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The most innovative backpack in this year’s backpacking gear test wasn’t from an up-and-coming cottage gear company, but from a decades-old company out of New Zealand, Aarn. Where most backpacking backpacks are fiddling around the margins of design — a little more padding in the shoulder straps here, a little more ventilation in the back panel there — the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro takes a completely different approach to the essential issues of fit, load bearing, and pack organization. While it’s not totally clear why this style backpack hasn’t caught on in the United States — it’s a relatively common sight across the ocean — some of the ideas behind this backpack are starting to catch on with ultralight backpacking companies. This is one that’s well overdue for a fresh look.
Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro
Diana Helmuth
- Capacity: 50 liters
- Unisex Torso Fit: 16 to 22 inches
- Pockets: Top zip pocket, two side stretch pockets, back mesh pocket, with two inner mesh pockets, two hip belt zip pockets, two oversize shoulder strap zip pockets with external mesh pockets
- Adjustment Points: Hip belt, shoulder straps, load lifters, adjustable back panel, two sternum straps
- Warranty: One year
Most backpacking backpacks have one overarching goal: Transfer the weight from your shoulders to your hips. Even with today’s internal-frame designs, that means a rigid structure and aggressive hip belt that locks into place on your body. Now, if you’re carrying a monstrously heavy load — such as with one of the best hunting backpacks — or have especially weak traps, this is probably a better backpack style for you. But for most backpackers, this can lead to a medley of unnecessary issues, ranging from bruised hips to tight shoulders.
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The Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro takes a different approach, distributing the weight of the pack across your entire body. This means your hips are much less restricted than with a traditional backpack. The Mountain Magic then takes this a step further by decoupling the shoulder straps from the back panel, which frees up the range of motion in your shoulders. The effect is akin to wearing a heavy coat: You feel the weight, but because it’s not concentrated on one point of your body, there aren’t any pain points and you can move freely.
There are three main differences in design that allows Aarn to pull off this magic trick: oversized shoulder strap pockets, a back panel adjustment strap, and free-moving shoulder straps that you can access while wearing the backpack.
Oversized Shoulder Strap Pockets
In recent years, capacious shoulder straps pockets have become fairly ubiquitous on the best ultralight backpacks coming out of the cottage gear world. This makes a world of sense. Shoulder straps were previously underutilized real estate; having a pocket there allows you to access gear without stopping to take your backpack off. But the Aarn shoulder straps pockets are different. Combined, they hold a whopping 7 liters of gear, similar to what the top pocket (often referred to as “the brain”) would hold on a traditional backpack.
Despite its ubiquity, there are several issues with both the placement and the utility of the top pocket. The first is that you can’t access anything in it while you are hiking — you have to stop and take it off. The second is that backpackers tend to overload it with small, dense items: satellite messengers, power banks, sunscreen, toiletries, and the like. Top-loading your backpack like this isn’t recommended, as it can affect your balance.
But putting all those small fiddly heavy items that you want easily accessible on the front shoulder straps is another matter entirely. Now the weight of that gear is counterbalancing the weight of the main compartment on the backpack. Whereas traditional backpacks significantly change your center of gravity — something anyone who has tried to rock-hop across a mountain stream can attest to — with the balance pockets it stays much closer to its natural position in your body. Further, having weight pulling down on the front backpack reduces the extent to which the shoulder straps are pulling back, noticeably reducing stress on your clavicle.
Outdoor Life tested the Balance Pockets Multi Pro, which have a zippered internal compartment, as well as a mesh pocket on the front, but Aarn has eight different variations of these pockets, including one geared specifically at fishermen.
Back Panel Adjustment
To really benefit from the balance pockets on the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro, the pack has to fit so that it’s hugging your body. To ensure that’s true for individuals across a wide range of torso lengths, Aarn takes a different approach to the order of operations for fitting a backpack.
