Strapettes

 I have told you all about my MountainSmith lumbar series pack and how it is the best thing on the planet since sliced bread.  This thing is rugged, comfortable, adjustable, and fits perfect.  Last weekend we had to bring a day pack with our lunch, water, personal gear, and climbing accessories.

 I have used my MountainSmith Lumbar Classic pack as a brief case and a fanny pack on several occasions.  To take it one step further I purchased an accessory item called "Strapettes" which converts your pack into a 3 day pack or gives you the ability to Carry more weight.  Our water requirements for this past weekend was three quarts to a gallon of water.  Now I know that is alot of weight in just water, then you throw in my oranges, sandwich, long sleeve shirt, random diabetes backup equipment, survival gear, first aid kit, then the climbing gear.  The one draw back of having the Day Classic pack is that you can load this sucker up but to wear it as a fanny pack it gives a bit of bounce and that is where the Strapettes come in.

 The Strapettes make the pack into one of those WWII packs you see alot where it sits on the soldiers rear but has a waist belt and shoulder straps.  The Strapettes are the shoulder strap part of the system.  Now, I have told you all about how awesome MountainSmith is and how their packs work great.  The Strapettes turned my pack into the absolute greatest day pack on the planet.  It takes all the weight from off even your hips and moves it to the perfect spot on your back to where you don't even feel it.  Then the shoulder and sternum straps are so comfortable you can wear the pack all day and night and almost forget it is on you.  I had a solid 25lbs of gear and did not know it until I took the pack on and off.

 Here in the picture above you can see the Strapettes by themselves.  They cost me 25 dollars at REI but if you surf the web they had them as low as 20 bucks.  I did have to figure out how to put them on for a few moments because the pictures are not so clear on the bottom section.

This not a photo of me it is another stock MountainSmith photo but shows the Strapettes on a Lumbar series pack.  I forgot to take more pictures this weekend.  My first climb I started up and in two minutes had my pump dangling behind me, my cell phone on the ground, and my pocket knife poking me where the sun don't shine.  After some adjustments I left most of my gear in my pack except my Glucagon injection was always in my back pocket and my teammates knew where it was.  I even had another glucagon injection with my friend Paul as my redundant back up.  Overall I give the Strapettes 5 syringes out of a possible 5 because this is the Holy grail when it comes to comfort and convenience for day trips and diabetes.  I love how they add to the Lumbar packs and are made of the same high quality materials and have so many ways to adjust everything.  I could run in this set up and not have that jingle jangle jungle of gear bouncing everywhere with this setup.  I would like to have the option to buy the Strapettes with the pack as maybe a optioned out pack.