Originally Posted By Glenn Roberts
Take a look at Granite Gear packs. They're very well made, and the products range from an extremely ultralight frameless pack to 3 or 3.5 pound packs with very robust suspensions. Their bags range from 50+ liters to about 70 liters, and are rated for maximum loads ranging from 20 pounds (ultralight Virga 2) on up to the Crown and Blaze, for a max of 35 or 40 pound loads. REI carries some of their packs (at least online), so if you're anywhere near a store, you could always order several of them (in two sizes, if you're not sure about that) for delivery to their store, then try them on, pick the one you want, and "return" the rejects on the spot.

As far as country of origin: I just did a quick check of my own Granite Gear packs (I own two), and couldn't find any "not made here" tags - which really doesn't mean anything. I could have missed them, or maybe they're not required. When I bought my first Granite Gear pack back in the mid 1990s, they were made in northern Minnesota. No such claim is currently made on their website - which, again, may or may not mean anything. I did a quick Google search: one source says they're American made, one source says they're American made if you count Puerto Rico as America, one source says they're made in Vietnam, and one source says they're made in China. Glad I could nail that down for you. smile


Granite Gear has outsourced all their production to China and Vietnam except for their military gear. Just got word from the horse's mouth, at a Granite Gear's headquarters in MN. Looks like they have great packs too, I think the local store carries some of their gear, so I'll have to give it a look.


Edited by RollTide (07/22/15 01:36 PM)