Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro Review: Throw Out Everything You Knew About Backpacks

Essentially the most modern backpack on this yr’s backpacking gear take a look at wasn’t from an up-and-coming cottage gear firm, however from a decades-old firm out of New Zealand, Aarn. The place most backpacking backpacks are fiddling across the margins of design — a bit of extra padding within the shoulder straps right here, a bit of extra air flow within the again panel there — the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional takes a very totally different strategy to the important problems with match, load bearing, and pack group. Whereas it’s not completely clear why this model backpack hasn’t caught on in the US — it’s a comparatively widespread sight throughout the ocean — a number of the concepts behind this backpack are beginning to catch on with ultralight backpacking firms. That is one which’s effectively overdue for a contemporary look.  

Buy from Aarn

• Capability: 50 liters
• Unisex Torso Match: 16 to 22 inches
• Pockets: High zip pocket, two facet stretch pockets, again mesh pocket, with two internal mesh pockets, two hip belt zip pockets, two oversize shoulder strap zip pockets with exterior mesh pockets
• Adjustment Factors: Hip belt, shoulder straps, load lifters, adjustable again panel, two sternum straps
• Guarantee: One yr

Most backpacking backpacks have one overarching purpose: Switch the load out of your shoulders to your hips. Even with right now’s internal-frame designs, meaning a inflexible construction and aggressive hip belt that locks into place in your physique. Now, if you happen to’re carrying a monstrously heavy load — corresponding to with one of many best hunting backpacks — or have particularly weak traps, that is most likely a greater backpack model for you. However for many backpackers, this may result in a medley of pointless points, starting from bruised hips to tight shoulders. 

Learn Subsequent: The Best Backpacking Backpacks

The Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional takes a special strategy, distributing the load of the pack throughout your whole physique. This implies your hips are a lot much less restricted than with a standard backpack. The Mountain Magic then takes this a step additional by decoupling the shoulder straps from the again panel, which frees up the vary of movement in your shoulders. The impact is akin to carrying a heavy coat: You are feeling the load, however as a result of it’s not focused on one level of your physique, there aren’t any ache factors and you may transfer freely. 

There are three major variations in design that permits Aarn to tug off this magic trick: outsized shoulder strap pockets, a again panel adjustment strap, and free-moving shoulder straps that you could entry whereas carrying the backpack. 

Outsized Shoulder Strap Pockets

In recent times, capacious shoulder straps pockets have grow to be pretty ubiquitous on the best ultralight backpacks popping out of the cottage gear world. This makes a world of sense. Shoulder straps have been beforehand underutilized actual property; having a pocket there lets you entry gear with out stopping to take your backpack off. However the Aarn shoulder straps pockets are totally different. Mixed, they maintain a whopping 7 liters of drugs, just like what the highest pocket (sometimes called “the mind”) would maintain on a standard backpack. 

Regardless of its ubiquity, there are a number of points with each the position and the utility of the highest pocket. The primary is that you could’t entry something in it while you’re climbing — you must cease and take it off. The second is that backpackers are likely to overload it with small, dense gadgets: satellite tv for pc messengers, energy banks, sunscreen, toiletries, and the like. High-loading your backpack like this isn’t really useful, as it could possibly have an effect on your stability.

However placing all these small fiddly heavy gadgets that you really want simply accessible on the entrance shoulder straps is one other matter completely. Now the load of that gear is counterbalancing the load of the principle compartment on the backpack. Whereas conventional backpacks considerably change your heart of gravity — one thing anybody who has tried to rock-hop throughout a mountain stream can attest to — with the stability pockets it stays a lot nearer to its pure place in your physique. Additional, having weight knocking down on the entrance backpack reduces the extent to which the shoulder straps are pulling again, noticeably decreasing stress in your clavicle.

Out of doors Life examined the Stability Pockets Multi Professional, which have a zippered inside compartment, in addition to a mesh pocket on the entrance, however Aarn has eight totally different variations of those pockets, together with one geared specifically at fishermen. 

Again Panel Adjustment

To actually profit from the stability pockets on the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional, the pack has to suit in order that it’s hugging your physique. To make sure that’s true for people throughout a variety of torso lengths, Aarn takes a special strategy to the order of operations for becoming a backpack. 

