Granite Gear Uberlight Stuff Sacks
Granite Gear -- the inventor of the waterproof stuff sack for backpacking -- is making history again with the release of the Uberlight CTF3 stuff sacks. A quite insanely lightweight, waterproof, roll down stuff sack. Made out of cuben fiber (sail cloth material) the tensile strength is three times that of regular ol' silnylon. When rolled up with sir inside, it nearly floats in the air it's so lightweight. With sizes ranging from 7 liters to 18 liters, the weights range from a whopping 15 to 21 GRAMS -- that's less than 3/4th an ounce for the largest size.
In theory, these guys are perfect. However, for a thru hiker they are simply not durable enough. While the tensile strength is super strong, that means that if you try to pull it apart with even pressure, it would be extremely difficult. However, what it doesn't mean, is it's abrasion resistant. Constantly packing things in it with zipped, cables, or anything with sharp edges will tear it apart. While this is a bummer, the good thing about cuben fiber is duct tape sticks to it very well -- so its easy to patch.
Our stuff sacks made it about two months before they started getting holes in them. For the average backpacker, that's more than enough to warrant purchasing them, seeing as those two months was nearly 1,000 miles. After that, the begin to get holes, and the fibers start coming apart at the top. While we are bummed they didn't work out, they were replaced with Granite Gears eVent stuff -- by far the best stuff sack I have ever used. More on that on posts to come!
-- Ian