By Jeff Johnston
For about the last 20 years there’s been an ongoing war among archrival backpack companies to outdo each other in the sheer number of straps, flaps, rain flies, folding seats, cleats, and pockets they can put on them. Several I’ve tried had color-coded buckles so I’d know how to cinch the damn thing up once I unfurled it all. Most have so many pockets that if I dare to drop a small item such as a pocket knife in any one of them, there’s a decent chance it’ll be lost forever. This is no good on the mountain, and even worse at the airport. Features are great, but user friendliness is better for a hunting pack.
We may be turning a corner in the pack wars. Over the last couple years, companies finally began listening to hunters who want advanced packs with simpler layouts. Packs are highly personalized, and so the following opinion is highly subjective, but my choice for general Western hunting is Eberlestock’s new “Team Elk” pack. It has all the modern advancements that are truly handy for hunters, yet it remains intuitive thanks to its simplistic design and reasonable pocket layout.
It’s a shelf pack, meaning there’s an expandable gap between the main bag and the frame that’s meant for packing meat out of the woods. That’s nothing new these days, but it’s one of those features that’s a better idea than placing bloody meat in a steamy main compartment with your rotten underwear. It also has an integral rifle scabbard, but even that is not complicated. Just shove your rifle down in the top pocket, and that’s that. The toe of the scabbard tucks underneath the pack when you don’t need it. As for pockets, it’s got a floating lid with a big pocket on top for important shit, a pocket in the middle of the pack with a zippered pouch, one on each side of that middle pouch, as well as elastic-top pockets for the stuff you need to get to quickly. Internally, there’s a pocket for a hydration bladder. There are enough quick-release straps to compress everything down tight but not so many that they had to include an airplane-style pictorial.
Frame-wise, it’s adjustable for all sizes of hunters so that load weight can be distributed over the hips and shoulders evenly. For me, a little fella, the 2175 cm pack size is perfect. I like the suede feel that’s quiet and non-glaring in the woods. Is it tougher to clean than nylon when dirty? Probably, but I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never cleaned a pack in my life. Finally, as consolation against the seemingly cheesy Team Elk name and logo, I found out that there’s actually a cause behind it: Eberlestock donates 10 percent of each Team Elk pack purchased to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, one of the few non-profit hunting orgs that Field Ethos supports, because it actually seems to do something for hunters.
Cost $400
Pros: not too big, not too small; has a rifle scabbard, meat shelf, and not so many pockets to confuse the elderly; modern design combines high-tech features with traditional layout
Cons: none
