5 Best Ozark Trail Backpacks Feb 2024

Get started planning your trip by exploring our trail offerings or using our Trip Planner tool. Overall, it could have been roomier, but the weight savings were attractive to me with only one spar instead of two. Furthermore, I didn’t plan on being in the tent other than during the nights, so a roomier but heavier 1-person tent wasn’t desirable.

ozark trail backpack

I also liked how my head wasn’t directly beside the door, which often occurs for an end-door tent. If something crawled through the zipper door it wouldn’t immediately be inches from ozark trail backpack my face but instead would have to work its way a few more feet to my head. At the same time, my head wasn’t zero or six feet from the door, but about two or three feet at all times.

It isn’t built to be on your back 8 hours a day, and it won’t support 25 pounds. Used for its intended purpose, this is one of the best hiking/backpacking deals I’ve ever come across. This pack has no extraneous features, save for the small front zip pocket and an internal hydration ozark trail canopy sleeve. There are no compression straps or other means of securing anything to the outside of the pack, aside from the “daisy chain” on the front. My only knock on it would be the lack of a small water bottle pocket. All told, I’ve had the pack on my back for about 50 miles.

My kids were toddlers the first time we went backpacking on a short, level trail where I carried everything and I knew they could do the hike with no problem. My four-year-old wanted to know when we could go again but my three-year-old was uninterested in another trip. Now he’s 12 and carries almost the same weight as I do and loves to help me plan trips with 10-mile days. The one downside with integrated rain flies is the lack of ventilation and temperature control. We had great weather – not too hot and not too cold – but it did rain for about 5 minutes.

Due to the nature of the shipping business, delays are often inevitable, all our shipping times are therefore guidelines only and specific delivery dates are not guaranteed. Please allow business days of processing and production time for your order to ship out. Bring enough water for your trip or a way to purify water to make it safe to drink. Many of the creeks and streams look crystal clear, but it’s still smart to make sure any impurities are removed with pumps or tablets before drinking. Backpacking stoves are a convenient way to boil water for dehydrated meals and instant coffee without adding a lot of weight to your pack.

Join Outside+ to get access to exclusive content, 1,000s of training plans, and more. Choose this pack if you prefer a smaller yet spacious design, as it has useful features and the durability of larger options. On the small side, so it won’t work for hikers who need a spacious pack.

I’ve tried tents with the door on one end and it is cumbersome. For the end-door variants, one has to toss their sleeping bag down the tent when getting ready for bed. Other items that you may want to keep at the foot of the sleeping area are also hard to access or reach if your head is near the door. For these styles, it seems most people want their head ozark trail canopy at the door side and so they have a constraint for which way the tent is set up if the ground is not flat. On the other hand, accessing the tent from the middle, or on the long side, gives one more degree of freedom. Assuming a symmetrical tent, like the Ozark Trail, my head could be placed at either end and both options would feel equally comfortable.