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03/05/25
I Mostly Like It
Likes
Has good fit (The Baltoro 100 didn't fit me at all) and a lot of features, many of which I could do without, but it's nice to have them, I guess, and it distributes heavy loads very well. The front pockets are larger than the same pockets on the Baltoro, the harness design is much better, and it still comes with a daypack and raincover that Gregory has removed from the Baltoro. The daypack is very nice, but I doubt I'll use it. Excellent build quality and mostly thoughtful design throughout. The most standout feature in my opinion, and the most substantive difference between the Aether and the Baltoro is the frame. The Aether frame is aluminum (light and doesn't rust) and has little "wings" that extend a little bit into the help belt to cradle your lower back, whereas the Baltoro frame is steel (heavy and rusts) and just wraps around the pack itself.
Dislikes
The hip belt pockets are all the way to the back of the belt. Unless your upper body is like 6" thick or you have double jointed elbows, good luck accessing them. I can barely even see them! The straps across the front seem unnecessary to me and just make getting into the pockets fiddly. Not crazy about the main compartment divider that can't be completely removed and the buckles on the back of the lid are backwards and have to be unclipped before they can be adjusted. The fit on the fly stuff.... That's just a way to lower production costs by broadening the fit range and decreasing size options. It all works okay and it's neat, but I'd really rather have a medium specific size that doesn't have the hip belt pockets jammed all the way to the back. Other than those pockets, which is just straight up poorly designed, all these dislikes are trivial and perhaps purely subjective. At the end of the day, it's an excellent backpack, more feature rich and better designed than it's closest competitor - the Baltoro, and worth the extra cost.
