Fjallraven Helags 40L • Perfect Bushcraft Backpack | Field Overview

Hey what's up Turtles. Crick here. Black Owl Outdoors. And today I'm going to be doing a video on this pack. This is the Fjallraven Hellogs 40 liter trekking bag. I bought this for $179.99 and it comes with a rain fly. This is the dark olive color option. The main pack is constructed out of 500D nylon and the darker bottom is 750D. Empty the pack weighs 4.4 pounds and it does have a DWR finish on the bag. So starting on the side of the bag there's two pockets. And these two pockets are a feature that really drew me to this bag. Has a buckle closure system. In addition to a storm flap with a cord lock. Really nice feature. A little extra security. And in this pocket right now I just have my 40 liter water bottle clean canteen. You can see for perspective how big this pocket really is. That's all I have in this one right now. Moving to the front of the pack. You can see I have my Kuxka hanging from a little closure, a little fastening system. And this is actually, I had this commissioned by Kara Dow Rustic Works. Go check out her work if you're not familiar with her. Does really really beautiful woodworking. And basically this is just some hook and loop with a little pull tab right here. It's a nice little feature to help you get a little bit quicker. And it has some reflective material on it. Underneath that you just have a little bit of webbing if you will that keeps this strap in place which just helps secure the top pocket or brain of the pack. This can be used for trekking poles, anything like that to secure it to the bag. There's two. There's one I'm messing with right now and then one on the other side of the bag. It also features this front pocket that my hand's running along right now. YKK zippers on this whole bag. I really like these single finger pull, these zipper pulls. Makes it really really easy and convenient to open up and close pockets. But this is just a small little slip stash style pocket and in here I just have a notebook. Carry this notebook with me a lot. I really like this style of moleskin. And this pocket's really good for small thin items. You can even put some really thin layers in here, rainwear or anything like that. But here's the front pocket. As I mentioned before. Here is the second little closure system. And then over here again is the same pocket, same size, same style. And inside this one, I'll show you what I have. First off I have my fixed blade knife, a Bako and a sheath. This is about 40-45 feet maybe of a number 36 Bankline and Harmonica. Put all this back in. So another cool feature about this bag and why I was really drawn to it is the ability to push stuff behind this pocket. And right here there's a little compression strap that I have help securing this axe head a little bit nicer. And this is about 16-17 maybe inch handle on this just for some size comparison. It's really nice to store items like this or anything else you can use your imagination for. Just a really, really cool feature. Again one of the features that drew me to this pack was this slide behind feature on this. Moving to the back of the bag. This is a trekking style bag meaning it's meant to hold weight for long distances and be comfortable. So what you see here, it's all black right here and you sort of have these almost topo lines raised to help keep the pack a little bit off you and promote a little bit of air flow. And you have this channel here doing the same thing and there's a stay, there's a single stay in this. This is an internal frame pack. And you have a nice big lumbar contact point right here which really helps keep the weight on your lower back and makes the pack comfortable to carry for long distances. In between the shoulder straps you see this grab handle right here which is basically a piece of nylon doubled on itself and then this looks like just some rubberized material. On top of each shoulder strap you have these right here which my fingers are playing with. This is known as like a load stabilizer or load lifter straps and this really helps when you have weight on your back with the pack. This will help get it more securely to your body and make it a little bit more comfortable and you can adjust for different size bodies because this is a one size bag. Running down the shoulder straps here which have this S sort of shaped to them, you see the sternum strap and that runs on a rail. It's adjustable. Do it on this side. You can see I slide this up and down, it's adjustable on both sides. Pretty common features on trekking, hiking, backpacks, that style, backpacking packs. And the shoulder straps themselves are very comfortable. This is probably a little bit proud of a half inch. Nice thick, not too squishy, offers some structure but nonetheless very comfortable and has some actual structure to the straps themselves. You can tell it's meant and it does carry weight very well. Moving down to the waist belt, you can see in relation to my hand how really thick or wide this really is. Again just really shows you this pack is meant to be comfortable and hold weight really well. You can stir these if you need to. Rotating on the side, each side of the waist belt has a pocket with a covered zipper track and when I get in this, this pocket here, what I have is a piece of trash I picked up from the forest floor and this is Altoids tin for some