Hyperlite Mountain Gear Prism Pack Review After 4 Years of Use
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The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Prism pack has been my go-to pack for (going on) four years, now. Like I say in the beginning of the review, it was just a piece of equipment that I snatched up and started stuffing with my other equipment… without thinking about it. Low volume, high volume, as long as it wasn’t more gear than the pack could take, I was throwing it into my Prism pack.
I tend to hold high appreciation for gear I don’t have to think about. It’s like the referee of a football (soccer) match. If you don’t notice the ref, she or he is likely having a very good match, indeed. If I don’t have to put conscious thought into a piece of gear (besides technical gear, which I should be thinking about consciously, if only to deploy it correctly), that means the gear is both intuitive to use and reliable.
In the long run, then, my lack of thinking about the Prism is the best endorsement I can provide for it.
That being said, no piece of gear is perfect. In the video, I get into the cons of the pack, including idiosyncratic load-lifting straps, lack of back ventilation (being both Dyneema and designed to be a low profile that hugs our body so it won’t interfere with our climbing), and the like.
But the lack of “perfection” is not surprising or a show-stopper, at least for me. In fact, lack of perfection is more of an expectation. When we are balancing things that are naturally tradeoffs (like durability and weight, for example), I would expect to see places where those tradeoffs aren’t optimized for every situation.
So, take a look at the short video for more details. In the end, the pack just fits me well and does the things I want and need it to do… without me having to think much about it.