America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
Choosing a daypack for hiking can seem overwhelming when you see the dozens of choices available today, which range all over the map in terms of volume, weight, carrying capacity, features, and cost—as well as fit and comfort. Look no further. This freshly updated review spotlights the best daypacks for hiking and offers expert buying tips that explain the subtle differences between packs to help you find the right one for your own adventures.
Daypack
Gregory Zulu 24 LT and Jade 24 LT
$170, 24L/1,465 c.i., 2 lbs. 5 oz./1.05kg (men’s Zulu 24 LT)
One size each for men and women, non-adjustable
Zulu 24 LT: backcountry.com
Jade 24 LT: backcountry.com
This first thing I noticed about carrying Gregory’s Zulu 24 LT on spring dayhikes of up to about 12 miles from southern Utah parks to New Zealand, with plenty of uphill and downhill and a bit of scrambling thrown in, was its exceptional comfort even when testing its maximum weight capacity: This daypack does not wilt under loads that push some daypacks beyond their “I’m still liking this pack” limit. But the more I used it—and actually interacted with the pack, pulling stuff out, stuffing stuff back in, using its various pockets—the more I liked how its design constantly rose to my demands.
Daypack
Black Diamond Pursuit 15
$170, 15L/915 c.i., 1 lb. 7 oz./652g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s and women’s S-L
blackdiamondequipment.com
From dayhikes up to 16 miles with spurts of running on trails in my local foothills to steep, hard dayhikes from Yoho National Park in the Canadian Rockies to New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the Pursuit 15 struck an unusually effective balance between traditional hiking daypacks and running vests that’s most useful to avid dayhikers and mountain scramblers moving fast and light.
Daypack
Mystery Ranch Coulee 30
$189, 29L/1,770 c.i., 2 lbs. 9 oz./1.2kg (men’s S/M)
Sizes: men’s S/M and L/XL, women’s XS/X and M/L
backcountry.com
Let’s face it, we sometimes tend to act like unreasonable relationship partners in our expectations for our gear, including hiking daypacks: We want everything to be perfect all the time. And with gear, we can obsess a bit over weight. But as I discovered carrying the Mystery Ranch Coulee 30 on hikes from the trails of southern Idaho and Utah’s Wasatch to the Canadian Rockies, its reasonable weight is more than validated by a design, comfort, capacity, and durability that make it one of today’s best daypacks.
Daypack
Deuter AC Lite 23 and AC Lite 21 SL
$110, 23L/1,404 c.i., 2 lbs. 1 oz./920g (AC Lite 23)
One non-adjustable size in men’s and SL/women’s models
backcountry.com
On a two-day hut trek in New Hampshire’s Presidential Range in June sunshine and high humidity, a friend and I hiked 21 miles with about 6,000 cumulative feet of elevation gain and loss each day, including scrambling up the steep slabs and talus of what’s widely recognized as the hardest trail in the White Mountains: Huntington Ravine, and descending some little-used trails in steep terrain and clambering over the broad, rock-strewn bed of the Dry River. Through the countless high-stepping and four-points-of-contact movement and the hours of streaming with sweat, the Deuter AC Lite 23 demonstrated its strengths of comfort and back-cooling ventilation.