Review: Osprey Mutant 38 liter Back Pack

Testing conditions

I tested the Osprey Mutant during a 4 day trip to Riksgränsen Sweden. I used the pack during a splitboarding tour into the backcountry and also during a day of inbound boarding.

Review

After having used and tested the Osprey Daylite back pack I was looking forward to being able to use the Mutant. Looking at a day of splitboarding and having to carry crampons, skins and trekking poles besides food water, extra clothing, food and camera equipement, the 38L that the Mutant offers was a welcome upgrade from the Daylite which has only 15L.

The Mutant is a backpack specifically developed and designed for alpine territory and especially for climbing. Most notiecable as far as that is concerned, are the integrated ski/climbing helmet storage, integrated gear loops on the hilpbelt to which you can attach carabiners for example, and the Dual ToolLock™ for ice axe attachment. You can also strap your ski’s to the side of the pack when skitouring in terrain that is just to steep to skin up.

Foto.007I didn’t get the opportunity to test the belt loops (though I did hang my GoPro on it’s pole from it on numerous occasions) and the ice axe system, as we didn’t do any ice climbing, but I did use the helmet storage quite a lot. To start with that, the idea is really good. But I could just fit in my helmet, which isn’t that big. The elastic fabric which you pull over the helmet and fix in place with a buckle just made it. I do have to say the helmet was fixed securely in place, and I carried it that way on the plane and through customs. Unfortunately I scraped the top along a wall; the fabric tore rather quickly leaving a small hole. So when the fabric is stretched taught, it is fragile.

Foto.010But it does work really well. There’s no helmet dangling losely from your back pack and free’s up a lot of space inside the pack. And it does pack a lot. What I ran into when packing is that if the side straps, which you can use to trim the pack when nog fully loaded, are not lose, the point where they meet the buckle of the top lid can get too tight to acces the back pack easily. Loosening the trimming straps took more than I had expected. So it took some getting used to.

 

Foto.009The second day I used the pack half packed. I could really trim down the pack by detaching the top lid from the back pack. There’s a seperate lid the “FlapJacket™” that you can lock down with the same buckles that you use when the top lid is attached. Furthermore I could shorten the side compression straps so that the back pack feels small and tight to your back. It did leave some long straps flying in the wind, but they didn’t bother me. I could have tucked them away, and I guess depending on the activity it is advisable to do so for safety reasons.

Al together this means you can really strip the pack of features and bring down the weight of it, if necessary. Osprey boasts that even in the stripped down version using the FlapJacket™, the pack is still completely weatherproof. We didn’t experience rain, only snow so we haven’t been able to really test that out.

What I always like about Osprey is the way they enable smart integration of hydration systems. Inside the pack there is a sleeve for the reservoir of the system, and to the side of the pack there is a opening in the pack through which you can fit the tube of the system that guide’s along perfectly to the shoulder straps. In colder conditions the water in the tube, exposed to the cold, will freeze. So it is wiser to actually keep the tune packed away in the pack itself.

These straps themselves are quite comfortable and worked really well. It is part of a shoulder harness set-up which is die-cut and to minimize weight and maximize ventilation. I haven’t used the pack in particularly warm conditions, but I do believe this would really work well. At times mesh back panels can be a problem in snow conditions because it can hold on to snow a bit much, but with the Mutant I didn’t run into that particular problem.

The back pack rides comfortably enough on your back, but what did bother me was that if the chest strap was not buckled, the shoulder strap would slide off quite quickly. Maybe it’s a matter of adjusting all your straps or maybe I should try to bulk up and have broader shoulders, 😉 but, it was something that bothered me. And the same issue I found with the Osprey Daylite I mentioned earlier.

Pro’s

  • Versatility
  • Feature rich
  • Integration of Hydration pack
  • Well constructed
  • Ability to trim the back pack

Con’s

  • Shoulder straps slide without chest strap being buckled
  • When back pack is trimmed, straps are quite long
  • Mesh helmet cover fragile

Retail price: € 120,-

I would recommend this product to my friends.

Review overzicht

Overall
Ease of use
Versatility
Comfort
Material use / construction
Bang for your Buck

Samenvatting

The Osprey Mutant is a good pack. You can really make it fit what you're doing, trimming it down in size and weight if necessary, or conversely, packing more gear (like climbing ropes) underneath the adjustable and removable lid.
Mark Stokmans
Mark Stokmans
Since I can remember I have been very active in many different sports: started with baseball, tennis and riding later hockey, football, running and aikido. In addition, since twelve years old I've been into actionports: at first windsurfing, later climbing, inline skating, snowboarding, mountain biking. With the first action cams coming onto the market I've been making action sports videos. Furthermore, I've worked in the sports industry since 1990, sports marketing, media and live TV and until the end of 2016 at the Dutch Olympic Committee. Besides being partner in GearLimits I work as a digital freelancer. Based in the Netherlands, Married with Children (11 and 13 years old)

4 REACTIES

  1. Is there a particular reason you want to wear the pack with the chest strap unbuckled? Uncomfortable fit? Obstruction of chest pocket zipper of your jacket?

    • Hi Marc, good question. There is no particular reason to wear it unbuckled. And in those cases the fit and wear is well comfortable. However sometimes it remained unbuckled, and then the effect was very noticeable. So if you do prefer wearing the backpack a bit looser, it will effect the wear. Or if you find yourself wanting to access the backback often (as I do using camera equipement during trips) and just sometimes forget to buckle it, you notice it as well. It is not a very serious issue, because buckling the chest strap is quite easy, but you can argue that the shoulder harness should stay in place even without the buckle; if for some reason for example the buckle on the chest straps breaks, you are in trouble.

  2. Hi Mark, I have the 38L version of this pack and have yet to find a decent way to attach a solid snowboard. Have you come up with anything or do you only use the A-frame carry?

    • Hi Cole, thanks for the question. I don’t think there is a good way (at least provided by the back pack as it is) to attach a snowboard. I did use it during splitboarding but I believe it’s not specifically defined for splitboarding or ski touring and misses that feature.

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The Osprey Mutant is a good pack. You can really make it fit what you're doing, trimming it down in size and weight if necessary, or conversely, packing more gear (like climbing ropes) underneath the adjustable and removable lid.Review: Osprey Mutant 38 liter Back Pack