Sometimes, to suit a backpacking backpack, you first begin with the right again panel size on your torso measurement, or alter the again panel to the right size, then alter the hip belt, shoulder straps, sternum strap, and — lastly — the load lifters. Nonetheless, it’s surprisingly arduous to get the precise proper torso measurement on a backpack. You need to first know what your torso measurement is, which includes explaining to a buddy what the iliac crest is after which hoping they get the measurement proper. Then you must discover the backpack measurement that almost all carefully matches that measurement. Some backpacks have adjustable again panels, however they have a tendency to both solely change in increments of 1 inch or use industrial-strength Velcro, which is a royal ache within the ass to get into the right place. 

The upshot is that loads of folks aren’t beginning with the fitting torso size once they transfer onto step two of becoming their backpack. This throws the entire different adjustment factors out of alignment. By the point they hit the ultimate stage of adjusting the match of their backpack, there’s both an excessive amount of pull from a too-tall backpack body or an excessive amount of drag from one that’s too brief. In each circumstances, cranking down on the load lifters so far as you possibly can helps to remove discomfort (most backpack producers really useful a 45-degree angle to optimize load-bearing). However this will increase stress on the clavicle, sternum strap, and hip belt, which is able to in the end result in different ache factors. 

The Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional fixes this subject neatly by making the again panel adjustment one of many remaining steps in becoming their pack to your physique. Earlier than you set the Mountain Magic on, you pull up on the blue wire working the size of the backpack till the shoulder straps are on the high of the body. Then you definitely put the backpack on, tighten the hip belt and pull on the shoulder straps. If you get to the double sternum straps, Aarn recommends criss-crossing them for optimum stability.

Then discover the blue loop on the backside of the pack that connects to the highest of the body, such that while you pull down on the backpack, it pulls the body down till the shoulder straps are resting securely and comfortably in your shoulders. All which means while you lastly get to utilizing the load lifters, they’re functioning as load stabilizers and also you gained’t be tempted to overcrank them. And the most effective half is you don’t have to know your actual torso size to make use of this technique.

Free-Transferring Shoulder Straps

Sometimes, when you’ve received an inside body backpacking backpack strapped on, your vary of movement goes to be considerably restricted. Attempt to swivel your hips, and the pack will resist you. Attempt to transfer your shoulders up and down, and the pack will resist you. That’s partly why frameless packs have grow to be so in style with the fastpacking set — they permit for the larger vary of movement wanted to run and scamper and break FKTs. 

However the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional permits for the same vary of movement, whereas nonetheless transferring loads of weight to your hips by way of steel stays within the body. That’s as a result of the shoulder straps aren’t stitched into the again panel. As an alternative, the highest of the shoulder straps are hooked up to the again panel adjustment mechanism on the high and a nylon wire working between the underside of the shoulder straps that’s tucked into the underside of the again panel. If you swivel your hips, the pack strikes with you. If you transfer your shoulders up and down, the pack is alongside for the trip. When you’ve been tempted by the liberty of a frameless backpack however aren’t prepared to surrender the hip belt, this can be a actually distinctive function.

Testing the Aarn Magic Mountain 50 Professional within the Subject 

The Magic Mountain earned high marks from our testers on the second Out of doors Life backpacking gear take a look at, with practically good scores throughout all classes. I used to be significantly impressed by how simple it was to maneuver on this backpack. I’m without end turning round whereas climbing to speak to the individual behind me on testing journeys. With the inflexible body backpacks I examined, a nagging piriformis damage would flare every time I attempted to do that, however I used to be utterly pain-free within the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional.

Different testers famous feeling equally free: “The best way the Aarn Mountain Magic strikes with you makes you’re feeling limber, stable, versatile in a approach that no different pack has made me really feel,” stated Diana Helmuth. The one factor impeding this freedom of motion was the sheer measurement of the stability pockets within the entrance, which does restrict your skill to maneuver your arm throughout your physique. However whereas this felt awkward, it didn’t really forestall testers from doing something they wanted to do whereas backpacking. 

The match of the backpack was additionally a standout for our testing group. Curiously, they famous that they spent much less time adjusting and readjusting the backpack for match all through the course of the day “I discovered that I didn’t have to do a lot adjustment to those as a result of the load was distributed so effectively,” famous Patrice “Regular” La Vigne, who carried one of many heaviest hundreds at 36 kilos and skilled zero discomfort. 

