Salomon X ALP 30 Pack  | Performance

There’s something beguilingly French about the X ALP 30 in the combination of lightness and slightly quirky innovation. It’s decently light at 930g on our scales, but there’s a lot going on.

The whole pack’s made from carefully calibrated lightweight rip-stop Nylon, with different combinations of weave and fibre types in different areas and at first glance, looks like a conventional, zip-top opening, narrow profile alpine sack.

And at one level it is. Except that in addition to that top opening, there’s a zip running down the centre of the back-system which gives fast and easy access to the lower parts of the main compartment, which on one level is brilliant if, say, you need to drag out an insulated jacket for a stop or grab a stove for a quick brew.

The downside of this is that there’s no backplate for support and stop stuff digging into your back, just a ‘butterfly’ perimeter frame, which gets less effective if you load the pack too far. It also means that the hydration sleeve – there’s no opening for the tube btw, it has to exit through the top-opening – is displaced to one side, which unbalances the sac slightly when the reservoir is full.

Things we did like include the belt and top pockets and the neat Extrem Box, a sort of reinforced tube at the base of the pack where you can put anything you like from crampons to wet kit. There’s a drain hole for excess water too.

Finally, there are no rope or helmet holders, stick one in the pack and wear the other is the inference.