Pack Covers?

I would like to hear some ideas about pack covers. Will a plastic bag suffice? Thanks, Krum

Generally speaking, a plastic bag will do, but it is more effective to use a pack liner than a cover. It is the contents you want to protect, not the pack itself, and a liner eliminates more avenues for moisture to get your pack's contents wet.

Pack covers are a waste IMHO. Line your pack with a compactor trash bag. Pack covers do not keep your pack dry in hard, driving wind and rain.

I typically use a liner...trash bag or compactor bag. My poncho/shelter also extends well over my pack and keeps things completely dry. I don't own a 'real' pack cover.

I agree with the idea that liners are more effective. I really must try one sometime; I've used pack covers for years with no real problems (caveat: I don't hike in the rain very often any more.) The fact that my current pack came with a cover, in it's own little zippered compartment, means that inertia has a lot to do with my decision to use a cover rather than a liner.

I don't really like the idea of using garbage bags as pack covers. They work, sure - but they also snag and rip (particularly where one cuts slits for the shoulder straps.) And when they do, they end up discarded along the trail - like empty soda pop cans, they seem to be just too heavy to carry out.

I've changed my mind about pack covers; I too used to be inclined to the "don't bother" view, but now think that it depends on where and what time of year that you hike.

I always use a pack liner, but I had a cuben pack cover last year and overall found it worth carrying (quite low weight and bulk penalty for when not using it, and I used it a fair bit). Certainly a poncho is a great alternative, or a Packa, or, indeed, very often just a pack liner and no sort of pack cover.

Also skewing this is whether you carry, on a particular trip, things that have to be strapped to the outside of the pack --- snow shovel, ice axe, rolled up ccf sleeping pad, whatever. Pack cover doesn't co-exist well with bulky or pointy things strapped externally. Of course that applies to a poncho (or packa or parcho or whatever) as well.

Somewhat related is just having easier access to things; messing with the pack cover is just one more step to getting something out or putting it away.

I have a home made pack cover that opens flat. Essentially a rectangle of nylon with a draw cord around the edges. I've used it for a pack cover a handful of times, but more often used it as a drop sheet, a gear hammock, a firewood collecting tool, a couple times to get a bunch of water to put out a fire, and to throw over my head running out to grab something that blew away from me while tarping. It's also kept the pack from being drenched walking through a falls and once in the rain.

I am migrating away from using it and more often use a pack liner, and the poncho does the rest.

And for one of my packs, I use a spare wheel cover for an SUV. If found the cover at Salvation Army for $1. It fits perfectly, and the elastic makes it a snap to use!

a trash bag inside is good, but they generally don't last real long. Of course you can carry spares at what - 3 ounces each? I like to use a pack cover on a winter blizard trip where the pack will be inside the tent later and keeping the outside of it dry is important, and it does provide quite a bit of protection to the contents if its a well made cover that fits your bag and has drain holes in the bottom (and you don't put it on upside down) .

considering the extremes that manufacturers go to over an ounce, probably lightweight packs are not gonna be watertight if it takes an extra half ounce of seam tape or anything.

Seam sealing your gear (pack) with a thick bodied plastic glue like "seam grip" will reinforce your seams and make them water tight. Even my WM goretex sleeping bag and my Bibler tent are "seam gripped". Note: - use the accelerator and mix small batches, apply with a brush or toothpick. Yes it may add an ounce or even more, but I can sleep in a blizzard in my sleeping bag with no tent or bivy sack.

I guess you're probably better off with a completely watertight durable liner bag and ziplocks. How much weight does that add to those tiny UL packs? a pound?

Soap box on: "It really peaves me that they use too thin of material in tent floors to save weight, then sell you a footprint to protect that floor and don't add the weight to the weight of the tent".
soap box off
Jim

Contractor bag, the heavier mil ones you can get at a hardware store === a bit heavier, but will last a long, long time with moderate care.


Have you literally worn through a tent floor?
I like to use a polycro homemade ~footprint, but it's more about keeping the tent cleaner & drier, as an extra barrier when sleeping on wet ground or snow, and as something to sleep on for nights that I want to cowboy camp. I think it rarely matters though, wouldn't carry it if it weren't so light & small.

