Wonderland Trail Gear-trospective: Backpack

I bought a Jam 2 almost 3 years ago. It is pretty close to my perfect pack. It has stretchy side pockets that hold a 1 liter water bottle in easy reach. I can shrink it down to a 20 liter day pack with the compression strap system. It'll carry 50 liters of gear easy; it feels large for the size rating. It weighs almost nothing - one pound 10 ounces for the large model. And when my first one (2008 model) started fraying a little, GoLite replaced my pack under warranty with the new 2010 model. The new model was a little heavier but had waist belt pockets. These pockets let me carry almost all my snack food for the day in easy reach without having to dip into the main bag at all. This convenience lets me move a little faster all day long sine I don't have to stop, drop the bag, grab a snack, put the pack back on, cinch the straps and then start moving again. In short, I have loved this pack since the day I bought it.

Only one problem, it doesn't carry quite enough weight for me to be comfortable all day on a big multi-day trip. Now, I try for a very lightweight style in my backpacking and climbing. I carry less and lighter stuff but I still stay in the bounds of safety and the conditions which I expect to encounter. The problem comes from the fact that some of my camping gear comes from my pre-"lighter is better" days. And I'd have to replace a lot of gear to get really, really light.

Some examples:

-I have a headlamp that weighs 3 oz. I can buy a 0.9 oz headlamp that would be perfectly adequate for backpacking. It won't work for my alpine adventures. So then I'd have to own two pieces of gear. Duplicate gear bugs me. I hate spending money twice. So I'll keep the heavier headlamp.

-My sleeping pad weighs a lot. I have an older Thermarest Trail. It weighs almost 2 pounds all by itself. Now, I've spent the last year and a half sleeping on a closed cell foam pad that was virtually free and only weighs 9 oz. The problem is that I sleep very very poorly on this foam pad. So I switched back to the Thermarest pad and I sleep much better. So that adds 1.5 pounds to my pack weight.

I could give more examples, but I want to stay focused on the backpack. Since I'm not going to go out and replace all my gear, I'm at a pretty stable pack weight of 20-ish pounds (sans food but with 1 liter of water). My total pack weight for Wonderland pushed 30 pounds when I had all my food loaded up. Now GoLite only rates the pack for a max of 25 pounds with a recommended max carry of 20 pounds. My shoulders can testify to the weight limit. Days 3 and 4 on Wonderland gave me really sore shoulders by the end of the day's march. So while I love the features of the backpack, I am going to switch back to a slightly heavier backpack that has a frame so it can carry more weight in greater comfort.