3400 Porter

In January of 2020 I did a 100k ultramarathon ski race in Alaska pulling a huge gear sled. This was a training run for a race in Norway that requires pulling a fully loaded sled. It was super tough but all the extra gear made going quick basically impossible. I finished the race with an hour to spare before the 48 hour cut-off time. This winter with Covid making travel basically impossible and the Norway race and the Alsaka race cancelled, I looked into some other options. The Drift 100 mile race came up and I signed up. The problem was that this race required the same 48 hour finish but with the added distance of 100miles (rather than 100k). It also included 7k feet of total elevation gain and loss (rather than on a the flat Susitna & Yentna river beds). I knew I would need to change it up for this race and go as fast and light as possible. Unfortunately, the race required a list of gear that was quite extensive.

I really wanted to try and get my gear into a backpack rather than a sled. I looked at a ton of options and finally settled on the Hyperlite 3400 porter. It did not disappoint. I was able to fit my -10 degree down bag, 4 season bivy, air mattress pad, 2x 1L insulated water bottles, a down puffy, a shell jacket, a stove, pot, fuel canister, and quite a bit more random gear with lots of room to spare. I decided to get a large and a small pod to keep all of my random little things organized (food, batteries, spare headlamps, extra socks, etc. The system worked out so…