Solely the tester with the shortest torso, Jac “High Shelf” Mitchell, deducted one level for match. She has a 16-inch torso which is true on the backside of the instructed vary for this backpack — if in case you have a equally brief torso it could be price trying on the Aarn Featherlite Freedom, which is available in a smaller torso measurement. 

Many of the testers for the Magic Mountain 50 Professional struggled to make a dent within the 7-liter capability of the stability pockets. “With three separate compartments on both sides — one mesh and two inside zippered pockets — I might be capable to entry absolutely anything rapidly,” stated Regular. “A few of the issues I wish to have extra accessible in my day by day guiding can be my binoculars, wildflower subject guides/books, studying glasses, sat gadget, bug spray, sunblock along with the issues I normally put in my hip belt pockets like snacks.”

To actually take a look at the utility of the Aarn Magic Mountain 50 Professional’s shoulder strap pockets, I took it out for a three-day backpacking journey with my household. My child is 5, which implies she isn’t going to hold a lot past her coat, and her capability for snacks is each limitless and important for morale. We would have been struggling to replenish the Aarn’s shoulder strap pockets with our light-weight backpacking kits in the course of the Out of doors Life subject take a look at, however I had no downside filling up these entrance pockets with goldfish crackers, additional child-sized base layers, gummy worms, sunscreen, and fruit snacks. I believed I had reached the outer limits of the pockets’ capability till my child requested if I might carry her stuffed dragon for her. In some way, the Aarn Magic Mountain Professional nonetheless had area. 

What the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional Does Finest

Each single one of many options listed above — the shoulder strap pockets, the again panel adjustment system, and the free-moving shoulders traps — delivers on its promise. The match is gorgeous every time, the load is comfortably distributed throughout your torso, and the vary of movement is outstanding. That is simply essentially the most comfy backpack I’ve used and testers throughout a variety of physique varieties expressed related sentiments. This was very true on the vary of hundreds most typical for backpackers within the 25 to 45 pound vary. 

After I received used to them, I additionally loved how accessible all the things was in my entrance shoulder strap pockets. As a result of it was so totally different from each conventional backpacks and ultralight backpacks, I struggled some with determining the place I had stashed one thing. After a number of journeys, I’m beginning to determine the perfect packing system for this backpack, but it surely’s going to take extra time. 

What the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional Does Worst

Simply the most important strike towards the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Professional is that the stability pockets look bizarre. My sense is that in its native New Zealand — the place the Aarn is considerably extra in style — this pack doesn’t warrant a second look. However within the US, carrying this backpack made me oddly self-conscious. A number of members of our backpacking gear testing group said they’d not use the stability pockets due to this aesthetic subject. 

The opposite downside with the stability pockets is that they make it tough to placed on the backpack as a result of, absolutely loaded, they crush the shoulder straps, narrowing the hole that you must shimmy your arm by means of. 

Whereas testing, I observed that as a result of the adjustable again panel can transfer round fairly simply; to get the most effective match (versus a fairly good match, which our testers have been a lot impressed by) you must readjust the pack from scratch every time. Some testers responded to those two points by merely not taking the pack off at breaks, together with when relieving themselves, and located that the pack’s flexibility made this a viable choice.

Lastly, the Aarn has a reasonably restricted warranty, masking defects in manufacturing for under a single yr. 

Ultimate Ideas

After testing the Magic Mountain 50 Professional, I’m shocked that Aarn doesn’t have an even bigger following in the US. Their strategy to design has vital advantages, significantly for people accustomed to carrying substantial hundreds and whose bodily frames don’t pair effectively with extra typical backpacks. 

Curiously, you possibly can see a number of the driving concepts behind the Aarn backpack system beginning to creep their approach into the mainstream by way of the cottage backpacking gear manufacturers. The place shoulder strap pockets have been nonetheless pretty uncommon 10 years in the past, they’re now a standard sight amongst ultralight backpackers — and in lots of circumstances they’re additionally larger than they was. Equally, the rise in recognition of frameless ultralight backpacks has showcased the advantages of releasing up your hips. Aarn’s distinctive (and on this gear tester’s view, higher) strategy to suit, nonetheless, continues to be distinctive to my information amongst backpacking firms.