Nostos

The Nostos is a frameless, roughly 40L roll-top backpack made from X-Pac. The roll-top allows the pack to expand toward its full volume when needed and compress down when you are carrying less. The main idea behind the pack is to carry weight differently than other packs. The shoulder straps are shaped and attached to the pack with a V shaped webbing configuration that allows the load to be carried through the thoracic cage, engaging the trapezius and pectoral muscles rather than relying on the shoulders and hips. It also has a stowable 1.5-inch webbing hipbelt for when you want additional support, along with large side pockets, two front pockets, and a bottom pocket for easy access while moving. The design came out of thousands of miles spent carrying backpacks, hundreds of hours learning to sew, seven prototypes, and another nine completed packs. The result is a bag that, as far as I know, carries unlike any other backpack.

• Weight: 19–21 oz

• Maximum Internal Volume: 40L

• External Pocket Volume: 10L

• Materials: X-Pac VX21, Challenge Ultra Stretch, and MIL-SPEC webbing

The Nostos is available in two sizes: 16” and 19”. As a starting point, measure the distance from your C7 vertebra to the top of your iliac crest. It is best to have a friend take this measurement for you.

• This pack is designed to be carried through the muscles of the thoracic cage. When the hipbelt webbing is worn, it is designed to on or above the iliac crest, with the hipbelt buckle over with the navel.

• The 16” and 19” sizes come from measurements of the sewing patterns. They do not precisely correspond to torso measurements. In reality, they relate more closely to the distance between the top of your shoulders and your navel.

• If your C7-to-iliac-crest measurement falls near the middle, around 17.5”, consider your overall height and body size and choose the size you feel intuitively drawn toward.

• My design will be sewn in Kingston, NY, about 20 minutes north of New Paltz, by Community Manufacturing Solutions.

• These packs will not go into production until I have enough pre-sales to meet the minimum order. Because of that, the exact delivery timeline is unknown. However, I more than anyone want to get you this bag as soon as possible. Ideally, that means by the end of the year, but it could potentially be as late as the spring hiking season. March is aptly named.

• If you buy the bag here through Squarespace, the $365 price includes the payment processing fee and shipping. If you are local, or know you are going to see me soon, I would prefer that you pay by cash or Venmo. In that case, the price is $350. If you choose this option, email me at thad@modernmountaincraft.com with your size preference and anything else you want me to know. My Venmo is @thaddaeus-welch.

• These bags will be made in both white and black. If you have a preference, please email me.

Last fall, on the endless traverse walking across space and time, I realized that I wanted to create a pack that would utilize my upper body. When I decided this, I did not know how to use a sewing machine.

Eleven months later, this pack is available.

Seven prototypes, then another nine packs later, the version you see in the pictures and can now buy arrived.

I have already made and sold a few of these, but during the production of those bags for sale, I realized that my abilities are best used in the idea and design phase. I then went on another quest to find a facility in America that would be willing to produce a small-quantity, professional industrial run of packs.

Turns out, there are about six companies in America that would even consider such a proposition. Then, as fate would have it, the only company that answered my emails was an industrial sewing manufacturer 14 miles north of New Paltz in Kingston, NY: Community Manufacturing Solutions.

I have toured their facility, met with their team, and all there is to do now is obtain enough presales to fulfill the minimum order quantity of 30 bags.

For these first 30 bags, I am selling them at cost. There is no profit, and that is the way I want it to be. This endeavor is strictly to birth this pack’s design into the world for the sake of it.

I am not sure what will happen after this production run. This may never happen again, or this could lead to something I cannot anticipate at this moment.

This project is only going to manifest into reality if there is enough interest from my network, or my network’s network. It is possible that it does not happen if there is not enough interest.

With that said, if you are interested in this project and think this pack’s design is interesting, buy one.

But the reality is, you do not need it.

If you are already a backpacker, you have a pack, and if you are just getting started, this may not be the pack for you. That is okay with me.

I simply am experimenting.

I believe in this pack design. I have spent enough time with a pack on my back to know that this design is unlike any other pack I know of.