Raide’s LF 5L Vest Is a Creatively Designed Pack for Big Trail Adventures
As the chill reaches your bones on a high-altitude trail run, you remember the layer you brought exactly for this situation. You lift your arm over your head and rummage around in your pack, grabbing the first object you feel. It’s a flattened peanut butter sandwich. Shoulder aching, you drop the sando and keep reaching, arching your back and grimacing at the awkward angle. Next thing you grab surely has to be that layer, right? Wrong. It’s the Ziploc bag you stuffed with toilet paper.
You stop, unhook the sternum straps, yank the bag off your shoulders and drop it to the ground. The poles affixed to the vest’s external bungee cords hit the ground and are dislodged from their resting place. We’ll worry about that later. You stuff your hand into the pocket, elbow deep, and find the base layer that has found its way to the bottom of your vest. As soon as you’ve re-affixed your sternum straps, you realize the poles are still on the ground. Sighing, you grab the poles, and reach around your back, once again, to wiggle them into their bungee’d resting place. It’s a lot of work just to find the one thing you need.
Vests are a boon for runners out for long days on the trail, but if we’re honest, they’re not always the best at keeping things right where you want them. Mary Poppins may have been able to pull whatever she wanted out of her bag exactly when it was needed (without looking, I might add), but when you’re on the trail and a little bit loopy, us mortals require a bit more precision.
Raide Research, a Colorado-based brand that got its start making backcountry ski packs, has offered a solution: the LF 5L vest.
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