Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Let's see your foliage green Kifaru packs

Hello all, I just sold my McHale pack that I had listed on this forum and one other, and will be ordering my replacement on Monday. Some people will likely think I'm nuts, but I sold the McHale to buy a Kifaru. I've had a few smaller Kifarus in the past (still own a couple), and I am impressed with their quality and comfort. Now don't get me wrong, Dan McHale builds phenomenal packs. My issue is that I'm an overpacker in a bad way, and if I have space, I'll use it. I know that my McHale could collapse small if I removed all the external pouches, etc., but that sort of defeats the purpose of buying them in the first place.

So today I checked out two Kifaru packs I'd never seen in person before. Mel showed me his Xing and his Late Season (newest version). The Late Season is specifically the pack I met up with him to look at. I fell in instant love. At 3400ci, it is just barely large enough to hold my current load-out (which I brought with me to check), without having excess space and bulk to entice me to add more. If anyone has photos of their Late Season packs, I'd love to see them.

Now to my real reason for starting this thread. You only have to do a quick google search to see that foliage green gets very little love in the Kifaru pack world. I absolutely love the color, and will be ordering mine in it. So if you've got one, let's show them off.

G2 Longhunter Guide pack:

Here is my Kifaru Timberline 2 in the Brooks Range. I do like the color and I love the pack.

Great looking packs Smokepole and Darktimber! Thanks for sharing. As near as I can figure, the T2 is kind of like a Late Season with extra pouches and slot pockets attached, is it not?

[img:center][/img]

T2 in Foilage, love the pack.

The T2 is listed as 5200 cu in. It has 2 front pockets and 2 long slot pockets. It is shown here with a Grab-it which has proven to be very useful. I also have a KU5200 which is lighter, but for me the extra weight is worth it for this pocket arrangement. I have gone from too many pockets, to no pockets (KU 5200), and now back to this compromise.

Kifaru Spike camp

The pics above were thumbnails, sorry about that. Here are the jpg images. It has a standard lid and is packed full of camp and sheep meat :-) I have a charcoal jacket hanging out of the top.

Yeah, what I meant is that the main compartment of the T2 is listed as 3,500ci, and the Late Season is 3,400ci. It was my impression that the T3 and T2 were basically the Spike Camp and Late Season bag body, with a different closure on top (and minus the bottom opening on the T3), but with pouches and slot pockets attached. The ci volume of the main pack looks identical, is the point I was making.

I'm glad for the new options that Kifaru has come out with, to suit everyone's styles. If you like MOLLE, you have the military line, if you like external pockets, the Timberline, and if you like one main bag, the classic series. I like slot pockets a lot, but zippered external pockets not so much. That's why I opted for the Late Season over the T3 or T2.

Glynn, very nice looking Spike Camp!

Kifaru's latest Gen of packs are VERY nice... I sure wish Patrick would offer a non-military/tactical color like forest green or red.

You know they used to... If you could find fluorescent orange 1000d cordura and neon blue nylon webbing, they would make your chosen pack out of it. I understand why they stopped that though, they have so much demand for their packs and gear as it is that they can hardly keep up with it. By giving a tiny percentage of their customers exactly what they want, they'd be increasing the wait times and probably cost of the vast majority of their customers. This is the reason they recently removed OD green from their color options. Although OD has a small and loyal following, it was not enough to justify it when you have the proverbial line around the block of people wanting coyote and multicam. Personally, I don't mind, since I've always thought OD was a sort of disgusting color, but I feel sorry for the people who loved it.

By the way, as far as not looking too military, that is why I like the foliage color so much. Even these pictures don't entirely do it justice. The foliage pack I saw a couple days ago had so much gray in it that it has a very noticeable bluish tint to it. It looked as close as you could get to being "tacticool", and yet would not look out of place at REI.

Flourescent Orange? Not me.

I despise camo and "tactical" colors...

Sorry, bad example for a hunting forum. I was trying to think of outlandish colors. What I should have said was "ANY color". If you could find it, they would make it.

I'm sure Patrick would make any color a guy would want.

Kifaru never did custom colors. Their hunting line of packs until the past few years came in black only. They did have Velcro on fleece panels that were reversible orange/camo.

Not custom colors per se, like you call up and tell them you want a teal backpack, but they did allow you to send them the materials in the color you wanted and they'd build it. In fact if you called them up they would even tell you the dimensions of the fabric you'd need to purchase for a given pack.

Jedi, thanks for that explanation... I'd always assumed that would be the case.

What's the point of custom if it can't be custom?

I asked for a zip top pocket added to the spike camp. They said they will not do anything custom anymore. So sorry they said we just have too much business to take any custom orders.

This was as of a month ago.

Yeah, you're right. Evidently I was clear as mud in my earlier post at the top of page 2. I was explaining what they USED to do, not what they still do. As I explained before it is no longer fiscally advantageous for them to do custom orders or colors, so they stopped doing it, just as they recently stopped doing OD green packs as well. I understand their reasoning, and although it is unfortunately I can't fault them for it. They are a good company, and I will be happy to continue buying their products. I hope that foliage green stays around for a while because I love it in packs. It's funny, my buddy and I were talking about it erlier today...I normally hate foliage green, especially on molle, vests, etc. But for some reason on a backpack it looks really sharp.

I feel the same way about coyote brown. I especially like the combination of the OD and CB mixing pockets and bags.

What is missing is somebody to modify or customise the existing bags as needed.