One of my recent purchases was a Mountain Hardwear Scrambler alpine pack. It weighs just over a 1/2 lb. and I'd been told it could crunch up into a really small stuff sack. I was going to tuck it into my 60L pack for use as a day pack, backup, or to share the load with a fellow survivor/family member/SAR volunteer/etc. Unfortunately it did not come with said stuff sack and there is a light, but rigid foam back board. While this makes the pack super comfy despite the lack of a belt, it's hard to get out...too hard.

With Plan A ruined I needed a plan B. It's a really nice pack made from silicone impregnated cordura nylon and I didn't want it to just sit and collect dust...plus it's yellow! How can I go out on a SAR call out without it? Being a big fan of redundancy I tried a few things last night and here's what I came up with:



I loaded it up with nearly everything I'd normally put into the top half of my big 60L pack. Save for a few items the fit was perfect. I then tried to drop the whole pack into the top half of the same 60L pack...an amazing fit! Because it's a top loading pack the items are just as easy to get to and the pack adds some water repellency to the items inside.



The pack as pictured is without the Sleep System (sleeping bag, bivy, etc) in the bottom half and weighs about 25 lbs.