Do Raide Research packs live up to the hype?

Having spent 15 years in product development myself, I’d always dreamed of building my own “Super Pack” for skiing. Kyle Siegel, a mechanical engineer with experience at SpaceX and The North Face, beat me to the punch by launching ultralight backcountry pack company Raide Research out of Carbondale, Colorado last year.

The Raide story goes like many startup outdoor brands’. Siegel didn’t see the touring pack he wanted on the market, so he built the pack himself. He spent a season iterating then took his final prototype to a factory in Vietnam that makes packs for Osprey, BCA, and Mammut and launched for the 2023-2024 ski season with a handful of ski-town retailers and via the Raide website.  He describes the launch year as, “dipping our toe in the water to determine if we had a viable company” and as of the end of February, Raide had sold through 97% of their inventory. At the time of publishing this review, only the smaller size of the black colorway of their lone pack was still available online.

That debut pack, the LF-40, narrowly caught my attention via an email back in October. A few clicks and one short video later, I was pre-ordering the most expensive backpack I’d ever purchased. I patiently waited until mid-December for it to arrive, and have been putting it through the paces in my work as a ski guide and on recreational tours all season.

Specs

The Raide Research LF-40 ski pack is without a doubt a direct competitor to the ultralight ski pack products from Hyperlite Mountain Gear. It sports Dyneema fabric construction, clean, minimalist design, a svelte weight of 1090 grams (strippable to 900g), and a hefty $399 price tag. It’s a 40L volume pack, as the name suggests, but can cleverly expand to 50L via a roll top when needed. The most comparable pack from Hyperlite is the 40-liter Cruz which costs $100 more than the LF-40 and weighs about 150 grams more as well.

Siegel told me he had a very specific weight limit of 1100 grams in designing the pack. “That was the target all along and that ended up being incredibly challenging with all the features I also wanted to be incorporated into the pack,” Siegel said. “I sat at the foam supplier weighing different shoulder strap constructions for an entire day just to save 5g per shoulder strap. It is really easy to make a light pack, but very hard to make a light pack that doesn’t sacrifice on comfort. durability, organization and style.”

Initial Impressions

I’ve gone through a lot of ski packs in the last 5 years, but most recently, I’d been skiing with a BCA Stash 40. The BCA pack was my favorite pack from a functionality standpoint, but was heavy (1642 grams) looked enormous on my back, and felt particularly unstable while skiing.

I like a ski pack to be clean and simple but still have enough features for easy organization. Mandatory for me are two zippered pockets for small items, a waist belt pocket for snacks, a dedicated safety tools compartment, and a helmet-carrying system that can quickly be tucked away when not in use. Raide’s pack checks all those boxes, plus a few extras, which made it an easy sell for me.

When I moved all my gear into the LF-40, the tangible weight difference was striking. I’d dropped about a pound and a half from my BCA pack, but it felt like a lot more. It’s a wider design than other packs I’ve owned, which keeps mass closer to your body for less swing weight, and also makes the pack visually smaller. It certainly feels like a 40L pack from a storage standpoint, but looks and carries more like a 30L pack. I often have trouble believing I am carrying all the same stuff in what looks and feels like a much smaller package.

In the Field

I’ve skied with the Raide LF-40 for about forty days this season. My overall impression of the pack is positive – it’s very comfortable to carry and feels glued to my back when skiing. It’s been put through the ringer riding on the back of snowmobiles, sitting on the floor of a yurt, and bushwhacking through dense forest without sustaining any visible damage.

Initially, I had mixed feelings about the roll-top access.  After some experimentation, I’ve found a use strategy that I really like. I rarely open the roll-top and treat the pack like it has two separate compartments. Less-used items like my first aid kit, repair kit, spare gloves, etc. live inside the main zippered back panel. Frequent use items like my water, puffy, hat, glasses, etc. are kept above the roll top, inside the top drawstring pouch. Other than on heavy storm days, this seems to work nicely without too much snow intrusion into the top of the pack.

One of the “extra” features that sold me on Raide was the external pocket, which I use for stashing my skins. This was a feature I loved on The North Face Snomad and something other companies should take note of. Stuffing snowy skins inside your pack or jacket is not a good solution to a problem every backcountry skier has.

The helmet carry flap is something that appears to have been borrowed from the Snomad pack as well. It’s a little trickier to use than other helmet-carry systems, and does interfere with access to the top of the pack, but I love how clean it is from a design standpoint. I’ve taken to clipping my helmet strap to the pack with a carabiner, so when I do need to access the top compartment, my helmet is still secure.

 

Despite being a minimalist pack, the Raide LF-40 is littered with numerous well thought-out small features. The left-hand shoulder strap has a unique glove carry system that’s easy to use and keeps snow out way better than clipping them to a gear loop. Both shoulder straps include small sewn-in loops in the perfect position for attaching accessories like radios or a camera bag. The foam in the back zippered panel is removable for weight savings or for use as a seat, splint, or whatever you can dream up.

 

Room For Improvement

Despite my overall positive experience with this pack, I have some critiques. First off, the metal waist strap buckle can be frustrating. It’s far more durable that your standard plastic clip (the only reason I haven’t changed it) but it’s too small to easily use with gloves on. Black Diamond packs use a similar buckle, but it’s much larger and easier to handle. The plastic clips used on the sternum strap and helmet flap are super easy to use with gloves on, but they’re proprietary parts that are permanently sewn into the webbing. When one of these (inevitably) breaks, what could be a simple 5-minute field repair is now a major sewing project.

As a ski guide, I take my shovel, probe, and snow saw out more than most. The avalanche tool pocket on the LF-40 is just a partition of the main pack compartment with its own dedicated zipper access. It’s a weird design that I don’t completely understand.  Getting gear out is not a problem, which is quite important, but getting things back inside, particularly the shovel blade, is a pain. I’d love to see this become a completely separate pocket, even if that meant the pack gained a few grams.

Lastly, the waist belt pocket is way too small. It’s a good size for items like a multitool, skin wax, and hand warmers, but I would love it to fit a full day’s worth of snacks, which it does not. After a little searching, I found a guy on Etsy who makes backpack pocket add-ons. I bought the large-size utility belt pocket which has some sewn-on elastic webbing and slides nicely over the waistbelt. I secured the pocket to a small loop on the pack with some cord and it’s proven to be a great fit for all my food. Plus, it matches the pack’s aesthetic perfectly.

 

Conclusion

I am rarely an early adopter when it comes to new gear or technology. When it comes to the Raide Research LF-40, I took a gamble on a pricier startup brand’s product and so far I’m happy that I did. It’s the only pack I’ve found that has almost all the must-have features I look for in a backcountry pack and delivers noticeable weight savings while doing it. I look forward to seeing how the pack holds up to the abuse of long days and sharp objects during spring ski mountaineering season.

{Editor’s Note: Siegel said he’s planning to expand the Raide offerings to five products for the 2024-2025 season, including more pack options, apparel, and an accessory. We’ll try to get our hands on them for testing as soon as they’re available and share our impressions here.}