The brand new Granite Gear Virga3 55L (2023) is a frameless ultralight rolltop backpack with an adjustable torso size and adjustable size hipbelt, that’s out there in a number of torso ranges, in unisex (males’s) and ladies’s fashions. The unisex males’s model reviewed right here weighs 26.9 ounceswith a hipbelt and 19 ouncesstripped with out one. Being frameless it has a most really helpful carry weight of 25 lbs, which supplies you a multi-day vary should you pack rigorously and use light-weight backpacking gear.
Specs at a Look
- Gender: Unisex (Girls’s mannequin additionally out there)
- Kind: Body-less
- Adjustable Torso Size/Width: Sure
- Adjustable Size Hipbelt: Sure, as much as waists 52″
- Full Weight: 1.68 lbs
- Minus Hipbelt: 1.18 lbs
- Load Lifters: Sure
- Pockets: 3 Open
- Hydration Suitable: Sure
- Ice Axe/Trekking Pole Loops: 2
- Colours: White (undyed) or Gray/Pink
- Supplies: 100D and 210D Robic nylon
- Bear Canister Compatibility: A BV475 suits horizontally inside; a BV500 vertically.
- Max Really useful Load: 25 lbs
- For full specs and sizes, go to Granite Gear
Why a 55L Frameless Backpack?
After I began utilizing this backpack, I needed to ask myself why anybody would desire a high-volume frameless backpack that had a most gear weight of 25 lbs. It is an effective query, particularly since including a perimeter-style wire body would solely improve the pack weight by just a few ounces extra, however may simply improve its load-carrying capability by 50% to 100%. It’s not just like the outdated days, the place including a body or a body keep would add way more weight to a backpack than one with out.
Listed below are just a few the reason why you would possibly select the Virga3 55L over different ultralight backpacks:
- Price: With an MSRP of $200, the Virga3 55L is far cheaper than many different ultralight backpacks, which have change into outrageously costly. Leaving the body out assist retains the retail value even decrease. Doing so lets Granite Gear introduce ultralight backpacking to a a lot bigger viewers, which is one in every of their acknowledged aims.
- Sizing: The torso and hipbelt adjustability, sizing vary, and gender-specific fashions of the Virga3 55L are fairly distinctive amongst ultralight backpacks, that are predominantly designed for younger, skinny males. When you’re like most individuals over the age of 25, you’ll welcome the inclusive sizing provided within the Virga3 55L.
- Flexibility: The Virga3 55L’s compression system makes it straightforward to shrink the pack quantity if it’s not wanted. For instance, you may simply shrink the quantity all the way down to 40L if that’s all you want. You possibly can’t try this with an ultralight backpack with a set quantity of 30 or 40 liters. For instance, should you’re attempting out ultralight backpacking and also you’re slowly lowering your gear weight and quantity, having a backpack that may span a number of volumes is a giant plus.
- Minimalism: When you embrace a minimalist philosophy, a frameless ultralight pack will most likely enchantment to you multiple with a body. It definitely forces you to stroll the stroll.
Backpack Storage and Group
The Virga3 55L is a roll-top backpack arrange in traditional ultralight fashion with two facet water bottle pockets and a entrance stretch mesh pocket. It has higher and decrease compression straps on three sides, not two, which is a signature characteristic of most Granite Gear backpacks and is available in enormously helpful when it’s a must to carry cumbersome gear like a folding foam pad, snowshoes, or a cumbersome multi-person tent that received’t match simply contained in the pack.
The roll high clips collectively on high of the pack and there’s a perpendicular high strap that holds it down. If desire utilizing a roll high that connects to the facet of the pack relatively than the highest as a result of it gives higher clearance and compression, you may connect the roll high clips to the clips on the higher compression strap overlaying the entrance stretch mesh pocket. This eliminates any additional webbing straps and is a properly executed design characteristic.
There’s no Y-strap on high of the pack, which is one thing you discover on packs designed to hold a bear canister outdoors and on high of the primary compartment, one thing that will most likely overload a backpack like this and make it unmanageable. If it’s a must to carry a canister anyway, it’s most likely greatest to pack it contained in the Virga3 55L as a substitute: a BV500 suits vertically, whereas a BV475 and smaller will match horizontally in the primary compartment.
The facet pockets are deep and might maintain two Smartwater bottles. They’ve a shock wire adjustment operating alongside the highest so you may pull the pockets tight to maintain the bottles from falling out. The lower-side compression strap can even run via the facet pocket or over it, so you may nonetheless have compression even when the pocket itself is full. The pack is hydration suitable with a middle hose port though there’s only a toggle inside to hold a reservoir and never a reservoir pocket.
Being frameless, the Virga 55L requires a unique packing technique than a backpack with a body. As a way to give the pack some stiffness so it received’t collapse if you’re packing it and to pad your again so the gear inside doesn’t poke you, it has high and backside pad pockets inside the primary compartment, behind the shoulder straps. These are designed to suit a folding foam pad like a Therm-a-Relaxation Zlite Sol sleeping pad.
There are a few caveats to this. You’re most likely going to wish to lower down a foam Therm-a-Relaxation Zlite Sol to 4 or six sections. In any other case, the pad shall be too thick and it received’t match into the pack pockets supplied. For instance, an entire NEMO Switchback received’t match within the pad pockets. As well as, utilizing a pad that’s too thick will even push your load farther away out of your again and core muscle mass and make it really feel heavier.