size comparison. I wouldn't put too much in these because you don't want to make this pocket full of gear because this needs to bend around your body. And then on the side here, part of the load stabilizing system you can see attached to the waist belt and the pack. You have this black nylon that my hand is behind right now. Pull this tight, open it up a little bit for comfort to really adjust the pack to your body. I'll show you the other one as well. Same thing on this side. Again these really single finger zipper pulls are really convenient and really, really user friendly. And on this side I just have a small little cliff bar, little snack. I really like these pockets on this hip belt. I've had a few packs with pockets on the hip belts and they always felt like they were too small. They weren't quite sized right enough to get anything useful in them but I don't feel that way with this pack. And then the closure system for the waist belt is plastic buckle which has a lot of tension in that. It takes a little bit of force to get it in which I like. And then with this, you sort of have the strap or the webbing, it kind of comes through and threads to give you some mechanical advantage and changes this so when you get it on your body you're cinching this up to you. And this will all make more sense and I'll give you a better image of that when I get the pack on and show you how I go through it. But I really, really, really like the way this is designed and I have a few other packs like this. It really makes it easy when the pack's on you to take off tension or tighten up a little bit with minimal effort. So that's the really, really nice comfortable waist belt. Moving to the bottom of the pack, it's a nice feature and again another one of the features that drew me to this bag is my hands underneath some webbing right here. This allows you to attach a blanket, your shelter system depending, whatever you can attach it to right here and as I rotate the pack up you'll see there's two little loops right here that help if you're going to put some trekking poles or ice axes or anything in this just to help secure that in the pack for moving around or the outside of the pack. I have a carabiner just holding them together right now. Normally they just hang like this. But getting back to the bottom strap system, there's two buckles here. I can undo that. I can even slide something right here and there's a lot more play, more length in this system but right now I just have it bunched up in this convenient little sort of cord keeper. It's just elastic that goes around the bunch or the hank. Really nice feature. A really nice feature to have this on the bottom of the pack. Moving to the top of the pack, this is an actual separate little lid or brain I like to call it of the pack and there's two pockets in here. The front of it, I'm tracing it with right now. You can't see the zipper track but I'll turn it around. Has a single zipper or single finger pull again, covered zipper track. And this is the rain cover that comes with it. This is what they're calling UN Blue, the color. You can see the little Fjallraven logo, little arctic fox right there. Have that up top there should the weather turn. And this is just some small first aid medical type stuff. Have that handy as well. And inside this pocket, you can see the sheen to this material. Not sure exactly what it is but definitely is meant to offer some more water protection to the main compartment of the contents inside of this to help in case this gets soaked. But if you have a rain fly, that shouldn't happen. Nice little feature. I think I might make a stuff sack for this rain fly. Now get into the brain of the pack or before I do that, I want to point out there's these little anchor points right here. There's four of them up top here. Just these small little pieces of nylon sewn in here. And you can thread some elastic, some shock cord or any type of cord and that way you can store a wet garment or anything up top here. Just want to point that out. But to get into the second pocket of this lid, unbuckle this one, unbuckle this one and this opens up. You can see right here is a little bit of a Fjallraven talking about their mission statement and the pack itself. But there's a zipper right here that opens this pocket and inside there I just have a little organizer with small items, some sharpening stuff, just some small items that I don't want floating around in bigger pockets conveniently up top here. And on this lid itself you can see there's an elastic type stretch so that way I can, if I have this really loaded up top here, I can stretch this around it but if there's not that much in there it gets smaller. If there's not too much, you can see I don't have this pack full but this way it's expandable for different load sizes that you have in the pack. So on top of the main compartment you have again this little buckle strap system which isn't really being utilized right now because I do not have this pack full but you can imagine if this was opened up more you can open this up, pull this and it can help you secure what's in here. You can even put a layer underneath this, anything like that. There's a little bit of redundancy which I really like to get into this main compartment because it is a top loading bag. Sort of two storm flaps. You can see how much more I could really put in here. I'm