Typically, to fit a backpacking backpack, you first start with the correct back panel length for your torso size, or adjust the back panel to the correct length, then adjust the hip belt, shoulder straps, sternum strap, and — finally — the load lifters. However, it’s surprisingly hard to get the exact right torso size on a backpack. You have to first know what your torso measurement is, which involves explaining to a friend what the iliac crest is and then hoping they get the measurement right. Then you have to find the backpack size that most closely matches that measurement. Some backpacks have adjustable back panels, but they tend to either only change in increments of one inch or use industrial-strength Velcro, which is a royal pain in the ass to get into the correct position.
The upshot is that plenty of people aren’t starting with the right torso length when they move onto step two of fitting their backpack. This throws all of the other adjustment points out of alignment. By the time they hit the final stage of adjusting the fit of their backpack, there is either too much pull from a too-tall backpack frame or too much drag from one that is too short. In both cases, cranking down on the load lifters as far as you can helps to eliminate discomfort (most backpack manufacturers recommended a 45-degree angle to optimize load-bearing). But this increases pressure at the clavicle, sternum strap, and hip belt, which will ultimately lead to other pain points.
The Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro fixes this issue neatly by making the back panel adjustment one of the final steps in fitting their pack to your body. Before you put the Mountain Magic on, you pull up on the blue cord running the length of the backpack until the shoulder straps are at the top of the frame. Then you put the backpack on, tighten the hip belt and pull on the shoulder straps. When you get to the double sternum straps, Aarn recommends criss-crossing them for maximum stability.
Then find the blue loop at the bottom of the pack that connects to the top of the frame, such that when you pull down on the backpack, it pulls the frame down until the shoulder straps are resting securely and comfortably on your shoulders. All this means that when you finally get to using the load lifters, they are functioning as load stabilizers and you won’t be tempted to overcrank them. And the best part is you don’t need to know your exact torso length to use this system.
Free-Moving Shoulder Straps
Typically, once you’ve got an internal frame backpacking backpack strapped on, your range of motion is going to be somewhat limited. Try to swivel your hips, and the pack will resist you. Try to move your shoulders up and down, and the pack will resist you. That’s partly why frameless packs have become so popular with the fastpacking set — they allow for the greater range of motion needed to run and scamper and break FKTs.
But the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro allows for a similar range of motion, while still transferring plenty of weight to your hips via metal stays in the frame. That’s because the shoulder straps aren’t stitched into the back panel. Instead, the top of the shoulder straps are attached to the back panel adjustment mechanism at the top and a nylon cord running between the bottom of the shoulder straps that’s tucked into the bottom of the back panel. When you swivel your hips, the pack moves with you. When you move your shoulders up and down, the pack is along for the ride. If you’ve been tempted by the freedom of a frameless backpack but aren’t ready to give up the hip belt, this is a really unique feature.
Testing the Aarn Magic Mountain 50 Pro in the Field
The Magic Mountain earned top marks from our testers on the second Outdoor Life backpacking gear test, with nearly perfect scores across all categories. I was particularly impressed by how easy it was to move in this backpack. I’m forever turning around while hiking to talk to the person behind me on testing trips. With the rigid frame backpacks I tested, a nagging piriformis injury would flare each time I tried to do this, but I was completely pain-free in the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro.
Other testers noted feeling similarly free: “The way the Aarn Mountain Magic moves with you makes you feel limber, solid, flexible in a way that no other pack has made me feel,” said Diana Helmuth. The only thing impeding this freedom of movement was the sheer size of the balance pockets in the front, which does limit your ability to move your arm across your body. But while this felt awkward, it didn’t actually prevent testers from doing anything they needed to do while backpacking.
The fit of the backpack was also a standout for our testing team. Interestingly, they noted that they spent less time adjusting and readjusting the backpack for fit throughout the course of the day “I found that I didn’t need to do much adjustment to these because the weight was distributed so well,” noted Patrice “Steady” La Vigne, who carried one of the heaviest loads at 36 pounds and experienced zero discomfort.
