Montane Featherlite 30 Pack | Performance

We’ve always had a soft sport for Montane’s minimal but cunningly detailed lightweight packs and the new Featherlite 30 is something of a chip off the old block. Let’s be honest, the original – and rather good – Medusa 32 isn’t exactly a heavyweight at 970g odd, but the Featherlite slashes an additional 240g from that and another 90g if you strip out the back system.

That makes it 730g / 640g with or without the back system pad. What’s nice is that even at those respectable weights, you still get functional, thoughtful features, so things don’t feel overly Spartan in use.

And Montane has specced tough  100 Denier triple rip-stop RAPTOR Featherlite™ Nylon fabric with a PU coating which adds strength and reinforcing Robic filaments, whatever that are. They’ve also minimised weak point seams.

The main pack’s a simple, sleek affair with narrow, mountain-friendly contours including a slanted base, that works well on facing-out descents to avoid snagging. The back system really is simple. Where other Montane packs have used moulded foam integrated panels, this has a removable foam pad and a mesh and fabric outer panel.

Its not sophisticated, but it all snugs up neatly enough and if you pack carefully and keep loads down, it’s all fine, comfortable and stable. You can also rip out that pad, slash 90 grammes of mass and fold the pack into its lid pocket for easy stowage and summit pack functionality. Neat.

Where the Featherlite really scores bonus points is in carefully thought-out features. The main compartment opens with a super simple, glove-friendly cord system and closes one handed. The lid pocket is Montane’s ‘Buddy’ design, which means the opening faces backwards, so your mate can extract stuff while you’re wearing the pack without poking you in the eye. And the sternum strap clops on and off a plastic rail with one hand and saves bulk over the chest. Neat.

You also get tough-feeling side mesh stash pockets and pockets on the hip-belt too. For general use those are great, for technical climbing you might want to get rid. Then again, if that’s your bag, you should maybe be looking at the more technical Featherlite Alpine instead.