Three or four years ago I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket and B&H was having a sale on these Gitzo photo backpacks. Couldn't help myself so I bought one. It came with lots of padded, velcro panels inside. Way too many and way too padded. Enough protection even for the most frightened of camera packers. I used the backpack a couple of times and then relegated it to shelf duty. Where it sat vigilantly for the past few years.
When I decided to make the trek to Enchanted Rock to hike the "mountain" and the trails I glanced over and saw this poor thing languishing on the Metro shelving and thought to resuscitate it and rehabilitate its inner workings. By which I mean I pulled out all of the pillow like dividers and left only the padded shell of its sides intact. It felt much better and it because much, much more useable as a day pack for climbing and hiking. It packed more. And it weighed less.
Inside I packed three one liter bottles of water, an extra shirt, extra socks, a small first aid kit (happily, not needed), a bag of trail mix, a big bottle of SPF 50 sunscreen, a couple of hand towels, a Leica DLUX8 camera along with its companion spare batteries, my phone, a nice Kershaw lock blade pocket knife, a small notebooks and a couple of pens.
You can strap lots of stuff to this backpack but all I carried on the outside was a big kerchief for sweaty hand wiping. I kept one of the bottles of water shoved into a side pocket. I came to like this backpack a lot of hiking because it has a waist belt and if you adjust it property it takes some of the weight off your shoulders and puts it on your hips --- making it all feel as though it has a lower center of gravity.
I'll definitely keep it handy in the future. I just won't put those damn dividers in again. Now it's just right.
When climbing steep rock make sure your shoes have great, grippy soles. Shiny soles on the shoes just means you'll slip and slide all over the rock. Especially the parts that are still damp from the rain.
A good backpack is one that just becomes invisible and well balanced.
"Be Prepared."