REI gear reviews

Gear Review: REI Flash 45 Backpack

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REI Flash 45
REI Flash 45

NOTE: Click here to read my review of the newer, 2017 version of the REI Flash 45 backpack.

Backpack
REI Flash 45
$129, 45L/2,745 c.i., 2 lbs. 3 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: medium (fits torsos 17-19 inches) and large (50L/3,051 c.i., 2 lbs. 4 oz., fits torsos 19-21 inches)
rei.com

For most backpacking trips, when I’m not carrying gear and food for my family, I pack as light as possible and walk long days: I like to see as much wilderness as I can. For those trips, I prefer a backpack that’s light but still has decent support; I find that the virtually frameless ultralight packs with minimal support pull on my shoulders too much over the course of a 10- or 12-hour day of hiking. On a recent three-day, 65-mile hike in Yosemite, carrying a max of about 25 pounds, the Flash 45 hit that nice middle ground: lightweight, yet comfortable with the amount of weight I threw into it, and very functional.

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Gear Review: REI Flash Insulated Air Mattress

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REI Flash Insulated Air Mattress
REI Flash Insulated Air Mattress

NOTE: Click here for my review of the updated, 2017 version of the REI Flash Insulated Air Mattress.

Air Mattress
REI Flash Insulated Air Mattress
$119, 1 lb. 1 oz. (regular, with stuff sack)
Sizes: regular (20.5x72x2.5 inches) and long (25x77x2.5 inches)
rei.com

Comfortable, packable, light, and user friendly, at a good price—that was my verdict after I used this air mat on a five-day backpacking trip in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness and a six-day hike in Sequoia National Park. It has a quality that’s important in an air mattress—durability: Thanks to the 30-denier ripstop polyester fabric and welded construction, I slept under the stars on pebbly gravel at Columbine Lake in Sequoia, and used it nightly in my chair kit sitting around campsites, without the Flash springing a leak.

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Gear Review: REI Passage 40 Kids Backpack

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REI Passage 40
REI Passage 40

Kids Backpack
REI Passage 40
$100, 40L/2,441 c.i., 3 lbs. 4 oz.
One size, adjustable to fit torsos 12 to 15 inches
rei.com

What should you look for in a backpack for a young kid? For starters, a good fit, with a wide range of adjustability to accommodate growth. But also quality construction that ensures the pack will be comfortable for your son or daughter and durable—because it will assuredly be treated roughly. Lastly, a set of features designed with a kid’s preferences in mind. REI’s Passage 40 measures up well by those standards.

My 12-year-old son hauled this pack on a couple of trips this summer (with another coming up): a three-day, roughly 26-mile hike into the Big Boulder Lakes basin of Idaho’s White Clouds Mountains—with a significant amount of off-trail hiking—and a five-day, 36-mile loop in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness. As a kid who has accumulated a respectable quiver of packs in his short hiking career, he reported that the Passage 40 felt good even on days up to 10 miles long.

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