It was a beautiful day today and I finally got a chance to try out the Gossamer Gear Mariposa Plus backpack I purchased a few weeks ago. This is an ultralight pack that is similar in some respects to the Starlite from Six Moon Designs. Both packs reduce weight by using a sleeping pad as a frame sheet and come with lots of external mesh pockets that make it easy to access gear that you use a lot during the day.
My medium size Mariposa Plus weighs 21.5 oz. but this includes all of the options available with this pack including two carbon fiber stays that weight 0.4 oz. each. You can reduce the weight of the pack by a few ounces by removing the hip belt or its foam inserts, the sternum strap, or the foam inserts in the shoulder pads. Pockets in the hip belt and the shoulder straps let you use small articles of clothing for padding if you wish.
The main compartment in the medium size Mariposa Plus holds 2,900 cubic inches, but total capacity including the external pockets is 4,200 cubic inches. The pack has a hydration pocket and two large hydration ports above the shoulder pads. The top of the main compartment cinches close with a cord lock and a Y-compression strap loops over the top of the pack and can be used to secure an external bear cannister or sleeping pad. The pack comes with many fabric compression loops on the back and sides of the pack. You can easily run thin gauge bungee cord through them if you want to provide compression on all three sides of the pack.
In order to test the pack, I filled it with the 15 lbs if gear that I plan to take on a section hike of the Appalachian Trail next weekend. I also added a full 3L platypus and a 2 lb food bag bringing the total weight up to about 23 lbs. For the frame sheet, I tried to use a 3/4 Nightlight pad from Gossamer Gear, but found that it was too thick and caused the backpack’s center of gravity to pull behind me. I fixed this by using one of the three panels of a Nightlight pad by itself. This is an adjustment I am willing to live with. The thinner 1.1 oz. pad is sufficiently comfortable and easy to get out for use as a sit pad and I prefer a heavier sleeping pad than the GG Nightlight that I normally carry inside my pack.
However, the difficulty of using a full Nightlight as a frame highlights one of the key trade-offs inherent in the Plus’ design. If you look at the profile (side view) of someone wearing this pack you will likely see a space between the shoulder pad and the back of their shoulder. This is a suboptimal fit and more sophisticated shoulder harness systems address it by anchoring the tops of the shoulder pads lower on the back of the pack and by providing load lifter straps that connect the top of the shoulders pads to the top of the pack. When you pull on the load lifter straps, the distance between the top of your shoulder and the pack is decreased, eliminating this space, and putting you in a more aggressive, forward leaning posture.
In contrast, the shoulder pads on the Mariposa Plus are anchored at the top of the pack’s back panel and it does not have load lifter straps. So, when you insert a thick pad between the Plus and your back, the shoulder pads get pulled up and back increasing the space between the top of the pack and your back. This shifts your center of gravity backwards and away from a forward leaning stance, which makes it harder to walk with heavier loads. This is obviously a deliberate trade-off made by Gossamer Gear and probably limits the maximum weight that you can efficiently carry with this pack to about 30 lbs. On the flip side, the Plus’ shoulder harness system is also more robust than a floating harness system and therefore less likely to break down over hard use.
One of the keys to packing a frameless pack is weight distribution. I always carry my water bladder behind my right shoulder, propped vertically in the knapsack because it is easier to extract from the pack when I need a refill than if it is in a hydration pocket. However, a full 3L platypus weighs 6 lbs. and I need to balance this weight across my hips and shoulders to prevent fatigue. On the Plus, there is a long mesh pocket perfectly sized to fit a Six Moon Design’s Lunar Solo or a Tarptent on the outside the pack (above left) that I use to counterbalance this weight.
Once I was packed, I set out to test the Plus on one of my favorite local hikes, a 9 mile walk in the Middlesex Fells, a big natural area near my house, hiking on two trails that have a combined elevation gain of about 1000 ft.
The pack felt great and I am so pleased with it that I am probably going to use it on most of my planned backpacking trips this year when I’m carrying 25 lbs or less. Width-wise, the main compartment on the Plus is narrower than my other main pack, a Six Moon Design’s Starlite, and it felt like this translated into much better load transfer to the hips. This makes the Plus less suitable for colder weather backpacking where I need to carry very bulky gear, but will be perfect for the strenuous climbs that I expect to encounter this summer on the Long Trail in Vermont.
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