Imlay Kolob Hybrid in Hawaii

[Renatomic808]

I received an Imlay Canyon Gear Kolob pack a couple of months ago. Perhaps in late December? But having a baby recently born makes it a little difficult to get out and use my new toys. Since receiving the packs; I've been out three, maybe four times. However my review will be based on going out on 2 of our lovely C-Class canyons. Pandora, and Emerald.

My old canyon backpack was this Teton pack

http://www.amazon.com/TETON-Sports-I...iking+backpack

I put about 2 dozen grommets in there. And it has no floatation. Great suspension and 55L of room. It was my primary pack for a little more than a year.

Skip to the present. The Kolob hybrid is built more durable and definitely of higher quality. The suspension is good, but a step down from the Teton pack. Lots of drainage holes in the Kolob which is nice. Floatation is decent, but could be a notch better.

Fitting things in the Kolob went pretty. I had my wetsuit pieces, harness and giant rack, shoes, gloves, kneepads, etc.. all packed in easily. My helmet fit nicely in the outside pocket as well. That also spared room for ropes. Compared to the 55L Teton, i managed to fit almost the same amount of gear. Definite plus.The pocket inside managed to fit my 3L Geiggerig pack with no issues.

With all that stuffed in there, I had some trouble trying to get the backpack to sit perfectly. It took a little more time than expected,but got it very comfortable. Which made hiking up and bush whacking go very smoothly. Quite easy to maneuver in and around obstacles.

The floatation of the pack could be better. It does get you across the pools and prevents you from sinking, but for me personally, a little floatie or something stuffed in the pack would make a huge difference and make me feel a little more comfortable. I will mention I'm 240lbs, and we do tons of swimming in our canyons. I don't float very well either.

In the end, it is a very practical backpack and well designed for canyoneering. If it lasts longer than 5 years (which i don't doubt), it would be a better value than getting multiple of the Teton packs. Works pretty good for our C class canyons. I think the only complaint would be the floatation. Though that can easily be fixed. Great product Tom!

Ren

[Eastoahu]

Good review, makes me want one even more :p a dry keg would definitely be cool to stuff in there too.

[ratagonia]

Thanks for the review, Ren.

Full disclosure: I comped some packs to the 808 crew because they have reviews of other packs but not my packs on their website.

In MOST canyons with swimming, you would likely have a dry bag or a dry keg in your pack with clothes (etc) which would provide flotation. In Hawaii, maybe not. I did not specifically build float into the pack because of this. In the future, you might want to bring a drybag JUST to put more flotation in the pack. The ones with the valves are good for this.

Volume Rating: I switched to "True" volume ratings a few years ago. True ratings are done by filling the pack with ping pong balls and then measuring the volume of the balls. The usual ratings are made by the marketing department to try to characterize the pack as a communication to the customer. Usual ratings tend to be larger than the True Ratings. The amount of "larger" depends on the ambition of the sales and marketing department.

Thanks for the review. I hope you will do another one in about a year, when you have had a lot more time on the pack.

Tom
Imlay Canyon Gear
imlaycanyongear.com

[Renatomic808]

Thanks again Tom. I wanted to do a review of the backpack itself, on its own. That's why I didn't bring floatation. However when doing wet canyons, we definitely add floatation. We used to use PFDs, but it took up a lot of space during approaches and added weight. We have done dry bags, but they're usually useless as we do pack tosses with moving water. A toss from 50ft causes a shock which lets water in (even in double dry bagging). So we came up with using pool floaties.




It doesn't take up space, or add much weight. Also makes things quite fun.

Finally our approaches are usually an hour long. No more than 2 hours. Our hikes out can be as short as 10 minutes. Not usually longer than an hour. So we keep our dry stuff in the car.

Again, great packs. Without added floatation, they're "enough".