Ron Moak of Six Moon Designs has announced his newest SUL pack, called the FEATHER. Designed to be part of his own personal SUL gear set, it will be available to the rest of us next year.

You can see it here: http://www.sixmoondesigns.com/smdnews/125-feather-first-look.html

and, no, I don't work for SMD, but I do have a fair amount of SMD gear. Personally, I'm waiting for the announcement of the revised, larger Lunar Solo E. That should come later this week.

Edited by wandering_bob on 12/12/2011 16:52:39 MST.

It looks awesome. I just purchased a swift and its HUGE and this looks to be the right size. Do they have an estimated price? If it costs around $100 I probably would buy one.
-Conner

Like I don't own enough SMD gear already!

Something that caught my eye.
I think the shoulder straps are mixed up, either by mistake or misknowledge (?!). They should go away from your neck, in towards the chest and then out towards the lower attachment.
In the picture on the site its the opposite. They go in towards your neck, out from your chest and then in, away from the lower attachment.

Nice! So good to see ongoing development and improvement.

I love my SMD Swift '10 and would gladly buy a smaller version. What bothers me about the feather is two things:

1.)Can you get water bottles out of the pockets with the pack on? I can do that with my Swift, Mariposia Plus, and Conduit, but I can't do it easily with my MLD packs, the pockets go up too high, and from the pics the Feather looks like it has similarly high pockets.

2.) I like a hipbelt with pockets, and the add on wing belt adds 4.5 ounces for a medium. This makes the pack 15.5 ounces, which isn't terrible, but my Swift '10 with the sewn on hipbelt weighs 16.65 ounces after some minor trimming. It seems like it would be a lot lighter more durable, and simpler with a sewn on belt.

I like the nice clean design of the pack it will though out. The only thing is SMD should use triglides to attach the optional hip belt instead of slick clips.
Terry

You can get SMD to permanently attach the hip belt for a small customization fee.

Daniel,

I'm not sure but it may be an "optical illusion" in that the pack main bag may be short. So a lot of the upper strap wraps around your shoulders and upper back, which would place the outward curve around the neck. SMD is known for well thought out packs so I'm thinking that's the case. However, if it's not, you're right that that could be a serious concern and source of soreness.

I hope so. Either than that, I think it's nice to see SMD developing stuff. I live in europe so I don't have any hands on experience with the US cottage brands. I find it strange that, even though SMD seems to make good quality stuff, it doesn't get as much attention as, say MLD, GG et al..
Made myself a modified meteor bivy last month and I really think it's a neat design for 3 season use!

I own a SMD Skyscape Trekker and couldn't be happier with the design and build quality. I'm really excited about this pack. SMD makes great stuff IMHO and their packs are affordable compared to a few of the others.

I had been looking at the Swift, and with Ron's sale going on now, it's awfully tempting, but I wanted something smaller than the 60L I have now, the Feather seems made to order.

Unless the price turns out to be a lot higher than I'd expect, I'll be ordering one as soon as they're available, it'll be the first frameless pack I buy for myself (my wife has a Jam).

Terry - >I like the nice clean design of the pack it will though out. The only thing is SMD should use triglides to attach the optional hip belt instead of slick clips.<

We will be offering an alternative clip to connect the hip belts to the Swift and Feather pack. It should solve the issue a few people have found with the current clip. It is slightly heavier per piece.

Daniel > I'm not sure but it may be an "optical illusion" in that the pack main bag may be short. So a lot of the upper strap wraps around your shoulders and upper back, which would place the outward curve around the neck. SMD is known for well thought out packs so I'm thinking that's the case. However, if it's not, you're right that that could be a serious concern and source of soreness. <

That's a good catch. It's the last prototype we made before sending it off to production. We caught the error before we started on production. The shoulder straps will be reversed and will fit much nicer.

Ron

Edited by rmoak on 12/20/2011 08:53:11 MST.