Been using this pack for around 10 days now, and since I haven’t found any other good reviews of it, here are my impressions for those considering to buy.

I have not spent any time on the backpack in “non-ABS” mode, but the included standard backpack unit looks nice enough, probably very similar to other Dakine packs.

The pack zips on to the ABS unit like any other pack, no surprises there. It has one room in front for shovel/probe, one main room and loads of small utils compartments throughout the pack. The shovel/probe compartment doest not fit my 320cm G3 probe, but the standard 240cm ones fit nicely. I’m gonna replace my probe with a shorter one anyways.

Both sides of the pack has a small room room for a bottle, my 1litre nalgene bottle fits perfectly in in here. With a bit of training it should be fairly easy to grab it without taking the backpack off.

between the main compartment and the shovel compartment there is also a small room for camera/tools etc. Be careful not to fill this up with too much stuff (gopros, sunglasses etc) because it gets in the way when getting stuff in or out of the main room. I ended up moving a lot of my bits and pieces to one of the drinking bottle compartments instead, which works perfectly but the chance of losing stuff is bigger I guess.

The pack has 2 compression straps on each side, one on top and one at the bottom. Still, this being a “classical” backpack with a regular lid, it kinda loses its shape when too empty, especially with a helmet attached to the lid.

The helmet net works as it should. I use a Sweet Trooped helmet with a visor so I ended up putting the helmet on the side to avoid the visor getting in the back of my head. The lid also has a google pocket which is fleece lined.

There is an ice axe carry, and my 53cm Grivel fits perfectly under the lid. For longer axes (or shorter ones for that matter) I couldn’t seem to find a strap to hold the axe handle, so I guess the straps for the vertical snowboard carry are designed to hold to axe handle as well. Since there is lots of room for a shovel inside the pack, there is also the option to put the ice axe in the shovel handle holder on the side of the pack. As long as the axe has a fairly straight handle this should work well.

I really like the diagonal carry option. I find that most times I need to bootpack something I’m already in ski-mode so it doesn’t make sense to transition to snowboard-mode before putting the board on my backpack. The Altitudes diagonal ski carry has a lower strap made of plastic coated wire, and feels very solid. The top one hides in a room below the lid and is long enough to fit any kind of board (I presume). The steel wire makes it possible to rest the board on the pucks instead of the bindings, which helps get the ski halves a bit up from the ground. Very helpful when it’s not too steep to avoid banging my heels on my board when bootpacking.

The vertical cary also works nicely, but I’m suspecting the straps will eventually wear out if you use them a lot – just standard webbing. When not in use, the straps hide in small pockets which is really nice.

All in all I like this pack a lot. It has a ton of features and it’s probably the best 40L option for the ABS system out there right now. If I were to buy an ABS pack right now I would just skip the ABS rooms altogether and get the Altitude 40L for splitboarding and the Arva 18L for lift-based shredding.

Despite the steep price compared to the original ABS packs I’m really happy with this unit. It seemes to be made to stand the test of time (except for the snowboard carry straps) and has all the small details I’ve been missing. Bring on long spring splitboarding missions!