Stone Glacier Solo Pack Review

Stone Glacier Pack – Solo

Elk Hunting in Idaho’s St Joe National Forest. Believe it or not, in Idaho you don’t have to wear orange !

I had been keeping my eye on Stone Glacier since the gear guys at Pro-Lite Gear in Bozeman had raved about the strength to weight ratio of Kurt Racicot’s design.  I had been hunting out of a Mystery Ranch Crew Cab pack since 2008 and while it is built like a tank, it weighs around 8 lbs. empty. I was looking for a lighter pack option.

Using Solo as a Day Pack – check out that rub !

Intrigued, I called Kurt in the fall 2012 and asked about the pack and its features. Kurt was great and the story was compelling, but I decided to stick with the Crew Cab for the 2012 hunting season. Sometime in late 2012 or early 2013 Schnees Sporting Goods in Bozeman became the exclusive retailer for Stone Glacier Packs.Seeing is believing and when I stopped by Schnees the next summer to talk to Pete Muennich about the mountain goat tag I drew, I was excited to see the display of Stone Glacier packs. Pete loaded a Solo up with a 50 lb bag of salt and some stuffing to balance out the load. One trip around the store carrying the load in the 3 lb pack had me convinced. My Crew Cab went on Craigslist and I picked up my Solo the next week. 

My 2013 mulie with a bow. 72 pounds of cape, head and boned out meat and almost 12 miles from the trailhead.

Scouting for Mountain Goats in July with my new Solo.

Humping out Pat’s goat. Head, hide and feet plus gear. The Stone Glacier Solo carried the weight well. It was a long way out of there.

You will find a more technical review of this pack elsewhere on the internet. I am not a gear nut so I will not delve into the details of the construction of this pack. I love to hunt and I find the best gear to get me in and out of the steep stuff in Montana. If you are wondering how this pack holds up for the long haul and carries weight, then keep reading.

Before I purchased the Solo I read the few reviews I could find on the internet regarding Kurt’s relatively new design. There was criticism regarding the durability of the fabric, especially on the bottom of the pack. Concern that it would abrade after being set down repeatedly on rough surfaces. There was some skepticism about the belt system and its comfort when hauling heavy weight. Lack of pockets. Solid gray color and no camo option. And while there were a lot of positive comments, most were by readers intrigued with the weight and overall look but few comments yet by actual users of the system. Stone Glacier’s packs do not have the benefit yet of years of experience in the broader market to give potential buyers a lot of comfort in the pack’s ability to perform.  This is after all not a cheap pack and the price will give many buyers pause before committing to a new design.

So how did it do ? Between July and December 2013 I carried the pack for 58 days backpacking,  scouting or hunting.

In addition to hauling gear in and out of the backcountry the pack hauled out two mountain goats, a mule deer buck, and two antelope. The two goats were multi hour hauls weighing around 65 and 100 lbs. Both antelope were shot 4 miles from camp on the same day; sixteen miles total.  One load included an entire buck antelope, spotting scope and rifle for around 80 lbs. The second load was just the antelope. Finally, the trek out with the mule deer started at 11:00 AM and ended at almost 6 PM. Back home we weighed the pack at 72 lbs and I figured I had humped that load out for almost 12 miles.

What impressed me was that the pack’s webbing and stitching held up with no issue even as I slung the pack around by its straps under weight while taking it on and off my back, putting in on horses and throwing it into the back of my truck.

Regarding the durability of the pack bag itself, the Solo was set down literally hundreds of times while packed with weight, bounced around in the back of my truck on rutted roads, caught on pine stobs, and rolled down scree slopes. Other than some light chafing on the top side edge where my rifle rests when slung, the Solo shows no wear at all to the Cordura bag.

The Solo does not come with a lot of pockets or compartments. I purchased the separate accessory pocket for the back of the bag that I used all season. That and the inside map pocket were adequate for small items. I also used ultralight stuff stacks to help with separation of gear inside the bag. There were times when I was digging around for stuff but that was usually due to me being lazy and tossing things into the main bag compartment and not putting them in their proper place. All in all, the lack of compartments and pockets was not an issue for me and well worth the light weight of the pack.

Trying to find my nephew a good mulie in the Breaks. Conner passed up several young bucks but we never had a chance at a big one.

The pack utilizes a load shelf for carrying large loads between the pack frame and the bag. It works extremely well. The only issue I had was when carrying out several game bags full of boned out mule deer meat. The individual bags had a tendency to settle to the bottom of the load shelf and squeeze out between the straps that cinch the pack bag down to the frame. I had a lot of random gear in the bag itself and the mulie head and cape strapped on the outside. Packed that way I couldn’t get the side straps cinched down as tight as required.  So I stopped at camp on the way out and repacked the meat into a single heavier game bag.  The rest of the way out I had no more problems with the meat squeezing out. Later I would find that packing entire quarters was not an issue either.  The load shelf and bag work great together. You just need to know how to use the system. The Stone Glacier Solo pack met or exceeded all of my expectations in comfort, durability and design. I highly recommend it.

Good day in Idaho. Day packing with the Solo.

Where are all of the antelope? Hunting Wyoming with Solo loaded with spotting scope and gear.

6 PM, getting dark and miles from the horses. One of those kind of days. The Stone Glacier Solo carried the entire goat; head, hide and boned out meat. The pack carried the weight better than I carried the pack ! I was wiped out after a couple of hours and Dan had to take over.