There's a DIY tent made out of SOL blankets in the DYI gear section here. It has a "Disposable" floor made of visqueen. I used a lot of the same ideas in my "Baker's Oven" campfire tent. I use a bubble foil floor for it that's easily replaced. It packs down to about the size of a blue foam sleeping pad and is tough enough to keep rocks and stubble from poking though.

My favorite footprint for a long time now has been a cheap plastic disposable table cloth, like they sell for picnics and what not. Those are light, pack small, and are pretty darn tough. They're also about the perfect size. I've also used them for a tarp to keep dew off my hammock.

Brian

THREAD DRIFT ALERT

no I have not worn through a tent floor. BUT I am extremely careful of my tent floors AND they are ALL made of durable material. Like I always take off my crampons before getting into the tent. Of course old sleeping bags had canvas liners in the bottom so your cramons wouldn't cut through. You do sleep in your campons right? It was easier to sleep in them than to have to put them on in the morning. Modern crampons are easier to deploy.

However tent floors can leak and a thin floor is more apt to have a pine needle go through it. Imagine setting up a thin floored tent on rock. The next time you used it, it would leak.

In the old days a ground cloth was made of canvas. It let moisture go through into the ground (and the other way), instead of trapping water under your tent like a footprint can.


If you use a plastic garbage bag over your pack, it will leak around the shoulders and back because the bag can't cover that area well if you're wearing the pack.
Jim

I've been using a pack cover since the mid-1970's. I wouldn't be without one. Small weight price to pay for something that works far better than a trash bag.

Currently using an Osprey cover... light and works well.

Note that a pack cover will NOT keep your pack contents dry, either if it rains hard enough to run down your back and soak into the back of the pack or if you slip while fording a stream. The same is true of stuff sacks, which do not have a waterproof closure. You need either a pack liner or to use dry bags to keep your critical insulation dry.

Pack liners are available commercially or you can use 2-mil trash compactor bags (if you can find any that aren't perfumed) or (as Brian suggests) contractor trash bags. Normal trash/garbage bags (usually 1 to 1 1/4 mil) aren't strong enough to be reliable. Be sure to use a waterproof closure ("candy cane" closure, in which the mouth of the bag is twisted shut and then doubled back on itself). Check daily for possible holes and mend with duct tape. Some commercial pack liners are made like dry bags (waterproof material and dry bag closure).

I gave up using a pack liner after much frustration shoving small items down in my pack only to have them pop right back out thanks to the slick plastic. I switched to lightweight dry bags, one for my sleeping bag and one for my insulating clothing. They save me a good five minutes, as well as considerable frustration, packing up in the morning. The two Sea-to-Summit Ultra Sil dry bags I use weigh the same as a trash compactor bag. If I ever go back to a pack liner, it would probably be cuben fiber, which is far less slippery than either plastic or silnylon, as well as lighter (it really lightens your wallet, too!). BTW, be sure to test your dry bags in the tub occasionally to make sure they stay waterproof.

Jim's idea of seam-sealing your pack (may be difficult with packs with lots of seams and zippers) is good, but test the pack in the bathtub at least yearly before relying on it to keep the contents dry.

I use my pack as a pillow, so I like to keep the outside of the pack--at least the front part that contacts my sleeping bag--dry. I therefore use a pack cover as well. It's a 1-oz. cuben fiber one from ZPacks.com.

I haven't had to worry about rain so much, but I have had to prepare my pack and other items for a trip through surf. Dry bags are the answer. Something critical like a down sleeping bag also gets an interior plastic bag, sealed and taped.

I like to use a trash compactor bag of a suitable size inside my pack. I don't use a pack cover if what's in the outside pockets can get wet and no problem, which is what I prefer. If I've got stuff in outside pockets I want to protect, I use a Zpacks cuben pack cover, but I'd still have the compactor bag inside the pack.

Get yourself a Packa, you will not be sorry.
http://www.thepacka.com/