EVERGOODS MPL30 Backpack First Look & Preview

EVERGOODS is the brainchild of Jack Barley, formerly of GORUCK, and Kevin Dee, formerly of Patagonia. They launched their Kickstarter campaign back in June of 2017 and raised over $160,000 during their pre-sale period. If you’re curious about their Kickstarter campaign you should check out our interview with them back in ADR Podcast Episode 005.

EVERGOODS set out to create two brand new packs: the MPL30 (featured in this post) and the CPL24. The months of work from Jack and Kevin their two packs released and we’re excited to say that we’ve got both in hand.

Watson accompanied us on this photoshoot so here’s to him for putting up with what he must imagine makes no sense. Here’s a reminder that this is a preview post which means a ton of pictures and our general thoughts about the bag. This isn’t a review… that will come once we’ve had time properly test out the bag and put it through its paces.

EVERGOODS MPL30 First Look Video

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EVERGOODS MPL30 First Look Pictures & Analysis

This is a very slick 30L pack with not too many bells or whistles on the front.

You can see there’s a vertical zipper that runs from the along the pack which is protected by a flap.

The front pocket opens revealing a decent amount of space. Although there is a key fob inside the CPL24 there is no hook or key attachment in the MPL30.

In the limited use that this bag has gone through so far this pocket has defaulted to a water bottle pocket of sorts. Inside here you can see a Nalgene water bottle along with a PaceLID.

This exterior pocket doesn’t actually reach the bottom of the bag which makes it great for tablets or electronic devices. If you put something in here it won’t slam into the ground when you set the pack down… you just have to be careful not to let the bag lay face-down.

Since we’re already on the side of the pack we might as well touch on the side handle and the compression straps. You can see that this side has a side handle which is aluminum encased in the nylon outer material.

You can compress the bag pretty tight and get a lot of that extra space out of it…

… but there really isn’t much you can do about the base of the pack.

The compression straps are nice in that they have loops sewn into the end of them that you can use to wrap the cords up.

One bonus on the side compression straps is that there’s ample webbing given so you can easily use it to contain a jacket or other larger object and carry it on the side. I’d imagine you could even rig a tripod in there.

There was a lot of thought put into the compression straps which is amazing. There’s no buckles on them and the straps do not cross over the zipper which means no unbuckling any side compression straps to get into the bag.

There’s really not much going on with the bottom of the bag. It does have a fairly padded bottom which is great to see.

There are grab loops where each zipper ends which makes getting into the bag just a bit easier.

Looking towards the top of the bag there’s a second exterior pocket.

It looks like a standard glasses pocket however it’s not padded so keep that in mind if you’re putting something valuable in there.

I ended up using this pocket for protein bars and food. When the pack is laying down it’s easy to get in here which made grabbing food convenient.

Watson was very interested in this portion of the photography session.

Moving to the shoulder straps on the pack. You can see that there are sleeves at the top which run into the main compartment and are ideal for a hydration bladder hose.

Moving down the shoulder straps you’ll see the built-in (and removable) sternum strap. It’s pretty cool to see the EVERGOODS logo embroidered into the sternum strap as well.

The shoulder straps have some very nice padding in them… not quite as much as a GORUCK pack but much more than most traditional packs.

There’s “wings” at the bottom of the pack which hug your sides and provide additional small pockets.

The pockets are fairly versatile…

… and open pretty wide.

There is a built in waist belt on the pack which clips in the middle with a nice, large buckle.

For those who want to use this as an every day carry bag you can tuck the waist belt away into the pockets on the wings.

Here you can see what that looks like from another angle. You can still see the waist belt a little bit but it’s definitely out of the way.

You can see that the wings are sticking straight ahead and the waist area really is not that wide. I’m chalking this up to the pack being new and and not being broken in yet.

They’re stiff right off the bat and a tad uncomfortable out of the box. The EVERGOODS team has tested these backpacks so I’m fairly confident that, once broken in, the wings won’t be as stiff as they are now.

Before we get to the inside of the bag we’ll take a quick look at the top grab handle. It’s very similar to the side handle (with an aluminum stay) and it very nice to use.

Getting inside the pack is fairly straight-froward. As mentioned before you don’t have to unbuckle anything for the compression straps to get inside.

The MPL30 has a clam shell style opening which is great for getting to items in the very bottom of the pack. You can see there’s two pockets on this side of the pack.

The top pocket has a dimension more closely related to the GR1 while the CPL24 internal pocket has a bit more dimension to it.

There’s a clip inside this pocket which is great for attaching a few keys to… or possibly a flashlight.

Here’s another look at how much space you’re getting in this top pocket.

Here’s a close up view of the internal label. I’m a HUGE fan of how they set these up… it’s really nice that they put the year the bag was made on there.

You can see that there’s a bit of extra material under the top pocket and that’s so you can fit larger items in the pack and it pushes out a bit.

Here’s a laptop charger within the bottom pocket of the MPL30. There’s really not much room for thicker items in this pack and it almost felt as if the water bottle (in the front pocket) was taking up a little bit of this space.

Switching over to the other side you can see the elastic pocket as well as an internal tag and the bladder holder.

The bladder holder is a loop of fabric and you can use either a carabiner or an HK Quick Clip to secure a bladder to the pack. From there you can route the hydration hose out the small port on the right which connects to the sleeve on the shoulder strap.

Here’s a further-out view which also shows the Velcro closure that keeps the frame sheet tucked away.

The internal frame sheet is fairly thick and is an awesome addition to the pack. Very glad this is included.

The elastic pouch area is great for storing papers or your hydration bladder… but probably not at the same time.

It’s worth noting that you can get a 13″ laptop in that area as well. You can see that there’s openings on the bottom which allow you to slide items in easier however smaller pieces of gear will most likely fall out.

The tag on the bag shows where it was designed and where it was built.

The bottom of the bag is very interesting. It gets smaller as you get deeper and there’s actually a Velcro area down there that allows you to get into the foam for the bottom of the pack as well as the wings.

It was borderline impossible to get a clear shot of it but it’s there. If you’re traveling you could probably hide something valuable down there but there’s the chance it would float to a different area of the pack. At this time I wouldn’t recommend that but it’s an option.

Here’s a quick shot of the MPL30 with my laptop as well as my lunch box.

There you have it! The EVERGOODS MPL30 first look & preview post. I’m very excited to get this pack out and spend some time beating it up. If you’ve got any questions feel free to leave them in the comments!