That's a neat idea--IIRC, there's a gent here on LFPF who does precisely that: I remember that he's out in Colorado, shoots a lot of tele, but sadly can't remember his screen name. (Perhaps I should pay more attention to those AARP missives that have started to flood my mailbox...) I think that approach would work best when you know you're going to be on-trail and/or traversing open country: Drew W.'s old school external frames haven't been bettered in terms of load carriage--it's always better to keep the load centered over your hips if possible. The problem I'd have in my AO would be load stability--since you've got a significant amount of weight above the pack stays, you'd probably have to reef-down on the top compression straps a bit more than you'd like.
At any rate, you can't cheat physics--the current, modern internal frames that basically hang the load over space have their own issues!
Bookmarks