Mountainsmith Borealis AT: A working camera/daypack
One more trip coming up! This Mountainsmith Borealis AT day-pack/camera bag is good for continuous use from the moment you move your gear into it. It has worked great, and the pack system is comfortable. A sturdy harness system and waist straps are set for spending all day on your back. Borealis has enough cargo room for primary DSL camera; back up camera body and camera gear, and a lap-top. You can also eliminate the back-up camera body, use one lens, and minimal battery gear, so you can load it up with day-hike gear.
Having had this camera bag for a few weeks, it has fit right in being a grab-and-go pack. As it is for the suspension system, the protective padding around the camera compartment is counted upon and trusted. It’s often just another piece of luggage on some endeavors. Any way you might use this camera pack, as long as it’s all the time, this pack is always ready to go. We really enjoy and value the fact that Borealis AT comes with its own rain fly, in its own tucked in, zipper closure, spot at the very top of the pack between the frame and the lap-top pouch.
Made with 100% recycled PET ReDura fabric, the Borealis AT is a great example of products and fabrics using repurposed materials. AT’s pack design and fabric seem to be sturdy and well set for the task of having a dedicated camera compartment and enough general cargo space to live out of the pack for a day.
On full-day trips, we’ve slipped in our 2.0-Liter Camelbak hydration canteen right where the lap-top would go, and love it. The
drinking hose weaves nicely out of the pack, over your shoulder, tucked into your left shoulder strap, and at the ready on long hikes. Camelbak water-bladder and hose system has proven water-tight and fully functional in several types of day-packs and multi-day packs.
It would be great for Mountainsmith would build a hydration pouch in the pack to act as a barrier between the water source and the camera equipment. Nonetheless, we use this bag with our daily ration of water on-board, and take the risk. If this tester has to be on the trail all day, or a good part of the morning, we need to carry enough water. We’ve also carried bottled water with the cap-seals for our water source on a couple day trips.
Mountainsmith has a full line of larger, and smaller, packs with built-in camera accommodations. The Borealis AT is set up to carry your snowboard or ski set. A zipped pocket down on the hip belt lets you stash your keys or cell phone easy enough. A Blackberry or similar digital telegraph machine can be securely slipped into the hip pouch.
Ahead of the lap-top space about mid-top-and center of the pack is the primary upper cargo area, enough to stow food, warmth, and sometimes a backup pair of trail shoes and socks. Forward towards the outer shell is that catch-all pocket where you hook up your car keys, compass, camera-guide book and battery charger along with whatever. And at the final outward exterior of the pack is the tri-pod transport anchor.
Padding in the lap-top, primary cargo, and bottom camera locker, is excellent. Perhaps forty percent of the bottom half of the Borealis AT is devoted to protecting your full-size DSL camera body with lens, vertical grip and dual-battery flash, and a couple lenses. It’s the work bay of this camera pack. It’s trustworthy for bumps and thumps a day journey or air travel trip can deal it.
A composite plastic frame-hoop, the component that gives this pack its rigidity and uprightness, snapped somewhere along the timelines of a long road-trip. As mentioned earlier, this camera-pack is a piece of luggage sometimes where it rode for many miles and hours on the road along with other luggage to last for days. Don’t really know what event took place to make it snap. It was never tossed or dropped, or intentionally squished. But it happened. The pack is still very strongly supported by the length of composite spine of the pack because it is still shaped through harness system of the pack. This pack has not missed a beat nor seems to function significantly less than the fully arched frame hoop.
By Rick Shandley
Specifications:
Internal Dimensions: 20” x 9.25” x 12.25” (51 x 23 x 31 cm)
Dimensions: 21” x 10” x 13” (53.5 x 25.5 x33 cm)
Fits camera sizes to: 7” x 6.5” x 12”
Volume: 1586 cu. In. (26 Liters)
Weight: 5lbs. 1 oz. (2.3 kg)
MSRP: $189.95
