The WALLPINIST 65L Dyneema Haul Bag!

This is the most insane thing I have ever made. Big shout out to Sam Boyce who helped in the design and forcing me to be creative and get to work on it. No corners were cut, 99% of all fabric or webbing is Dyneema or UHMWPE. The body is all Challenge Ultra 800 laminated Sailcloth, the blue is 2.92oz hybrid composite, and all the webbing is Venom or 1” Dyneema from Sailrite. It weighs an insane 1lb 10oz, and packs down to 6”x6”x12”. There’s even a piece of 0.50 oz Dyneema for the foam pad holder.

The haul loops are sewn short so you can roll the top down to make it a 45-50L pack It also features gear loops on the hip belt, removable Ice Axe loops, and all the straps are fully removable! NO GIRTH HITCHING! WOOT! Almost forgot to mention that the main seam is edgebound, and then I topstitched another piece of the Venom webbing on top!

There is a flash sale until midnight tonight for $100 off the Wallpinist 65L on my website. Current shipping time is Oct.15th. 

Kyle

High Mountain Gear

To those who said my stuff looks “homemade”, eat your heart out. 

Super dope! How do you like the Ultra 800? As burly as they say?

very cool. Saw one of these in the wild on el cap this year!  neat to see them available, great work. 

The Challenge Sailcloth Ultra800TX is awesome shit!  
it’s amazing how light and durable it is! 

Pack looks great man!   

This looks awesome!!

This looks sick! Crazy light considering the alternatives. Any warranty on these at all? I checked the website but didn’t notice any guarantee?

Have they been heavily wall tested?

I can vouch for the materials durability.   Ultra800TX is an amazing material.  It’s unbelievably abrasion resistant and insanely light weight and packable.  Plus it’s recycled and eco friendly!!!  

Tyler S wrote:

This looks sick! Crazy light considering the alternatives. Any warranty on these at all? I checked the website but didn’t notice any guarantee?

Have they been heavily wall tested?

I literally finished the first bag this morning. A lengthy session of packing and unpacking with sleeping bags to fill it up was about it. 

The warranty is this: if it breaks from my negligence OR yours(within reason, I push my gear beyond what it’s supposed to do all the time). I will repair it free of charge or for a nominal fee if it’s ridiculous. I correct obvious errors or alterations to early versions for free, within reason.  The original goal of my business was to keep outdoor equipment in service through repairs, and it drives me nuts when manufacturers outsource their manufacturing and make these ridiculous designs that are economically irreparable. Any person with a sewing machine and moderate skill should be able to work on this haul bag. 

My products are made in a way that makes sense, and generally does not require too much effort to fix, alter, or replace parts or products. That and all those repairs helped me see where stuff breaks. 

I have never had any catastrophic failure of any product sold to date. That being said, this is not something you want to find out about. All seams and construction have been done to spec or beyond other cottage manufacturer’s capabilities. Redundancy is built into the bag all over the place, perhaps it is hard to see all the Venom webbing on top of the black Ultra 800.

This is the Bugatti of wall-specific haul bags. Do not haul car batteries or jagged rocks with it for practice, please. Haul bags are literally designed to be destroyed instead of your stuff, but don’t intentionally make it happen.

Kyle

Looks amazing.

Gorgeous. I’m looking for a cragging pack but unfortunately that’s a bit out of my price range though it seems

Not to be rude but this pack is really not meant to be a cragging pack… it’s made from really high quality expensive material designed to be super light weight but also durable. 

Is this pack meant as a direct competition to G7s new packs or do you feel like it’s a different niche? 

Alex Guzman wrote:

Not to be rude but this pack is really not meant to be a cragging pack… it’s made from really high quality expensive material designed to be super light weight but also durable. 

Is this pack meant as a direct competition to G7s new packs or do you feel like it’s a different niche? 

I don’t think it’s direct competition, but like other products I make there is overlap.  G7 packs are backpacks. They are an option for anyone that has two legs and goes outside. The G7 pack does everything, and anything that does everything generally will not do the absolute best at anything. It will make a ton of people happy and fulfill their needs.

Thinking about it, a great combo would be a G7 pack and a Wallpinist. You start climbing and put you G7 in the Wallpinist.

I don’t know man, I just make stuff in my garage that Sam says is a good idea. 

That rig looks sweet! 

High Mountain Gear wrote:

To those who said my stuff looks “homemade”, eat your heart out. 

I love your homemade stuff. Any chance this pack will ever make a comeback?

Greg Steele wrote:

I love your homemade stuff. Any chance this pack will ever make a comeback?

Just came back on the market for the new year! It can be picked up in person at our new storefront in Tacoma, WA. 

https://highmtngear.com/products/65l-wallpinist-haul-bag?variant=50771349405970

It now comes with 4 removable ski straps and 4 velcro straps for ixe ace attachments, and entirely made with the upgraded 800/200TX fabric for increased durability. I am happy with the construction and design now and for our staff to manufacture these at scale.

