Feeling thirsty is very common during any physical activity.
Winter sports are no exception!
But taking out the water bottle every few minutes can be a big hassle, especially when you are skiing, snowmobiling or snowboarding.
Being packed up in winter clothes and winter sports gear doesn’t make it any easier either!
Well the solution is a hydration backpack like Camelbak Powderhound 12.
How does it solve the problem? What are some other good hydration backpacks?
Read on. You’ll find out.
I Tested & Reviewed Camelbak Powderhound 12
I always used to get thirsty halfway through the trail so my brother gifted me this backpack last Christmas. And it literally brought a revolution into my life!
The design of the bag is very practical, let me tell you. It is simply awesome.
The Powderhound 12 has a latch at the back to effortlessly carry your skis diagonally. It sometimes can be uncomfortable to walk the path to the top holding the skis in your hands because it strains your hands and eats up all your energy.
This feature helped me a lot because I would face huge difficulties carrying the ski set around the hills.
The bag’s exterior material is snow shedding which means that it won’t get wet because of snow and your bag won’t get heavy when you ski during snowfall.
But the waterproof feature isn’t very great compared to the Osprey Glade. So if you want to purchase a solely waterproof backpack, I’d recommend the Osprey Glade.
There is lots of room for storage purposes in the middle chain where I usually store my moisturizer, lip balm, beanie, gloves, etc. There is also a zipper to hold valuable essentials.
On top of this, it has another easily accessible chain at the front to keep your mobile phone, earphones, and power bank. Thus the 12L backpack is justified.
Now, we come to the star feature.
My favorite, 2-liter hydration bag that is stored in the interior. It can be easily detached to fill it up.
The hydration bag has a tube attached to it that comes all the way to the front and can be used to drink water without causing much hassle even while you are in the middle of skiing. This feature saved my life.
There is another very good-quality backpack that has a hydration bag as well, the USWE Outlander Hydration Pack, but there is one flaw with this one.
The Camelbak Powderhound 12 hydration pack tube is stored inside a zipper so that it does not bother you while you are skiing and is also insulated so it does not get frozen.
On the other hand, the tube of the USWE Outlander Hydration Pack is not insulated nor is attached to a zipper chain so the chances of it getting frozen or the water getting icy cold is high.
Did I not say that the design is extremely functional and practical? And all this efficiency is merely less than $110. I bet you cannot get a better deal in this field, or can you?
Camelbak Powderhound vs Snoblast
The Snoblast is the bigger and better version of the Powderhound backpack. Everything that you saw in Powderhound, you can find a similar form of the same in Snoblast.
The storage capacity in the Snoblast is more than the Powderhound, and you can even extend the storage through the expansion panel.
Both the backpacks have snow-shedding capacity. The Snoblast also has ski carry latches for easy transportation of your ski gear. There is an easily accessible chain for storing your medicines to get emergency care on the backside of your hands.
The hydration pack though is similar to that of the Powderhound 12. A 2L bag is attached to an insulated and securely zipped hose pipe.
I wish the Snoblast would have had a larger hydration pack so that we could store more water because honestly, 2L is quite less when you are skiing on the hills where the water availability is often questionable.
Apart from increasing the storage the Snoblast has no specific change from the Powderhound as you might expect since it costs more than the latter.
The NathanQuickStart Backpack, Source Tactical Hydration Pack, Camelbak Thermobak, etc. can store a good amount of water so you can check them out.
One thing that can be done is you fill up water bottles and stuff them inside your backpack so that when your hydration bag empties, you can use this to fill it back.
I’d still prefer the Powderhound over the Snoblast because I own it. You can purchase the Snoblast as well. As I said, there is no considerable difference between the two.
You can also check out the Ogeo Black Atlas, Osprey Manta, and Osprey Packs Skarab Backpack as they are one of the most wanted ski backpacks in the market as well.
Conclusion
We are at the end of the article, but your job starts from here. All the bags I have mentioned are extremely efficient and have received good reviews too, but I am a bit biased towards the Camelbak Powderhound 12 since it was a Christmas gift!
Good luck to you all~~