Only the tester with the shortest torso, Jac “Top Shelf” Mitchell, deducted one point for fit. She has a 16-inch torso which is right at the bottom of the suggested range for this backpack — if you have a similarly short torso it may be worth looking at the Aarn Featherlite Freedom, which comes in a smaller torso size.
Most of the testers for the Magic Mountain 50 Pro struggled to make a dent in the 7-liter capacity of the balance pockets. “With three separate compartments on each side — one mesh and two interior zippered pockets — I would be able to access just about anything quickly,” said Steady. “Some of the things I would like to have more accessible in my daily guiding would be my binoculars, wildflower field guides/books, reading glasses, sat device, bug spray, sunblock in addition to the things I usually put in my hip belt pockets like snacks.”
To really test the utility of the Aarn Magic Mountain 50 Pro’s shoulder strap pockets, I took it out for a three-day backpacking trip with my family. My kid is 5, which means she isn’t going to carry much beyond her coat, and her capacity for snacks is both limitless and essential for morale. We might have been struggling to fill up the Aarn’s shoulder strap pockets with our lightweight backpacking kits during the Outdoor Life field test, but I had no problem filling up those front pockets with goldfish crackers, extra child-sized base layers, gummy worms, sunscreen, and fruit snacks. I thought I had reached the outer limits of the pockets’ capacity until my kid asked if I could carry her stuffed dragon for her. Somehow, the Aarn Magic Mountain Pro still had space.
What the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro Does Best
Every single one of the features listed above — the shoulder strap pockets, the back panel adjustment system, and the free-moving shoulders traps — delivers on its promise. The fit is beautiful each time, the weight is comfortably distributed across your torso, and the range of motion is exceptional. This is easily the most comfortable backpack I’ve used and testers across a range of body types expressed similar sentiments. This was especially true at the range of loads most common for backpackers in the 25 to 45 pound range.
After I got used to them, I also enjoyed how accessible everything was in my front shoulder strap pockets. Because it was so different from both traditional backpacks and ultralight backpacks, I struggled some with figuring out where I had stashed something. After multiple trips, I’m starting to figure out the ideal packing system for this backpack, but it’s going to take more time.
What the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro Does Worst
Easily the biggest strike against the Aarn Mountain Magic 50 Pro is that the balance pockets look weird. My sense is that in its native New Zealand — where the Aarn is significantly more popular — this pack doesn’t warrant a second glance. But in the US, wearing this backpack made me oddly self-conscious. Several members of our backpacking gear testing team stated they would not use the balance pockets because of this aesthetic issue.
The other problem with the balance pockets is that they make it difficult to put on the backpack because, fully loaded, they weigh down the shoulder straps, narrowing the gap that you have to shimmy your arm through.
While testing, I noticed that because the adjustable back panel can move around quite easily; to get the best fit (as opposed to a pretty good fit, which our testers were plenty impressed by) you have to readjust the pack from scratch each time. Some testers responded to these two issues by simply not taking the pack off at breaks, including when relieving themselves, and found that the pack’s flexibility made this a viable option.
Finally, the Aarn has a fairly limited warranty, covering defects in manufacturing for only a single year.
Final Thoughts
After testing the Magic Mountain 50 Pro, I’m surprised that Aarn doesn’t have a bigger following in the United States. Their approach to design has significant benefits, particularly for individuals accustomed to carrying substantial loads and whose physical frames don’t pair well with more conventional backpacks.
Interestingly, you can see some of the driving ideas behind the Aarn backpack system starting to creep their way into the mainstream via the cottage backpacking gear brands. Where shoulder strap pockets were still fairly unusual 10 years ago, they’re now a common sight among ultralight backpackers — and in many cases they’re also bigger than they used to be. Similarly, the rise in popularity of frameless ultralight backpacks has showcased the benefits of freeing up your hips. Aarn’s unique (and in this gear tester’s view, better) approach to fit, however, is still unique to my knowledge among backpacking companies.
