I’ve had this Kifaru Echo for nearly a year now, having picked it up back in August of 2023. And while I immediately loved this bag, I didn’t use it a ton, and so it sat around waiting for Texas hikes which never happened. But when I moved to Colorado, I knew this bag was going to get used a lot for hiking.
And after putting this bag through the paces on the trails, in the mountains and woods — I can confidently say that this is the best outdoors backpack I’ve used.
Materials & Capacity
This is a 21.3L bag, but it has an 8.19L expansion, which gives you a total volume of 29.5L if wanted. The expansion is all or nothing.
The bag is made from a 500D Cordura shell, with a VX21S Xpac lining inside the bag, giving it a lot more water resistance, without it being waterproof in any way (the sides of the bag, including the top, are not lined with VX21S). There’s stretch tweave as well on the front stash pocket and side water bottle pockets.
Everything on this bag is overbuilt and meant to carry a lot of load, and a lot of gear. There’s no MOLLE webbing on this, but there’s loads of spots to attach gear to the bag.
You can get, and use, this bag three ways: no framesheet, framesheet, or framesheet with an aluminum stay. You have to buy those extra, but to buy the framesheet and stay is only a $25 extra charge, so it’s best to buy them all.
The bag weighs under 3lbs when empty, without the framesheet and stay.
Both water bottle pockets are sized to fit 32oz Nalgene bottles. It’s compatible with the ‘Sherman Pocket’ Kifaru sells, and has dual water bladder hose ports. There’s no laptop sleeve, or any tech niceties in this. The bag opens about 2/3 of the way down the side, dropping slightly into the water bottle pockets. The front outer pocket is deceptively large as well.
The build quality is exceptional, among the best I’ve seen.
In Use
I tested this bag three ways: rucking with 20lbs; living out of it by using it as gear storage during my move; and day hiking around Boulder. In all three, the end result was me being more convinced that this is among the best backpacks out there.
The first thing I noticed with this bag is how exceptionally comfortable it is to wear. The straps and proportions of this bag really nail the comfort and fit. Dropping a 20lbs steel weight plate into the bag, and stuffing it full of pool towels to keep it in place — I rucked this 6 miles without the framesheet in it, and had no issues. It wasn’t the most comfortable bag I have rucked with, but it’s in the top three.
Switching over to the trail, this bag is a gem. It stays planted right on your back, and allows you a lot of easy movement, without your bag flopping about. The 500D leaves no worries of damage when you need to squeeze between branches, scramble up some rocks, or put your bag down to get to something at the bottom of it. It’s exceedingly comfortable when hiking, and this shows through when you realized that you hiked 11 miles with it over two days, and never once adjusted the straps mid-hike. I don’t know that’s ever happened to me.
When considering the framesheet options, here’s how I think about it:
- No Framesheet: this makes the bag as light as it can be, while allowing the bag to hug your body more easily. You will get some lumps against your back if the items in the bag aren’t packed meticulously. If all you are carrying is a couple water bottles, a warm layer, and a first aid kit — this is the setup for you.
- Framesheet: adding in the framesheet effectively allows you to no longer worry about meticulous packing, as you can stuff the bag full without needing to worry about lumps against your back. It adds minimal weight, and is likely how most people will want to setup the bag. If you think you might want to use the expansion on the bag, then you’ll want the framesheet to help distribute the load better.
- Framesheet with Stay: the stay is a single bit of aluminum which goes into the framesheet first. Adding this creates a rigid bag. The benefit now is that the weight distribution across your back is top notch. This is my preferred setup, even though it’s heavier it carries really well.
With or without the framesheet, this bag will stand on its own.
The shoulder straps are well articulated and placed, and the padding is fantastic on them. The adjustments are easy and there’s a general lack of fiddliness to get the bag setup for comfort.
The only issue with comfort on this bag is back sweat. The bag does try and help avoid it, but there’s no avoiding it — your back will get sweaty. The bag does dissipate it quickly when you take it off, but it is what it is.
The way this bag is designed you have some pockets, but not to many:
- Front Stash: across the front of the pack is a stretch tweave material which works as a stash pocket to stuff any thing you want into. It’s well sized, and easy to get to. The bag comes with shock cord across the face, to add another layer where you might want to secure something wet like a rain jacket, or anything oddly shaped.
- Side Bottle Pockets: these both easily and securely hold a classic Nalgene, no issues with them coming out. They lay somewhat flat when not in use as well. With narrower bottles the design doesn’t hold those as tightly, so a 20oz bottle might slip out if the bag is set down flat on the ground.
- Top Quick Access: this is a very large pocket, which you would not expect, and while the zipper is not Aquagaurd, it’s fully VX21S on the inside, so you can have some reasonable sense of rain proofing with anything you put in here. I keep gloves, Kleenex, monocular, and lip balm in this pocket.
- Chamber Pocket: There’s a removable pocket which hangs at the top of the bag inside. It is VX21S, with a single zipper. This is a really nice pocket to utilize for items you want to keep handy. It can flip up and out of the way as well or be removed.
- Inner Lower Mesh: against the front of the bag is a spacer mesh pocket with a large zipper across the top. It’s a nice size, and has some volume to it.
- Bladder Sleeve: the bladder sleeve is also where the framesheet goes, and it’s cut high to the bag with volume of its own.
I’m generally quite happy with the pocket setup, it’s smartly done without any downsides if you never want to use a single pocket offered.
The bag has several points where you can attach things to it. At the top and bottom of the bag are two nice grab handles. These are comfortable and well placed — making the bag easy to carry and move around when you are not wearing it. The bottom has two rows of daisy chain webbing, for more attachment points. The hip belt is a standard 1” webbing belt, which is completely removable if you prefer (how I use the bag), giving you another couple attachment points by the bottom of the straps.
Just below the bladder hose exits are two webbing bits for attachment. One at the center top face of the bag, and another at the bottom center face. There’s no compression straps built into the bag, but you could easily add some if you wanted or needed them.
Expanding the bag is a simple single zipper along the edge of the back panel. When expanded the bag creates a triangular shape, where the top does not get any deeper, but the bottom adds almost 3” of depth. Becuase of this, the expansion will work for some uses, but not all, and if done while hiking to store some warmer layers, you might need to repack the bag to take full advantage of the added space.
As mentioned, it’s compatible with Kifaru’s Sherman pocket, which I own, but have yet to test. I’ll follow up on this later.
In my use, this bag never got in my way or distracted me because it was lacking in comfort. A big feat.
Overall
I am a huge fan of this bag. The singular downside here is the colors. It comes in one right now: Ranger Green and Coyote. In the past there has been full Coyote and full Multicam variants. I really like the Ranger Green and Coyote mix, but it would be awesome to see this bag in a few more colors. Black is often requested, but personally I would love to see a brighter color variant as well. Perhaps Ranger Green and Blaze Orange?
Regardless, this is the best day hiking backpack I’ve ever used, and one of the best backpacks I own.
I give this my highest recommendation.
