This Pack Made Packrafting the Arctic Possible: Seek Outside Unaweep 6300 Review

Six hundred fifty pounds sure sounds like a lot of weight. Until you’re trying desperately to squeeze three fellers, 8 days of supplies, packraft kits, and bear protection into the back of a Cessna 185 on floats. Then it’s just a cruel number.

The ancient scale on the porch of Brooks Range Aviation in Bettles, Alaska, weighed our fate: 630 pounds out the door. “We could have brought 20 pounds of beer,” I thought — the packs we had could take it, after all.

The Seek Outside Unaweep 6300 was a natural choice for this trip. At 103 L, it could carry everything essential inside the pack. And, weighing only 3.5 pounds, the weight-to-capacity ratio of this bag is off the charts, and wouldn’t eat into our precious fly-out weight limit.

Across 115 miles, two different Arctic whitewater rivers, and untold willow and alder thickets, the Unaweep carried the weight better than any other pack I’ve ever carried, and my pal, who used the same exact pack, agreed. That’s a bush-tested and peer-reviewed conclusion, right there.

In short: The Seek Outside Unaweep 6300 is the heavy-load hauler for backcountry folks who are headed deep with a lot of kit, but want it as lightweight as possible without sacrificing capability. I took it deep into Alaska’s Brooks Range this July to test it in the country’s least visited National Park, and it excelled.

Looking for a new pack? Check out how the Unaweep 6300 compares to the rest out there in GearJunkie’s Best Ultralight Packs and Backpacking Packs Buyer’s Guides.

Seek Outside Unaweep 6300 Pack Review

It’s unsurprising that one of the best weight-to-capacity packs out there comes from backcountry hunters. There just aren’t that many packs that carry 100+ L out there anymore, and those available from traditional backpacking brands tend to suffer from feature bloat that makes them 6 pounds plus.

The Unaweep 6300 (there’s also a 4,800-cubic-inch version), ports around 103 L, and that’s just in the pack body itself. There’s also an 8L floating lid, a 13L front pocket, and two ample bottle holders. The real magic, however, is the suspension system, which Seek Outside calls its Revolution frame.   

This external frame is simple, sturdy, and carries better than pretty much any other pack I’ve ever used, and I test everything from ultralight bags to weeks-long backpacking packs. This is a lot of backpack and really needs a special use case to break out, but for expedition backpackers, mountaineers, and packrafters, it’s just about perfect. 

Here’s what I learned about it during my 8-day torture test in the Brooks Range.

The Revolution Frame

Seek Outside’s Revolution frame is pretty simple, all things considered. Constructed of 6160 aluminum tubing shaped into a U, the frame bolts to the hip belt for about as solid a weight transfer as you can get, and the stays extend up the pack body. These stays are adjustable in length for heavier loads and tie into the load lifters.

Otherwise, a tensioned foam back panel and a horizontal stay make up the rest of the rig. It’s simple and overbuilt in all the right ways, and Seek claims it’ll support up to 300 pounds (!) — meaning the max load is really dependent on your back (and knees). My bag was just about 50 pounds when I hit the tundra, and it felt like the pack was just stretching its legs.

The ability to break the frame down and remove it entirely was key on this trip, which we did the three times we needed to packraft across/down a river. Getting the entire pack inside the boat kept the exterior clean of snagging hazards. The two frame halves and horizontal stay pop out with just a Leatherman multitool Phillips driver and a ⅜ wrench, and the pack body can be stuffed inside the rafts. 

I’ve previously used a Hyperlite Mountain Gear Porter 70L for gear-intensive splitboard traverses in the North Cascades, and despite otherwise enjoying the pack, the twin-stay system in that bag just didn’t work for my body when loaded down to the max. For the extra 14.5 ounces, you get a 33L larger bag in the Unaweep 6300, and a frame that’ll carry pretty much anything you can put inside the pack.

ULTRA Tough Material

The Ultra PE400 material used in the Unaweep is just about the hottest material currently used in ultralight packs (for now, at least). Think of it like Dyneema Composite Fabric, just juiced up with even more of that special UHMPWE material that makes it so strong and durable, but at only a very slight weight ding.

This material is also inherently waterproof, meaning that if you seam sealed it, the pack would almost be a dry bag (there’s the issue of the optional full-length zipper to consider). The rugged recycled polyester exterior and ultra-slick interior make packing a breeze.

Most pack manufacturers have now pivoted to a new blend of Ultra materials, 200X and 400X, after early textiles began to delaminate internally after many hundreds of miles. Issues take a long time to develop, and Seek Outside recently revamped several of its packs, including the Unaweep 4800, to use these blends. This updated fabric adds an additional cross-ply internally to protect against the types of delamination seen by long-term users. 

