The REI Traverse 35 is a flexible daypack with an adjustable torso size that’s designed for prolonged day hikes and brief overnights, with options that lend themselves to four-season use. It’s a high loader with a floating lid, a entrance stretch pocket, a aspect zipper the supplies entry to the primary compartment, and two tiers of aspect compression straps that can be utilized to strap a foam pad or snowshoes to the skin of your pack. As well as, the pack options aspect pockets that anybody can get water bottles out and in of, a functionality shared by a lot of REI’s different backpacks, together with the REI Flash Air 50. The Traverse 35 replaces the REI Traverse 32, which was fairly comparable, with two main exceptions: the Traverse 35 now has an adjustable size torso and the hip belt is on the market in prolonged sizes. There are a number of different minor modifications I notice under.
- Gender: Males’s (Ladies’s additionally out there)
- Weight: 3 lbs 4 oz
- Torso size: 18″-20″
- Entry: high, aspect
- Floating lid: Sure
- Adjustable torso size: Sure
- Body: Inner, 360-degree wire body
- Pockets: 7
- Floating high lid: Sure
- Load lifters: Sure
- Hip belt pockets: Sure
- Hydration Compatibility: Sure
- Rain Cowl: Sure
- Supplies: 200 and 400-denier ripstop nylon
- Execs: Adjustable torso size, easy-to-reach water bottle pockets, aspect zipper entry,
- Cons: Weighs over 3lbs, not out there for torso lengths lower than 16″ or larger than 20″
Backpack Body and Suspension
The Traverse 35 has a wishbone-shaped perimeter body product of metal that gives implausible load switch to the hips along with the pre-curved and padded hip belt. I’m not exaggerating. You may actually load this pack up and it’ll journey comfortably in your hips. The shoulder straps and hip belt are padded with a porous foam that’s snug and plush. The sternum strap runs up and down a rail, so it’s simple to regulate and doesn’t pop off the rails, so to talk, which was an annoying downside on the Traverse 32 final 12 months, however now seems to be fastened.
The Traverse 35 additionally has an adjustable torso size, which is a good function for dialing in a correct match and guaranteeing that the pack weight rests in your hips, the place it belongs, and never in your shoulders. The torso adjustment may be very easy. You actually open a buckle between the shoulder straps and pull the shoulder strap yoke as much as lengthen the torso or all the way down to shorten it. The torso lengths (18″, 19″ 20″) are printed on the aspect of the pack, so you may dial within the precise size for those who’ve measured your torso with a tape measure beforehand.
Sadly, the Traverse 35 is simply out there in a single torso vary for males (18″-20″) and ladies (16″-18″) though these sizes do cowl a lot of hikers. Should you’re a man with a brief torso size beneath 18″, I’d suggest making an attempt on the ladies’s pack and for those who’re a girl with an extended torso over, strive the lads’s pack. The boys’s and ladies’s fashions are in any other case just about similar.
The Traverse 38 can be out there in a bigger variety of hip belt sizes, which is uncommon on daypacks, and even larger capability backpacks for that matter, together with 30″-40″, 36″-48″, and 44″-58″. The ladies’s mannequin can be out there in a number of hip belt lengths, which is an efficient factor that different manufacturers would do properly to emulate.
Backpack Storage and Group
The Traverse 38 is a top-loading backpack with seven pockets: a stretch entrance pocket, two water bottle pockets, two hipbelt pockets, and two pockets within the floating lid, providing you with numerous open and closed storage to prepare your gear.
- The entrance stretch pocket is principally product of strong material for elevated sturdiness. It has stretch aspect panels to allow growth whereas nonetheless offering drainage, and a high webbing strap secures its contents.
- The aspect water bottle pockets are reachable as a result of they’re positioned a lot decrease and extra ahead behind the hipbelt as a substitute of up alongside the perimeters of the pack bag. It is a signature function on a lot of REI’s packs, and I can’t perceive why different producers haven’t copied it. It’s that good!
- The hip belt pockets are massive and have beefy YKK zippers. One pocket has a mesh entrance and the opposite is made with strong material.
- The highest lid has two pockets: one on high with a key fob and one beneath for a rain cowl. The highest lid is floating, that means that it may be raised or lowered with 4 webbing straps. This lets you safe gear to the pack beneath it, which is a good overload functionality for carrying cumbersome objects like rope, a foam pad, or a bear canister.
The principle compartment additionally has a zipper that runs down one aspect of the pack and alongside the underside, making it very simple to extract gear buried deeply within the pack with out taking the whole lot out via the highest. Facet zippers like this are sometimes discovered on winter packs and higher-volume backpacks, together with searching packs, and so they’re an awesome comfort.
.Exterior Attachments and Compression
The Traverse 35 has two tiers of aspect compression straps that can be utilized to lash cumbersome objects, like snowshoes to the aspect of the pack. These compression straps shut with buckles and are simple to make use of. There are additionally gear loops on the highest lid and across the perimeter of the entrance pocket that you could run twine via to connect and haul different gear. Within the earlier model of the pack, the Traverse 32, REI included pack mods…further straps you might use to connect objects to those loops. These are not included on the Traverse 35.
Suggestion
The REI Traverse 35 is a well-designed backpack for longer hikes, fast overnights, or winter mountaineering and snowshoeing. I has a metal perimeter body that does an awesome job transferring load to the pre-curved body-hugging hip belt, whereas having an adjustable torso size helps assure match. Quite a few pockets and twin entry strategies, a rain cowl, and floating lid spherical out the options of this spectacular backpack. Priced at $159, I feel it’s an unimaginable worth, and a pack that you just’ll need to use 12 months spherical. Extremely really useful.
Disclosure: REI donated a backpack for overview.
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