more features and comfort (which largely explains why the Radix packs are heavier than many ultralight models, despite some similarities). MR might be onto something.

Other packs in the line are the men’s and women’s Mystery Ranch Radix 31L and 47L.

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Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See The Big Outside’s Gear Reviews page for categorized menus of all gear reviews and expert buying tips.

—Michael Lanza