Granite Gear Blaze 60 Women’s Backpack
Having come from years of hiking with more packs than I even care to remember, I was going through a phase of using the attractive but frankly overbuilt Fjallraven Keb and Kajka packs for my wild camping trips, and it was after a particularly brutal morning hike back to the car in Dartmoor with a heavily laden Kajka, that I decided that I desperately needed to try something lighter weight. The Fjallraven packs do carry their loads well, but there’s no getting around the fact that they weigh a ton.
Having seen plenty of reviews of the Granite Gear Blaze 60 Women’s pack, I decided to order one to try out. A real pet peeve of mine is the awful colour ways that so much women’s outdoor gear comes in; purple and teal being two of the most dominant that truly. match me retch. The blue on the Blaze is sort of heading towards teal territory but the fact that the majority of the pack is black offsets this to an acceptable level, and I rather liked the gingham checker pattern accents across the pack.
I was still of a mind that was somewhat suspicious of how strong a very lightweight pack would be. I ordered the women’s version because it’s a bit more suited to those of us with shorter torsos and wider hips. Like most packs, it took a fair bit of adjustment once it had arrived; the pack does have many points of adjustment that allow you to fine tune the fit, from adjusting the back length to adjusting the size of the hip belt, as well as the usual compression and load lifter straps.
I will say, however, that reaching into the back panel to adjust position of the strap attachment for different back lengths isn’t quite as easy as videos I’d watched made it out to be. But that was a minor niggle.
What I loved most was how light it felt. After the 3kg+ Fjallraven packs, the 1.3kg weight of the Blaze was a breath of fresh air. I could pack everything I needed for a night or two in the hills – tent, sleeping bag, food, clothes – without feeling like I was lugging a sack of bricks around. It made me realise how much harder my trips had actually been before.
Yet despite being so light, it felt solid. The zippers and buckles didn’t feel cheap or likely to fail mid hike, which was reassuring. To keep the weight down, Granite Gear did use quite thin webbing for the various straps on the pack, but they don’t feel flimsy.
In the past, I was usually fussy about organisation, but the Blaze made me appreciate a step towards simplicity. The main compartment is roomy, and the stretchy front pocket is a great place to stash things I wanted to keep close at hand during the day, like my waterproofs and snacks.
There aren’t a million little compartments, and I realised I didn’t miss them. The main compartment has a long zip on the one side that fully opens it, but I personally never used it, as I tend to pack all my gear in the order in which I’ll need to unload them once I am done hiking for the day.
The two side pockets are absolutely enormous, with easily enough room for two water bottles in each, or other large bits of gear. I’ve used them to carry tripods, my cook set, and even managed to cram my Hilleberg Soulo in one of them once. Adjustable webbing straps above the pockets allow you to secure longer length items so that they stay put.
The hip belt pockets are a reasonable size; big enough to stash a small first aid kit, lip balm, maybe some snacks, a GPS unit, etc. And the removable top lid pocket has plenty of space for things like tent stakes, my toiletries kit, and other bits and bobs. Some hikers do opt to remove this lid entirely to save weight, but personally I always kept it on.
While the pack is stated as having 60L of storage, in reality I found it held more. It also had a water bottle clip and port, which I generally always used, and two ice axe loops for securing axes or trekking poles.
Some minor complaints would be that nowhere on the pack was there any kind of little key clip for securing keys or other small items to, which is an unusual oversight in my opinion, and I also would have liked an easier way to lash items to the outside (eg some additional webbing straps or loops either on the back or underside of the pack). But these are relatively small niggles on an otherwise great pack, and I was able to lash my closed cell foam mat to the pack’s front closure straps.
All in all, I’ve greatly enjoyed using the Blaze on trips all around the UK. The large size was particularly useful in winter when I am typically carrying heavier, bulkier gear, and the pack handled these loads really well. At the time I bought it, I paid in the region of £300 for it, which definitely put it into a premium price bracket, but for the build quality and comfort, I personally think it was worth it.
I wrote a post outlining my winter gear load out with this pack that might be of interest too.