at my hands only about right here. Again you sort of have this finish on this top storm flap, excuse me, help with some weather protection. And what I have inside the bag is a warmer layer, sort of shirt jacket, flannel style, used as a pillow or an extra layer if I need it. I have my cook system, there's a cook pot and some other small cooking and doodads inside here. Right now I just have one freeze dried meal from Mountain House, chili mac and beef. It's actually pretty good. Haven't done a video on this flavor yet but I will. Underneath that I have a sleeping bag. This is a Lafuma, did a video on this, excuse me, the X950 Pro. And I use this bag, you know, it says ready to 30 degrees but this is more of a late spring, summer, early fall type bag for me. Synthetic bag, really important because I'm in the east. A lot of moisture, synthetics really help. And the last thing I have down here is my whole sleeping system slash hanging out system. So this is, I have a hammock in here, a bug net, a tarp and straps. All conveniently stuffed inside this bag. And there's one more feature on the inside of this pack, right here is another small zipper pocket. Inside that I just have my sewing kit. Again, this is a nice little pocket, this way if you have small items you can get to it without getting it inside a bag, just another small little place to put valuables or anything like that. Nice little feature. But there is no designated place for a hydration reservoir or bladder in this bag. One of the few, not gripes, but features I would have liked to see but it is definitely not a deal breaker for me. And this zipper pocket just opened, opens up into the frame. There's a single stay in here, got a little bit more structure up here, and then you have this sort of molded plastic as the frame as well. I'm going to get this on and show you the order of events, how I put this on to get it comfortable to stabilize the load. So there is a correct order of events and it really depends on the pack, but generally speaking when you're going to be backpacking or carrying a lot of weight with these types of features in or on the bag, you really want to go through it methodically and consistently each time because you can have variability as you stabilize the pack that sometimes one time will be comfortable, second time it might not feel the same. But how I do it is, first of all, I want to get all the weight off my shoulders and I want to get the weight and the waist belt right on my hips where I want it because this is what carries the weight. That's why there's large waist belts there, it's to help carry the weight, get it off your shoulders, it's very comfortable and it just makes sense anatomically for us to carry weight on our hips. So once I feel I've got the weight where I want it, it's comfortable, again you can see me really cinching down on this, it's really easy, my hands are close and I'm pulling in towards it instead of pulling out, it's really easy, it's really comfortable, that's the hip belt. So after that I want to feel where the weight is, get my hips where I'm going to actually be using them when I'm walking, tighten up the shoulder straps a little bit, I don't want any weight on them, I just want them to secure as I move. I'm going to go at the top here with these, pull these just slightly at first just to feel where the weight is moving, that feels comfortable, I'm going to go down to the hip belt and do that just a little bit. Really comfortable, really comfortable. So that's the order of events and you can also do the sternum strap, I particularly don't use it, don't use these, but you can. And that's again just to help keep the pack from shifting side to side as you're walking. I chose this pack because for me it's exactly the styling and comfort that I've been looking for in packs. It has that mix between the tactical with a little bit heavier nylon, the 500D and 750D on the bottom. It's got the really cool classic look of the more European or old rucksack look with modern features of a backpacking suspension system. So that's a perfect, for me, like a symphony in concert that I want to see on packs. Now this is $180 for a 40 liter pack, but in my mind it's well worth it. I was replacing an old Kelty Redwing, that's why I was looking for a pack this size, and you can see what I have in the pack, in the space I have, adding more food, I could be out for days with this pack and still be able to carry this comfortably for miles or kilometers. So that's why I chose this pack and the color. I just really like subdued and more earth tone colors, backpacking style, technical bags, really brightly colored, for good reason, for high contrast and getting into dangerous situations in the backcountry, it can be used as signaling, but personally, I just want something subdued, I'd rather blend in. With that being said, I really, really like this pack. I haven't been this excited for a piece of gear in a long time. Let me know your thoughts and impressions, leave a comment if you have any more questions about this pack, let me know, I'm really curious to hear what you have to say about this. Remember, this video will be up on BlackIsleOutdoors.com, remember to check us out on all the other social media outlets we're putting up, all the photographs we're putting up, all that stuff. This is Crick signing out with Black Isle Outdoors. Later Turtles!