OSPREY Kestrel 48 BackPack REVIEW | Desert Peak Winter Hike!

Hey guys, Chris here. Today I have the Osprey Kestrel 48. That's not how you do that. It's a pretty decent pack. We're going to take a look at that. That's next. Okay guys, so we got the Kestrel 48 here. It's a really durable pack. I really like that and it's pretty light too for the size that it is. This comes in a 38, a 48, a 58, and a 68 liter pack. Comes in four different colors, blue, green, which is this one. It's almost like an army green. It just totally blends in. You can hardly see it sometimes. Orange, red, and black. And this comes in two different sizes for each of the sizes, if that makes any sense. But this is a, we have a small, medium, and a medium-large. This happens to be the medium-large and this is 2,929 cubic inches of space on the 48 medium. Weighs 3.59 pounds. Pretty decent. I really like that. I has a load range of 20 to 35 pounds that you can carry in it. And it's a little bit of a smaller pack. I'm used to a bigger pack. I have an Atmos 65. I do most of my hiking with. And this is a 48. But I think this forces you to get really serious about what you need and what you don't need to bring with you. Which is kind of cool because now you're going to have less weight to carry because you have a little bit less space if you go with something like this. But this costs $180. That's a pretty decent price for a full backpack. And like I said, it's very durable. It's made for like sandstone canyons, hiking, long distance on the trail. It can take a beating and still be really in good shape. So I appreciate that as well. But it's made to take a good beating. And it does have a lot of nice little features on it. We're going to take a look at that. Yeah, check out this green. This is just a total moss swamp camouflage army green military. But check that out. Look at the in the forest. This thing really literally disappears. I'm in sandstone today. So it stands out a little bit. But it's kind of cool. I kind of like a non conspicuous is how you say that. Look, I don't like the bright fluorescent greens and stuff. I do my Atmos 65 is fairly bright. I'm okay with it. But this is kind of cool like this. Definitely a little more camouflage. So but check out the look at the airscape back panel. Isn't that sweet? Very comfortable. Hopefully you can see that there. It's got these ridges here allows air to get up there to breathe and it's got like a trampoline. Not real thick on it, but it's but it's enough to get some airflow back there in the back panel. Again, it adjusts right up here. And I'm just going right for this back big Velcro. And they're really tough to get. But there you go. But you adjust that bugger. Look at all the look at all the adjustments you have on that 12345 adjustment levels for your torso to get your torso. And this is a key key one to get for your height and your torso size. And then the rest. Look at that. And you're done. That's it has a handle in the back there. You got to love that. Lift loaders on each of the shoulder straps, right there, as always. Some straps here for the bite valve of your hydration hose or tube. Sternum strap right here. Adjustable right there. It's firm but doable. So does have the whistle as always. And a decent hip belt on that. Look at the size of this. I don't have anything in here today. But you can see the size of it. I can see a phone electronic fitting in there. Trail bars, keys, money. It's a legit pocket. They've had problems in the past years where the pockets were a little smallish and people did not like that. You want that pocket to be decent enough to do what you need it to do. So really thick pad on that hip belt there. And very nice. I really like this. It does have the stow on the go trekking pole holder as usual right there. I always like that. That adjusts nicely. And let's just go right to the side here. Real deep mesh pocket for your, for the most case, water bottle. 32 ounce bottle right there. And and a compression strap across the bottom here like that. There we go. See that? And what's interesting is there's a zippered compartment back in here behind this. This is the side panel with the pocket. And inside here is a deep pocket on the side. This is not, oh actually, oh I'm sorry. This is an access. There's one in the other side that's just a pocket. This is a side access into the main compartment right there. I'm going to go like this. There we go. But look at that. Nice side access because this is a true top loader right here. And when you have a top loader, got my got my tent right there. I love this quarter dome one. When you have a top loader you have to pack it just perfect to get the things out that you need during your your hike for that particular day. But with the side access makes life so much easier. I really like that a lot and it's kind of hidden. So it's almost gives you a little panel loader feel because of how big that is. That is a big access. So that's really cool. Nice feature. Now on the other side they do something similar but see it's a full same zipper size but it's a separate compartment. So I got my flex light chair in there. So that's like my chair pocket. I got a designated chair pocket. How fun is that? I don't know if I could fit my tent in here. Let's see. It is a one-man tent. That's possible. It's not gonna quite fit but if I took the poles out I bet you 45 cents I could fit that in there. I could fit my tent in a side