Andinia.com - Product Review: Backcountry Store

Backcountry Store - Backpacks

Backcountry Store offers backpacks for all kind of outdoor activities and extreme sports.

This is a website where you can find products for almost all your needs as an adventurer.

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One big problem that frequently arises while packing rucksacks is that too many things should go in it and there is no place inside; so, we start putting things tied to the outside of it. In this way, kettles, footwear, sleeping bags, cots, walking sticks, skiing boards, tents and many other things find their way into our excursions hanging for life from the exterior side of our backpacks.

Usually they suffer the abrasion of rocks and sand, the effect of the sun, rain, and snow, and cuts and bruises of all kinds caused by enemy vegetation. But one of the marks of a well-packed backpack is that no piece of gear should be left bare, naked on the outside. Everything should be placed inside the backpack or at least, inside its exterior pockets.

Whatever you leave hanging on the outside may break, fall and get lost; you will not necessarily realize instantly what is going on, and your precious and expensive equipment which may be vital for survival. Or at least, it may be really, really expensive: notebooks, camcorders and complex cameras have been left for the gnomes of the woodlands in this way.

And if you don't know where you lost your precious cargo, you will not be able to start looking for it efficiently; at the very least, starting such search and rescue operations will take time and add unnecessary risks to an otherwise innocuous trip into the wilderness. Thus, when packing a rucksack, we recommend you to have at hand a good number of additional pockets to attach to the main pack, and put everything you need to carry outside on these.

They will protect your gear from most dangerous elements and make a better fit to the backpack than anything that you may try to fix ad hoc to it. We further recommend you to tie up everything with some sort of cord, like those used in the construction of parachutes; these are quite inexpensive, extremely resistant and they will be useful for many other things in any wilderness adventure. For example, you may use them to construct a rainproof shelter.

If you tie everything with these security or safety cords, even if something breaks down or gets tangled, you will notice the problem immediately and avoid losing it while it tumbles downhill into a water stream, glacier crevice or dark hole in the rocks. The person carrying the worse backpack of any trekking party should not go in the back of the group; the worse backpack is also the one with the highest odds of causing a loss or equipment breakage.

The last place in a trekking party should be reserved for an experienced person with good equipment. Plus, it is recommendable that on each stop, trekkers should check their gear for anything abnormal, and fix those things as soon as possible.

Never over estimate your gear; it may be of excellent quality, but it can fail anyway.