Wearing a pack without a hip belt


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Dan S

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Is there a general consensus on the proper way to wear a pack that doesnt have a hip belt? For example, should the shoulder straps be tightened up enough that the pack rides high on the upper back? Should they be loosened to allow it to rest in your lower back above your butt?

I never thought to question if my pack fit/posture with my beltless daypacks was incorrect.
 
Really depends on how much weight you're carrying, how well its displaced in the pack, does the pack have any kind of frame or stiffiner.

If its like a regular school pack, with no frame, no structure and you're carry 20lbs+ for any extended amount of time, and you don't have the weight dispersed inside the bag 'correctly', then you're going to be wrecked no matter what, especially your shoulders.

If the pack has some kind of structure (frame of inserted sheet/stiffiner), and you have the weight displaced 'correctly', going with 20lbs+, then as tight as you can get the straps, holding the pack close and high, and have a sternum strap buckled and tight, you'll do better, but your shoulders will still be wrecked.

Hop belt transfers the weight onto your hips and off your shoulders. Without it, no matter what you do with shoulder straps, your shoulders still carry all the weight.

And your current physical condition plays a role in this too. If you're already fat and out shape, you'll probably die after 2 miles or so. If you have back/neck issues, you'll want to die after about 500meters. If you're in decent shape, and youngish, then none of it really matters concerning the straps.
 
Dan S said:
Is there a general consensus on the proper way to wear a pack that doesnt have a hip belt? For example, should the shoulder straps be tightened up enough that the pack rides high on the upper back? Should they be loosened to allow it to rest in your lower back above your butt?

I never thought to question if my pack fit/posture with my beltless daypacks was incorrect.
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I think it depends on the person. I did most of my hiking as a kid without a pack frame and when I did get an aluminum pack frame it had no waste belt.
I liked to keep the load high as in the sleeping bag on highest point on top of the pack (and that was a military feather filled mummy bag at between 6-7 pounds) which is easy to do with a pack frame that goes above your shoulders.

With just a canvas pack I used to make a kind of a cardboard box for the inside of it so it was not saggy.
Without the frame I usually tried to form the sleeping bag into a horseshoe shoe as the marines did. On the hike back that cardboard was often gone used up to light fires.

Unknow scouts/hikers. Most tend to like the high load, but the one guy has the horseshoe.

Also notice in the picture the pack straps are unpadded. If you have a thick wool coat or the one that appears to be a leather one the coat acts as the padding.

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In the old days the sleeping bags were the heavier part of the load. But now that I am thinking about it I believe it was said back at that time to keep the heavier stuff near your back, so it has less leverage for the weights to pull/bend you to the rear.

Not shown in the picture some people used to tie their sleeping bags on the bottom especially if they had a frame as shown. Noice that the frame did not come with a waist belt.
When I had a similar frame, I put the sleeping bag on top.

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The other type of common pack frame was as below. It was too short for a waist belt and some people crammed the sleeping bag at the bottom between the frame and the pack.
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Just for reference when waist belts started becoming common, they were not the nice, padded ones.

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So, a lot of hiking and perhaps some sufferings have been done without the waist belt on a pack.
 
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This is off subject but one of the adults in your scout troop used a basket with the head strap. I made a head strap for my pack but not as elaborate as the one in the picture and very quickly got a sore neck and never tried it again. But it does pull the load forward and relieves some stress on your shoulders.

It is like those cultures that carry loads on their heads. You need to get used to it as normal.

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A Union Army Surgeon during the Civil War noticed that the body carries weight on the pelvis and then down the legs and that the issue-rucksack interferred with breathing caused debilitating backpain . The soldiers' solution was to role some of the issue gear in the blacket and poncho, and carry the "blanket role" diagonally across the chest, which was hot on loong marches, especialy in Summer - and toss the other gear. He proposed diagonal wooden struts to transfer the weight of the rucksack outer corners to a wide, canvas cartridge belt. The Army, which rejected repeating rilfles, rejetced his suggestion. He let the patent expire, and the load-bearing belt, much improved since, was rediscovered by Kelty the better part of a century later. Although every Surgeon General since the Civil War had crriticized the rucksack as debilitating, the Amry took decades after wide-spread adoption by the civilian market to finally adopt the principle for G.I.s, well after Vietnam. Weight carried high in an obsolete rucksack, allows you to lean forard in an effort to get the weight over your center, rather than bending your spine back. That works only some but does not help materially with the restiction of breathing. from the straps trying to bend your shoulders back in a bow. It also interferes with the ability to "keep a lookout."
 