When you get a pad into these pockets, it’s greatest to depart it there and never take it out and put it again in each time you wish to use it. I discovered it very ungainly to do that, not like packs which have exterior pad sleeves just like the Gossamer Gear Mariposa 60, the place it’s trivial to drag the pad out to make use of it to take a seat down if you desire a relaxation. Until you may sleep on 4 sections of a Zlite Sol, this implies you’re most likely going to wish to carry the lacking sections of the Zlite Sol to place below your torso and put the Virga3 55L below your legs if you fall asleep at night time. That’s fairly widespread truly. That or carry a separate full-length pad with you.
As soon as packed, the Zlite foam pad will flatten out in opposition to your again, so long as you don’t overstuff the backpack. Since it’s frameless, the Virga3 55 tends to barrel should you pack the primary compartment too tightly. That is to be anticipated and the norm for a frameless backpack. It takes just a little experimentation to pack a frameless backpack, however on the whole, you wish to pack your gear considerably looser than in a framed pack with a stiffer again panel.
Whereas the Virga3 is rated as a 55L pack, it feels a lot bigger than that should you rely the extension collar. Previously Granite Gear solely counted the primary compartment of their quantity specs and never the extension collar or the open pockets on the outside of the pack, so the pack has at the least 55L of capability, and doubtless extra like 65L. It’s big for a frameless backpack. Enormous.
Backpack Suspension and Hipbelt
The Virga3 55L has an adjustable torso size so you may size or shorten the torso to suit higher. That is accomplished by elevating or reducing the shoulder straps that are connected to daisy chains behind the shoulder straps. Granite Gear has thoughtfully marked the torso size akin to the positions in inches so you may simply reposition the straps utilizing the gated buckles that join them to the daisy chains.
Frameless backpacks with adjustable torso lengths are fairly uncommon, as a result of frankly, torso size isn’t as vital as in a backpack with a body the place the hipbelt does the majority of the carrying. It doesn’t damage to have an adjustable torso on a frameless backpack, particularly one as elegant and light-weight as this one, however you may simply carry 25 lbs in your shoulders, in order that side is a nice-to-have, not vital.
That stated the actual worth of the adjustable torso on this backpack is the truth that you may alter the width of the shoulder straps. That in my thoughts the actual worth of the adjustability on this pack. It’s additionally an actual drawback, particularly with vest-style packs the place one dimension suits all sizing doesn’t work effectively throughout a variety of chest widths and depths for women and men. Granite Gear has at all times had some backpacks the place you may alter the width of the shoulder straps, so that they’re conversant in this concern and find out how to tackle it.
Along with adjustability, the shoulder straps on the Virga3 55L are S-shaped which most women and men discover snug. They’ve daisy chains sewn to the entrance, so you may connect bottle sleeves or pockets to them when you’ve got ones you already desire. Alternatively, the pack comes with 4 elastic bottle keeper cords that you need to use to connect smaller ridged bottles to the shoulder straps. I like my very own third celebration pockets higher.
The shoulder straps include two sternum straps so you may switch extra of the load off your shoulders and onto your higher chest, considerably just like the vest straps which are showing an increasing number of on lower-volume packs. That is completely non-obligatory nonetheless and you’ll simply take away one of many sternum straps if you would like a extra conventional really feel.
The hipbelt, just like the shoulder straps, is adjustable by way of size, so you will get a very good match. It’s additionally solely detachable and simply held in place with velcro should you resolve to not use it. Since this can be a frameless pack, the hipbelt is doing much less load carrying than your shoulders, so its actual worth is twofold: it retains the pack near your torso so it received’t throw you off steadiness and it has pockets. The pockets are literally fairly giant and handy to make use of with ample house for snacks or electronics.
Different Excessive-Quantity Frameless Backpacks
What different frameless, high-volume backpacks can be found?
You can too get a backpack with a detachable body or body keep and use it like a frameless backpack. For instance,
- The Granite Gear Crown3 60 liter pack has a detachable body sheet and high lid which lowers its weight to 32.6 oz. It prices $240 and is sort of comparable in design to the Virga3 55.
- There are different high-volume ultralight packs made by Hyperlite Mountain Gear, like their 3400 collection (55L) packs, however they’re way more costly costing $375 and up since they’re made with Dyneema DCF.
Advice
The frameless Granite Gear Virga3 55L can be utilized for a wide range of mountain climbing and out of doors journeys so long as you retain your pack weight below 25 kilos. I get a kick out of utilizing the brand new white undyed coloring, though there are additionally many examples of hikers who’ve illustrated their packs with colourful designs on Granite Gear’s Instagram Feed.
There are just a few the reason why you would possibly like this backpack as a substitute of a smaller-volume frameless backpack or one with a body. With an MSRP of $200, the Virga3 55L is sort of inexpensive in comparison with different well-liked frameless backpacks (see 10 Greatest Frameless backpacks), particularly these made with Dyneema Composite Materials or Extremely. If you wish to strive ultralight backpacking, the Virga3 55L is an effective starter pack to experiment with. It’s additionally amazingly light-weight for its quantity, but in addition straightforward to compress if that quantity isn’t required. That is significantly helpful should you’re going via the method of changing heavier backpacking gear with lighter extra compressible options that require much less quantity. Lastly, by way of sizing, the Virga3 55L actually covers the bases in relation to becoming all kinds of individuals throughout all genders, shapes, and sizes. There’s little doubt that the Virga3 55L is a way more inclusive backpack that may assist extra folks get pleasure from the advantages of ultralight backpacking than a lot of the different frameless backpacks out there right now.
Disclosure: Granite Gear donated a backpack for evaluation.
SectionHiker is reader-supported. We independently analysis, check, and charge the perfect merchandise. We solely make cash if you buy a product via our affiliate hyperlinks. Assist us proceed to check and write unsponsored and impartial gear critiques, newbie FAQs, and free mountain climbing guides.