So, while I don’t buy that the 6300 might dissolve like tissue paper one day, it is something to consider on this pack, which doesn’t yet use the updated fabric. I examined the pack after my trip, finding a small worn area on the interior of the extension collar, but this was the only damage to be found.

A Slimmed but Functional Exterior

The modular strap system was an absolute essential on this trip, as I had a PFD, packraft coming, and paddle to wrangle on the exterior, as well as multiple miles of some of the densest bushwhack I’ve ever encountered.

The large panel Talon pocket that straps to the front of the bag provides a big compression space. It held my Astral EV-Eight lifejacket and the skirt tubing through the worst of the brush, and the two side pockets are deep and wide enough to hold two Nalgene bottles side by side, or a multipiece paddle.

In a surprise usage, this Talon pocket also doubled as the bow bag on my packraft, wrangling all of the daily essentials like snacks and gloves. The ultra-modular gated clips that attach it to the Unaweep easily snapped into place on the deck of my boat, and the mesh back provided a space to (attempt to) dry things.

The full-length zipper I opted for on my pack is optional (for an added $30, which feels like a steal) but allows you to fully split the bag and access deeply stored kit. I used two 100L contractor bags to keep things from getting wet, since attempting to keep the interior of your pack dry in the Brooks Range is useless, and water entry through the zipper wasn’t an issue. 

The beauty of the Unaweep might be the different ways you can rig it for yourself. Before I jettisoned into the bush, I attached a simple bear spray holster to my left shoulder strap and a 1L Smartwater bottle holder to the right. This made for quick and easy access and even left room to hang my camera case on the sternum strap. 

I didn’t use the floating lid on this trip, mostly because I find them a bit fidgety when you’re trying to get into the pack quickly. That said, it is another option for some modular exterior storage, and like the front Talon pocket, can be used elsewhere (such as an impromptu waist pack or raft bow bag).

Who Is the Unaweep For?

That depends, but one thing they’ll all agree on is that they’ve got a lot of kit, but they need to stay as light as possible. The list of ultralight load carriers out there is fairly slim, but also includes the Superior Wilderness Designs Big Wild 95, Stone Glacier Terminus 7000, and Blue Ice Stache 90.

The thing that truly sets the Unaweep apart, at least for me, is the frame, which absolutely impressed during my time with it. I couldn’t get this pack to hurt my shoulders. Even fully loaded with 50 pounds, I didn’t even get into the frame extensions, which should increase the weight capacity.

You’ll need objectives and trips with enough equipment to justify that entire 103 L of space, so mountaineers, packrafters, and Arctic explorers will likely find more utility here than weekend backpackers. 

Potential Issues

It’s hard to complain when the pack took such a lashing and came out damn near smiling. Looking over the bag post-trip, besides a few scuffs from tumbling over tussocks or slipping on talus, the pack looks great.

Material-wise, the interior and exterior of the Ultra 400 textile are still in great shape. As mentioned previously, I will be looking for internal delamination on this bag, but I doubt I’ll ever see it.

One issue I did run into was a quickly slimming waistline, which brought the ends of my size large hip belt a bit too close for comfort. This can be the downside to ordering from a direct-to-consumer brand like Seek Outside, where trying on packs before purchasing can be tough. The belt should accommodate bulky layers, however, should I take the pack up a large mountaineering objective.

When my fat reserves start to run low, I might snag another medium-sized hip belt for future summer trips. It’ll cost me $75, which brings us to the topic of price. $605 for the base pack (without the side zipper) is a hefty chunk of change and even eclipses the price tag of every offered Hyperlite Mountain Gear pack.

Is it worth it? For many, 100%. The Unaweep is a buy-once, cry-once bag that does everything it claims, and at an impressively low weight. And, given the relative infrequency of heavily loaded trips, it should last for years.

Seek Outside Unaweep 6300 Review: Conclusion

Eight days after we landed, the same Cessna 185 touched down at the remote lake before us, negotiating a wicked little headwind and bouncing violently as it skidded in. It’s always good to know you’ve got a cowboy behind the yoke.

Loading our packs into the cramped plane, I’m not even sure we weighed any less with the additional water weight we were now carrying in soaked trail runners. The Seek Outside Unaweep 6300 packs we used, however, looked damn near the same as when we’d packed them the first time. 

Across slick-as-snot talus passes, miles of Arctic swamp, and some self-flagellation in willow thickets, these bags held tough and supported heavy loads, all without weighing us down themselves.

You’ll spend a pretty penny to get your hands on one, but I honestly couldn’t consider doing another trip of this magnitude without the Unaweep. It was the right tool for the job.

It’s a niche pack, for sure. But if you find yourself diving headlong into that backcountry carry-it-all arena, it’s the bag you want.