Cheap rucksacks

JCS71, I got a used ALICE pack (with frame) myself via eBay, and kind of like it, within limits. I like the size--it's just enough to use, with a little creativity, for jogs to the grocery store (I do draw some stares, but it's a way of combining exercise with necessary shopping, so that both actually get done.) I also really like the way that the frame is shaped so as to leave an air space between your back and the pack--this makes it MUCH COOLER to use than other packs that lack this feature. Mine came with the hip-belt. It also has lots of pockets--which, again, I like, since it makes for easily finding things in a hurry. (I can't tell you how many days I've spent over the years rummaging through my pack for things I'd packed, carried to the campsite, and then could not locate, especially in the dark, or under hurried "need to find a bandaid and I'm bleeding and it's raining" situations.)

Cons: The ALICE pack has a HEAVY STEEL FRAME. That's a lot of extra weight, a lot more than you'd get with any modern civilian internal-frame or external-frame pack. Some frames, like hollow aluminum ones, add what I'd call a trivial amount of weight. My friends, the ALICE frame's weight is non-trivial. Also, it makes for a little more difficulty in storage/loading into your 4x4 than does a pack without a frame, or with a more-flexible frame; you'll find it takes up more space in your closet or car trunk than the little German rucksack SP has in mind, due in part to the frame.

Overall assessment: I like the ALICE pack, and it fits nicely the niche of "I need a pack to use for my car-trunk survival bug-out bag / survival kit; I'd like to be able to carry it for tens of miles if necessary, and I want it to be indestructible, but I also am not absolutely planning on hiking rim to rim in the Grand Canyon with it." It'll do fine for little hikes or jogs, like a weekly run to the grocery store (where, hey, we could probably all use the extra weight to improve the exercise value!)

For a lighter, small-to-medium-capacity, inexpensive, take-it-on-a-day-or-overnight-hike pack, I think the German rucksack idea may be the better deal. It'll set you back $10 instead of $35-40 (which I think is about what I paid for my ALICE pack, too); you can load it with stuff and pound it into some odd-shaped space in the trunk of your car because there's no frame to worry about; and you're not instantly adding the 5 pounds or whatever the steel ALICE frame weighs. (Your mileage may vary!)
 
I agree that weight is not trivial for anything that you expect to use often or hard. Do you have any weight estimates on the ALICE w/ frame, empty?
 
J.D if your kids are still small you might find that the packs are too large for them. They are large packs and would do great for school books maybe too good are you can carry way too much weight in them. The one i use i just cant see me tearing it apart from normal use unless i do it on purpose.

Sasha
 
I wish I did have readily-available estimates on the weight of an ALICE pack. If I remember, I'll try to weigh mine tonight and see where it comes out. I understand that the medium ones can be used with or without the frame, so that might provide a desirable degree of versatility. I've never removed the frame with which mine came, so I'm not sure what's involved in that, or what you're gaining or giving up by doing so. I Googled to try to find the weight of an empty ALICE pack with frame, but came out with estimates ranging from maybe 4 pounds to 8 or 9 pounds, empty. Personal wild guess is that you're talking around 6-8 pounds. Maybe about the weight of an average newborn baby.

Sasha, thanks for the tip--I know, the packs will dwarf the young'uns for a while. But I figured the combination of durability, cheapness, and likely ability to use them decades from now made them worth a few bucks. More often than my kids are hiking with them (in the next couple of years), I imagine they'll be using them to carry a couple days' clothes, etc. from the mini-van into some friend's house for an overnight. Maybe a notebook and a couple of books from car to school classroom--that kind of thing. Since my 7-year-old has already worn out maybe two of the incredibly-flimsy discount-store-type packs we'd gotten before--and since I predict the kids will take the attitude "This is a REAL ARMY PACK!?! WOW!!!"--I figured it was worth getting a few of them. Thanks for the warning, however!
 
I'd go to a local thrift store lihe the Goodwill or such. I recently found small LL Bean kids pack for 2.99. Fits my 5 year old fine
 
I took some of my kids to Cabela's yesterday (giving my wife some "recharging" time without most of the brood underfoot), and let the bigger boys (7 and 5) try on the brand-new German rucksacks they had there. My memory and estimates proved correct: although the packs are very large on those little guys, they do work; though I'm sure I wouldn't want them having to hike with a lot of gear in them (if only because the balance would tug them over backwards and leave them like turtles on their backs), I'm pretty confident that even at this stage that kind of pack will (1) give them something to store their stuff in for a car- or backyard-campout (which is a step up from just piling all their stuff loose, or in paper shopping bags, into the minivan--thus making stuff hard to find); (2) let them carry it all on a "backpacking" trip of, say, 100 yards from the van to the campsite; (3) give them something to keep it organized in in the tent; (4) be inexpensive enough that I can get 4 or 5 of them (which, at $10 a pop, this is); (5) be expendable enough that it's no big deal if they somehow get trashed; (6) be durable enough that they really will be able to use the packs when they get to a real outdoors-packing (or major schoolbook carrying) age.

Finally--(7) it is absolutely going to make their day to get something like this. When I told my boys that I'd ordered packs for them that were like the new ones we tried on in the stores, but that they were different, because they were used, and in fact had been used by real soldiers, my 5-year-old's eyes lit up, and he loudly exclaimed, "That means they're REALLY SPECIAL!!"

Oh, yes--5 is a great age!
 
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