The 45L Wallpinist is out now as well. This is a nice pack size for actually climbing with at 1lb 15oz. I changed the velcro straps for the ice tool loops to accommodate gloved hands and either going through the clipping point of the ice tool, or completely around it(fiancé has Morphos, needed to go all the way around them). Improved the design of the load lifters, I am pretty happy with them being removable, but still locked with these locking buckles. There's an option on the site for 20% off if you preorder 8 weeks in advance so we can batch orders. If you order it without the discount it ships in 1 week.

So obviously this is not the intended purpose, but how do you think one of these bags would look after climbing a route on the "left side" of El Cap? Assuming the bag was well packed everyday, how do you think it would hold up compared to a "normal" haul bag or one of the G7 haul packs that might exist some day.

Bug Boy wrote:

So obviously this is not the intended purpose, but how do you think one of these bags would look after climbing a route on the "left side" of El Cap? Assuming the bag was well packed everyday, how do you think it would hold up compared to a "normal" haul bag or one of the G7 haul packs that might exist some day.

The difference is, the Wallpinist exists, is actually a haul bag, and is assembled in the USA.
I have seen 800 Ultra Haul bags used quite a bit, and for some reason I think I am expecting it to explode and it doesn't. We hauled one up Mt. Wilson in RR, which I would think is worse and as the main bag.

The downside to heavy(normal) haulbags is the fabric is stiff, so it creates its own wear points, which is an advantage for our bag. Soft bags with relatively strong exteriors are going to be fine, unless you're the person that give the minitraxion "what for" when the bag is stuck on a lip. Should you use this bag on el cap? Sure, I mean I designed the bag to be for All Along The Watchtower, routes that mean a lot to you or me kind of thing. I have believed the bag was disposable in a way, but after seeing several still in use with slightly less durable fabric I do feel really good about them.

I did a 3000 ft drag test behind my car with a Metolius and Wallpinist 45L haul bags filled with ~50 lbs of dirt.

 

Take aways were that weakness in the bottom edge of Metolius wore out at stiff points(common failure of stiff haul bags) mainly the bottom which is a concern for losing your stuff. Wallpinist lost a shoulder strap attachment point(not surprised, webbing reinforcement is thin) but this was only after the last bit of the drag. Zero loss of sewn components. Couple tabs worn through but dyneema loops completely unscathed. 

Had an asymmetric drag on Wallpinist first run, which blew a hole in the fabric over the foam panel. Took a few runs to open it up. This is the result after fixing the drag offset:

Overall quite pleased with Wallpinist 800TX Ultra Fabric. 

Awesome tests on the two bags! I am very pleased with all the Ultra fabric I use, and it is a game changer for the future. Even with the current price difference from standard “tech” fabric. All the attributes of Ultra fabrics make it outstanding in all aspects, especially for the weight to durability ratio. 

Hovhannes 'Johnny' Karagozian wrote:

Awesome tests on the two bags! I am very pleased with all the Ultra fabric I use, and it is a game changer for the future. Even with the current price difference from standard “tech” fabric. All the attributes of Ultra fabrics make it outstanding in all aspects, especially for the weight to durability ratio. 

I think the largest benefit of a haul bag made from Ultra is how it deflects vs. standard haulbags which will catch the top lip on nearly everything. When a bag catches on a feature, it exaggerates the hard points of the top edge making it more stuck. Other benefit of 800TX is the completely white interior, so you aren’t digging in daylight with a headlamp. I have never enjoyed the single large haul bag and found multiple smaller bags to be more convenient to separate day use/bivy/extra water.

On my ascent of the Nose using Taco portaledges, we used 3 stubbies (2xA5 1xMetolius) it was nice to not have a giant behemoth pulled up to the belay. I think the starting load weight hauling up the fixed line for 4 days was 140 lbs.

On a route I have been developing, I have been using Wallpinists and had yet to cause any rockfall or get any hang ups on the low angle first pitch. The top and bottom are a lot easier to “torpedo”.  First time using a BD haulbag it caught on all kinds of small/large features because of the stiff upper rim, ripping off features which resulted in my getting hit by a rock.

Hauling bags does tend to yield strange wear points, mainly from the path of haul and also variability of packing the bags/protection(foam insert). I liked the packed dirt since it eliminated most of those variables. I am unsure of how “patch-able” Ultra would be using tape-shoe goo, but a speedy stitcher would be fine.

I made an A5 portaledge bed made completely with Ultra 200X and avoided using scuffs anywhere. Harness is all UHMWPE. Infinitely more durable than Dyneema, but still little abrasion points next to tubes on sharp rocks. I think that Ultra 100 with the weight moved the 800TX scuffs would be better. 800 is SO much more durable than 200.

at 9lb 2oz, the dyneema webbing harness, changing out the quicklinks for amsteel, and a Dyneema/Ultra fly I think the mythical standard of 10.5lbs for a double is feasible but would be around $4k.