Nylofume Pack Liner Bags

Ultralight pack liner is just a plastic bag. What makes it special is how long it keeps being a plastic bag. Used and abused, yet still able to keep the important stuff dry, this plastic bag has replaced my old contractor bag, saving me some weight.

I purchased three of these Nylofume bags from the Garage Grown Gear site over the winter to use as pack liners. They didn't make any mention of the fact that these bags are made for wrapping stuff up when having your house fumigated, but once I found that out the "nylofume" name made sense for a nylon plastic bag for keeping fumes off your stuff.

Specs:

The bags measure out at 36" tall and 20" across the bottom seam. There is no gusset, just a straight seam. A fresh bag came in at 26g on my scale or just under an ounce. That compares to the whopping 129g for the generic contractor bags I had been using. Those with smaller volume packs could reduce the weight further by trimming off the unused top portion of the liner bag.

Testing:

At first glance and feel I got the impression that the bags weren't likely to last very long. The thin, light plastic felt as though it would be easily punctured. My initial tests were done on a winter snow trip in western Maine so I took the belt and suspenders approach of packing clothing and bedding in dry bags inside the liner. The liner bag showed no signs of damage after that three-day trip so I gradually shifted to putting a lot of trust in the bag over the next few trips. First I started just jamming my quilt into the bottom of the liner. After that I moved the hammock with underquilt and my clothing into UL pods eliminating heavier dry bags.

Over the next few months I logged over 30 nights on trail using a single bag. Eventually I came to forget about babying the plastic and began jamming and yanking in the morning and evening as hikers tend to do. I did make an effort to keep pointy things in my pack from pointing right at the plastic though.

Conclusions:

Yes, it is just a plastic bag, but a darn fine plastic bag based on my experience. The only real damage to the integrity of the bag happened while it was empty and at home. I picked the bag up not realizing it was sort of pinched between two other pieces of gear, creating three small tears. Applying pieces of clear packing tape made for durable and almost invisible patches. The bag has been on trail for weeks of use since patching and appears as though it may last the entire season. The only other sign of wear is an odd, yellow stain that showed up after a wet night on the Cohos Trail in New Hampshire. Pretty certain it came from one of the many yellow slugs, though I'm not sure if it was from crawling around or if it got squished.

I'm not really that worried about carrying a little extra weight, but I've been very pleased with just how much I've been able to reduce my load with this liner bag. The 100+ grams from swapping the bag was already worth the investment. Being able to drop some of my dry bags added to that nicely even if they were replaced with other containers.

I see these bags can be bought from exterminator supply companies for around $1 each if you know enough folks to split a box of 25. Given my first one has lasted so long and I have two more on the shelf I don't think I'll be going that route, but I can give a full recommendation on these bags as well as a rare, full five stars.

Background

I used this bag since it arrived back in March of this year. It has seen over 30 nights on trail. I have many years of experience using contractor and other garbage bags as liners.