Cotopaxi Elqui 24 — Quick Thoughts

I’m a big fan of Cotopaxi’s coloring on their gear, and during an in-store event I snagged one if the most basic bags they sell, the Elqui 24. This is a daypack which has been designed to be minimal and lightweight. It’s quite a nice bag, offered at a staggeringly low price point.

I could see a lot of people liking this bag.

Materials & Specs

There is not a lot to this bag. It’s 100% nylon for the shell, and 100% ripstop polyester for the lining. As the name implies it is rated at 24L, which comes in the form of 19″ x 11″ x 8.5″. There’s effectively no structure to this bag, so it’s a little amorphous and will certainly look smaller than the rated size suggests most of time.

It’s nicely made, and nothing really stands out on that front.

In Use

Generally speaking, this is a pretty solid daypack. It has some really nice touches, but the big thing with this bag is the overall value proposition. For $100 you get a nicely sized daypack, very lightweight, and something that still remains comfortable when fully packed out.

Some thoughts after taking this on a few hikes:

There’s a surprising amount of room in this bag. Looking at it, I would guess it’s closer to 18/20L, but it does hold enough that I am not surprised by the 24L designation. That’s a good trick.

The compression system on the side of this bag is clever. A simple cord is fixed at two points, with a compression lock which has a hook, that then hooks to the front of the bag. This setup allows you to release the hook and instantly release the tension, without having to feed the cord through the compression lock. You can then hook it back without having to fine tune the adjustment.

The compression cord also feeds through a sleeve at the top of the water bottle pocket, so as you compress the bag, you are also cinching closed the top of the water bottle pocket. This works well in practice, and helps to secure a bottle in the pockets.

The opening on the bag is quirky to say the least. The opening extends all the way to the base on one side of the bag, and stops just above the water bottle pockets on the other side (like an upside down ‘J’). It has three zipper pulls so that you can cheat your way in to different areas. The compression straps get in the way of the zippers on the long side. It’s odd, but mostly works.

The front stash pocket material is only slightly stretchy, which seems like a miss, but it is durable so that’s a win.

The shoulder straps are designed in the modern “vest strap” style with two large pockets on each strap. those pockets are good enough to hold a Garmin Inreach, but not large enough for my phone or anything else. The straps are thin, and wide. They are comfortable enough for light loads (sub-12lbs).

The back panel is nicely breathable, and padded.

The load lifters seem pointless.

All in all I am whelmed. It’s not better than most of the packs I hike with, but a lot better than others I have tried.

Overall

When you get a bag like this, where there’s nothing standout and nothing awful, you have to look at the price. For $100 this is a great value, and likely a great bag for most beginning hikers who want something light, large enough, but which won’t break the bank. It’s very solid. The only durability issues I ran into is the logo starting to peel off the side — which I take as another feature.

Buy here, $100