Come Nordic skating with gear analyst Miles Knotek up in Alaska ⛸️ Interested in learning more about winter gear? Head to our website via the 🔗 in our bio. | CleverHiker

This edition of our Backpacking gear guide shakes things up with a completely re-written and re-tested process for 2025. For the first time, we split off our ultralight packs into a separate guide for Ultralight Backpacks – leaving more room in this guide to dig into lightweight, midweight, and heavyweight backpacks for multiday trips. Gear analyst Taylor Passofaro stuffed these backpacks to their weight capacities, carrying each one on Minnesota trails to test its comfort, features, durability,