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Interesting insights here.

I am in my early thirties with a strong upper body, I'm not so much concerned with sore shoulders as I am with causing damage to my back.

I absolutely prefer a hip belt with packs that are big enough to have a hip bet line up with my hips, but for smaller daypacks (Like my Rush 12) I'm trying to figure out the best way to carry it frequently to minimize potential back issues.
 
My go-to day pack is a pack basket I made from bamboo; I carry it fairly high, and it's sized to fit my back.

I've been known to add a tumpline, as @300Dman shows, or even just carry a smaller haversack tumpline-style. It definitely takes practice to carry much weight that way. I try to set the length to the point where, by tipping my head forward, I can shift about half the weight off the shoulder straps.
 
It all depends on the design of the pack and the amount of weight I am carrying. I don't use a belt with my day packs. And the belt on these packs is more of a strap, than anything. Typically the weight will range between 10 and 20 lbs. On my backpacks I use for multiday trips, they have a load bearing hip belt designed to carry much of the weight on my hips. My load out weight averages 30 to 40 lbs on these trips.
 
Generally speaking, a sternum strap is more important to me than a hip belt. I like the pack high on my back with both shoulder straps and the sternum strap tight. I find that this takes the weight off my shoulders and spreads it across my entire chest. Hip belts are largely uncomfortable to me and they are not worth using for function. Most the time if I buckle a hip belt its just to keep the ends from dangling and hitting me as I hike.
 
Generally high and tight keeps the weight closer to your back and more stable. Also loads more evenly on your shoulders in my experience. More pressure on the front rather than all on the tops of your shoulders.

I very rarely use a pack with a hip belt anymore. But I still like a waist strap on my overnight+ pack. Then you can take advantage of pulling the bottom of your pack into the small of your back. I feel like hip belts might work better if I can ditch the dad bod. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test that theory some time.

When I was a kid it was cool to wear straps loose and let the pack ride low. It was also cool to use a single strap. Neither is a great idea for the woods in my experience.
 
Dan S said:
Interesting insights here.

I am in my early thirties with a strong upper body, I'm not so much concerned with sore shoulders as I am with causing damage to my back.

I absolutely prefer a hip belt with packs that are big enough to have a hip bet line up with my hips, but for smaller daypacks (Like my Rush 12) I'm trying to figure out the best way to carry it frequently to minimize potential back issues.
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I think you would have to mount whatever sized pack you have to a frame that goes down to the hip belt.

I have tried the diagonal blanket roll and it promotes sweating under it.

Someone in another thread spoke of chest packs.

I tried the chest pack thing or the diagonal over the shoulder thing, and I used the left and right WWI BAR bandoleers on my hips to carry the rest of the stuff in. I wore the bandoleers as if they were belts. So, the weight of them was on my hips.
I was attempting to minimize the weight on the shoulders.

The BAR bandoleers turned out to be a bit of a pain as there was not enough room in them. If you pulled one item unless it was on top, you needed to pull other items out to get at it.

That was before I was in the Army in 1970 and became familiar with the butt pack which I bought some of after I got out of the service.


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I have been experimenting with straps.... I hardly ever wear the hip belt but leave it on in case I want to...But strap connection location is everything, in load adjustment.....using Load bearing suspenders to move location around....amazing changing the weight around.
 
mtb4g said:
Generally speaking, a sternum strap is more important to me than a hip belt. I like the pack high on my back with both shoulder straps and the sternum strap tight.
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The same here, especially on my smaller 24/36 hour style packs. No hip belt but my pack does have a waist belt that I like to keep just tight enough to be able to expand my abdominal muscles for stabilization. I often pair this type of pack with a 'sling' bag and the waist belt can keep the bag from flopping around or move it to the front of my body if in crowded areas.
 
