Comments on: What’s Your Alias? Mine is the New Black Diamond “Alias” Avalung Backpack

By: Lou

Lou — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:29:16 +0000

Sorry to say, I just jury rig it each time, usually with the upsidedown loop and twist, then under one of the lid straps.

By: Thalwegseeker

Thalwegseeker — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:11:19 +0000

I can’t find a satisfactory rigging for the ice axe. Upsidedown loop and twist is still awkward and the fasteners don’t seem to be placed for good stable ride. Any hints?

By: tony

tony — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:03:45 +0000

Lou, have you published a picture of the system using the cord through the webbing tab for the diagnol carry?

By: Lou

Lou — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:57:23 +0000

Tony, BD reads this so your points are well taken. The existing axe loop does expand, sorry I didn’t mention that.

As for securing diagonal carry, just tie a small loop of 5 mil cord through the tab of webbing where the shoulder strap stabilizer attaches, then strap your skis to that. I do that on almost all my packs and it works great. Will pub a photo if I have time.

Having the straps long enough to compress over whole pack is nice, but conflicts with modern backpack fashion. This is somewhat ironic, as remember the days when packs had so much webbing flying off them they looked like a medusa head? I hated that and called it “strapomania.” Now we have the opposite.

Ah, the swinging of the fashion pendulum.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:30:51 +0000

Lou,
Please provide feedback to BD to put a diagnol carry system on this thing. Two additions would provide this:

1) A daisy chain or at least some webbing loops near the top/back of the pack to which we could secure our own straps to hold the top of the skis in a diagnol carry.

2) Have either an expandable ice axe loop or at least one big enough to put the tails of fat skis through.

3) Have compression straps that go all the way around the back of the pack, not just on the sides of the pack, to keep skis from swinging in diagnol carry mode.