pocket. How cool is that? Because now that opens up more space in your main main pack there. So very cool. And then on the back in between all that we have a nice generous cargo outside cargo with an elastic. So it's it's the backpack material right here but then on the side check that out. Look at that. It's got the mesh with the flex whatever you call this the band here the flexible band. So it gives you that stretch right there and you can load that thing up. I really like having I've always liked the outside cargo area. It does have a little drain grommet there. Anything spills in there it's not just going to sit in there all day. At least it'll drain out. Okay so on the bottom here we got a lot of things going on. We have the ice axe loop here. We got two of them actually. Two ice axe loops for those of you that like ice axes. And they would go in the handle would come in through here and then you twist it and then you run it underneath here and it would hang down like that is from what I from what I gathered. So anyways there's two of those. Below that just below that we have two sleeping bag straps. They are removable. If you do not do not like these there's a little little buckle right here you could remove those. They're not I've tried it they're not very big. As you can see look at that it's not going to fit the the bigger sleeping pads. So you may have to put something else there if you want to use those. But they they do they are there. So below that we have the sleeping bag compartment and really heavy duty zipper on that. Look at the side look at the zipper on that. Really heavy duty teeth and the looped dual loop zipper which I really like that. There's my sleeping bag and that is the Kelty Cosmic Down 20. Gives you an idea of the size that is it's a down bag so it's got some I can compress it somewhat but that fits pretty decent inside there and this has a removable floor above the sleeping bag compartment right there. It has if you look here there's a strap and a buckle and you can just pull that out and then you can you know flap the the floor out of the way and then you can have the whole thing. Some people like to just remove that get out of the way. So below that we have the rain cover right there and this is another looped zipper a little smaller on the zipper type of zipper. You can see the contrast on the zip and the zippers are and then this is where your rain fly or rain cover I guess yeah and again it's they they have the bright the bright green they I don't know why it's always bright green. I would prefer it matched personally I would rather just have it match the the backpack but that's what it comes with. This is very generous size looks like it'll fit just fine right there there we go so so good thing to have if it's a dry day if you're in the desert it's not gonna rain yeah you got a little extra room there to put something not sure how much you can get in there maybe some maps or something some dirty clothes something like that. Okay now at the top here we have the top lid brain as people call it and this is a non-removable top lid which I'm fine with that it does have a heavy duty zipper loop zipper opening right here really good size really good size opening right there you can see that right above your head always appreciate it right there for important things on the back here it buckles down like that and so you got some straps that go like that for the for the top lid and then underneath the top lid there is a mesh zippered compartment right there good size put your important things in their keys wallet money credit cards here's a clip for keys or things that are important like that very nice but what's nice about that it's breathable and you can see what you're looking for right there it's all there and and you know it's not gonna fall out so much appreciated and below that we have the main compartment which like I already said it is a top loader so we cinch it up and or unsinch it and this has a nice compression strap right in the middle there to really take that final load and then just snug that up to get everything all nice and snug all over the place but that's that's a really important one right there and behind this let's see here we go is the behind the the airscape back panel is the hydration sleeve it's it's a it's a straight drop in so you gotta it's got plenty of room right there but you would drop it straight in here wow and that goes all the way all the way to the bottom I can feel my finger right I'm trapped it just looks like I got stuck stuck in a bear trap or something but anyways you get the idea that's your hydration location there so that's not in the main compartment I don't like my hydration reservoir to be in my main backpack with my clothes and my sleeping bag and everything else there is a clip here to hang it from so there you have it that is the Kestrel 48 really a solid durable pack $180 on Amazon and the Osprey site and I really like this it's a decent pack I'm going to give it four and a half stars out of five there's not much I really don't like about it so next I'm going to be finishing out a hike here I got a peak a sandstone peak behind me we're going to finish that out fortunately there's this little crevasse here I could crawl up through this works great all right guys very top here all right thanks for watching and as always like and subscribe and all that fun and we'll see you next time keep hiking I love it up here