I’ve had a stone glacier for the past 8 years, I’ve switched the bag to the guide 7900 which seems good. I put the solo 3300 on it for shorter stuff.
When I get a new bag it will be an exo k4 7200.
Is kifaru even relevant anymore? I hadn’t looked at them in awhile and the seem to have a lot less stuff and be portraying a different image than they used to. Is that new frame any good? They still make the dall bag which looks good. I used a fulcrum for awhile but the pack weighed ~ 9lbs empty and it was a major pain in the ass with like 7 straps to deal with.
Haven't used the Ark, will never use it. A rigid carbon frame sounds great until you think about it for two seconds and realize you can't fit it to your spine - so if the fit isn't perfect out of the box, you're screwed, and will be getting poor load transfer, slippage, discomfort, etc. They try to offset this shortcoming by adding a ridiculously thick lumbar pad, which in turn places the load away from your center of gravity, causing even more slippage. It's just a bad design overall. Don't like it maxing out at 25" either. Come on, some of us are taller than 6'.
I have a Fulcrum and Duplex Lite frame, I love my setup now but I had to mod it quite heavily:
- Replaced composite stays with 7075 aluminum that I can fit to my spine
- Cut the lumbar pad down to 50% thickness
- Replaced those awful, cardboard-like shoulder straps with the brilliant Hill People Gear harness
- Made the wings removable
- Removed all but 2 straps and buckle sets and replaced them with a paracord compression system that utilizes the Sherman as a de facto compression panel
- Swapped the last two irritating Autolock buckles for regular ones
Down to 7 lbs. including Sherman Pocket, belt pouch, HPG water bottle holder, and chamber pocket - carries like a dream now. Wish I could ditch the heavy center zip and cut even more weight but that's probably a bit too much Frankensteining for my tastes.
Taking all that into account, I don't think Kifaru is worth even close to what you pay for it, and dealing with their customer service gave me cluster headaches for months.
In hindsight, I should have just bought an HPG Qui-Ya and called it a day, but OK. Live and learn. Still have an Eberlestock Mainframe gathering dust in the closet as a reminder of how uneducated I once was.