Mjolnir said:
The same here, especially on my smaller 24/36 hour style packs. No hip belt but my pack does have a waist belt that I like to keep just tight enough to be able to expand my abdominal muscles for stabilization. I often pair this type of pack with a 'sling' bag and the waist belt can keep the bag from flopping around or move it to the front of my body if in crowded areas.
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When you pair your backpack with a sling bag, do you carry your sling bag in front or some other way?
 
buckfynn said:
When you pair your backpack with a sling bag, do you carry your sling bag in front or some other way?
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Generally slightly forward of my hip. In the pic I have 2 bottles of Dasani in the small bag. Sometimes I will slide the pistol and holster off of my 'big' belt and carry it in the bag on my right side if I'm carrying a long gun. I'm a very ambidexterous 'Lefty.'
I like to keep it more to the front if I have money, identification, electronics, pistol, etc. in it. I have a larger bag that carries cross-shoulder but I dislike having too much around my neck.
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Mjolnir said:
Generally slightly forward of my hip. In the pic I have 2 bottles of Dasani in the small bag. Sometimes I will slide the pistol and holster off of my 'big' belt and carry it in the bag on my right side if I'm carrying a long gun. I'm a very ambidexterous 'Lefty.'
I like to keep it more to the front if I have money, identification, electronics, pistol, etc. in it. I have a larger bag that carries cross-shoulder but I dislike having too much around my neck.
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Thanks! Interesting, it is the first time I have seen a sling bag used this way.

I have worn a sling bag in front while wearing a backpack. It kind of half arse works for me.
 
Just talking 'day' loads here, using a run of the mill JanSport leather bottomed day pack, the quintessential Book Bag. No Hip Belt.

Don't wear the pack like kids carrying theirs, with the straps all the way out. Cinch them shoulder straps up! If you can't get the pack off because it's too tight, loosen them up, then take the pack off. Easy peasy.

Pack your load tight. Don't let it swim and sway around inside. Roll or stuff sack your load as necessary. Don't pack the bag to max cap, where the seams and zippers are stretched to the limit and screaming at the top of their lungs.

Consolidate your load if at all possible. Leave out what you don't need. Take only what you need. (That's always a hard one...)

Just my 2¢ here. YMMV. Objects in Mirror may be closer than Illustrated. Greedo and Han shot at the same time. Han got lucky. :)
 
Waist belts revolutionized hiking. It's interesting to see how they evolved, from the first examples with nothing much more than a canvas strap, to thick, padded, elaborate, contoured multi-adjustment affairs. For carrying any sort of serious loads for any distance it is the only way to fly. Nobody would hike the CDT or AT or weeklong trips except the hardcases.

"Backpacking" would have never become a thing without them. Maybe that's bad, I dunno.
 
Who just has ONE pack. If it’s too big, or too heavy that it rides in the lower lumbar, it should have a waist belt. I use one without a waist belt, for day trips. hunts, tree stand hunts, for the avoidance of conflict while packing a sidearm. But for overnight, 2 or 3 night bivy trips, my larger pack’s waist belt has additional belt for attaching holster.
 
Ioway said:
Waist belts revolutionized hiking. It's interesting to see how they evolved, from the first examples with nothing much more than a canvas strap, to thick, padded, elaborate, contoured multi-adjustment affairs. For carrying any sort of serious loads for any distance it is the only way to fly. Nobody would hike the CDT or AT or weeklong trips except the hardcases.

"Backpacking" would have never become a thing without them. Maybe that's bad, I dunno.
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I agree completely. I started out with a Norwegian Bergans ruck. With any kind of a load over distance it was the definition of abject misery. There's probably some lesser corner of hell where people are carrying these things into eternity, but I digress. Along about the mid '70s I picked up a Kelty external frame pack with a hip belt, which put much of the load on the illiac crest of the hips. Had it not been for that I very likely would have given up on the whole endeavor. Further developments in pack suspension have made things even better. My question would be, given the option why wouldn't one use a hip belt?
 
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