Cooler In A Pack Is Easy To Carry

Sun., June 30, 1996

Michael Hodgson Special To Outdoors

Product: Chugiak Express cooler.

Description: A packable 20 quart-equivalent cooler designed for two people, weight approximately five pounds. Pack body is made of nylon pack cloth with padded back, waist strap and shoulder straps plus two small side pockets and a carrying handle. Inside the pack, there is an upper wide-mouth plastic ice unit with drink tray for holding up to six 12 ounce beverage containers. The lower plastic cooler compartment holds a standard 2 liter bottle plus additional food and is designed to remain dry.

Pro: In the lower compartment, everything stays very cool and, best of all, very dry. The Velcro security straps firmly hold a bottle of wine or a 2-liter soda bottle, preventing it from rolling around and crushing the other contents or worse, breaking.

Perhaps the best feature is the separate ice compartment. Actually a wide mouth bottle with 12-ounce beverage container nesting saddles carved into it, it is possible to fill it with pure water the night before your trip, freeze the entire unit and then place it back in the pack. It will provide around 12 hours of cooling power to drinks above and the lower cooler compartment and then offer up to two quarts of ice cold drinking water as the ice melts. The entire pack carries with relative comfort (as comfortable as a contoured box with straps can carry weighing 25 pounds).

Since you can carry the cooler like a pack, your hands are left free, meaning you can hike, bike, skate or whatever while carrying your chilled meal to its eventual destination.

Con: Basically, the side pockets are a joke and a waste of fabric. Either make them real bellows pockets or lose the things. The most you can carry in them now is a set of keys, a wallet and maybe a bottle of sunscreen. Forget sunglasses, a pocket camera or anything else with real size. Although it is not a problem, I would like to see the wide mouth lid on the ice unit changed to a lid with a pouring nozzle - it would make it much easier to access a drink of water if one is desired. Currently, you have to remove the ice unit, unscrew the cap and then pour.

Comments: What a great system. No more soggy sandwiches, dripping wet produce, or wrestling with cumbersome coolers resembling small refrigerators with handles and weighing almost as much. Now, with my girlfriend carrying the necessary picnic accouterments (plates, silverware, wine glasses, checkered cloth, napkins, etc.) in her pack, I can easily schlep a culinary spread that would rival anything royalty might demand to even the most remote and romantic of picnic spots with an ocean view to boot. Now if I can just figure out how to uninvite the ants.

Suggested retail: $75.

Company: Blue Leaf Design, 210 Mar Vista Drive, Monterey, CA 93940; (800) 655-7957; (408) 655-7955.

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