Nashville Cutaway- First Look

An ultralight frameless pack with pockets galore

My journey down the UL rabbit hole had brought me to the point where I kept looking at the weight of my pack for shorter (2-5 day) trips trying to find a way to cut yet more weight. I finally was starting to realize that the only way to get lighter was to go with a frameless pack. And then one day an interesting post showed up on r/ultralight….

A new pack company was offering a 10% off deal on 10 custom frameless packs. Their design looked really intriguing so I took the plunge. Yesterday, that pack arrived. And it’s a beaut.

The pack is made by Nashville Pack & Equipment Company, founded by veteran thru-hikers Levi “Bedhead” Morton and Grant “Gusha” Leonardi, two dudes with over 11,000 combined miles on the trail. As you will see below, they designed the Cutaway to maximize the use of space for pockets as well as their functionality, and I think they’re on to something.

The Cutaway weighs 12 oz.- mine weighs 11.6 on my scale, and will probably dip below 11 once I trim the straps. The pack itself is built using Liteskin fabric (LS21), and uses only two panels of fabric in doing so in order to minimize seams. The pockets are made from a poly/spandex material. The pack has an internal capacity of 28-30 liters, with all of the pockets bringing that up to about 40L. They rate it as being able to carry up to 25 lbs. in comfort, 30 lbs. maximum. The straps are structureless and made with a cushioned mesh in a sort of runner’s vest style. My limited in-home testing suggests that this distributes some of the weight off your shoulders and onto your chest, which is quite comfortable. There are two chest straps on sliders. The main straps are also adjustable where they attach to the pack (it took me a minute to figure this out; at first I thought my pack was way too small). Once you adjust these, it fits like a glove. This is what it looks like on a mannequin:

They sell the pack in two sizes- smaller and taller. They describe smaller as fitting most women and a few men, with larger working for most men and a few women. They do note that many people find either size to be comfortable. There is currently no hip belt available, but apparently a detachable one is in the works.

You can purchase one of 3 styles- standard (dark color palette), personal (custom panel colors) and “special build.” The pack comes with a 1 year limited warranty, but based on the time and attention Bedhead gave me on my pack, I’d bet they’d bend over backwards to make anything right.

Here are the pics of my build that Bedhead teased me with before it shipped:

Since this was a Personal Pack, Bedhead gave me some color options.

For the right, left and bottom panel these were my color options:

The color options for the center panel are below.

The image of the pack straps shows shoulder, middle and lower pockets on each side, six pockets in total.

The color options for those pockets are below.

Bedhead and I traded about 10 emails back and forth about customization. It was a very rapid process, and you could sense the enthusiasm he had for his craft.

And now it’s in my grubby hands. I looked the pack over and couldn’t find any faulty stitching or other issues. The Liteskin fabric feels quite durable and plenty flexible. The front pocket’s mesh also feels fairly stout, but we’ll see how it holds up on the trail. The spandex pockets feel more fragile and will warrant some careful handling on my part- I’m notoriously careless and rough with a pack.

The top closure has 4 snaps, 2 in the middle on each side, a 2 others on the outer edge.

It looks like you can merely snap the two center ones together and roll the pack up, but you can also use the other two snaps and sorta close everything up like a four-leafed clover.

This is then sealed with a V-strap on top buckled to a single strap that originates at the top of the mesh front pocket.

This V-strap would enable you to carry a rolled-up foam sleeping pad, a small bear canister or a large water bladder.

The front mesh pocket is capacious.

A unique feature is that this pocket is continuous with the side pockets, which allows you to reach back in and through the side pocket to retrieve something, such as a rain jacket or a snack.

These side pockets by the way easily snug in a 1L SmartWater bottle, which is easily retrievable without taking the pack off. I have a little more difficulty returning it back to the pocket, but that’s largely due to my own rotator cuff issues. I can still do it.

Before I talk more about the pockets, here’s a side view of the pack with a few lbs. of gear in it, followed by a really shitty mirror pic of me wearing it.

So, about those other pockets. Let’s look again at a view of the “vest.”

The black mesh on the straps (where their bird logo is on the right) is the only part that doesn’t have pockets. Everything in teal is a pocket, each having it’s own snap. We will call these the shoulder, middle and lower pockets.

Shown below are the bottom of the shoulder pocket and the top of the middle pocket. The snap for the shoulder pocket is at the bottom, so you shove whatever you’re storing upwards. The snap for the middle pocket is at the top of the pocket.

The middle pocket WILL hold a 500-700 liter water bottle, but Bedhead says that he personally doesn’t like how it feels. Others may feel differently. It does barely hold my Pixel 3 or my Anker 10,000, which is probably what I’ll start out using them for.

Right below the middle pocket is the lower pocket, which has its snap on the inner side.

Just for grins, here’s the pockets on the other strap with their logo.

I’ve saved the best pocket for last, and that’s the bottom pocket. This is a game-changer. From the side farthest from my body, the bottom looks deceptively like any other pack bottom.

Ah, but the side up against my back has an opening!

This pocket has a good deal of room. I can see myself stowing my rain gear in there along with some other stuff.

Late edit: The somewhat oversized loop hanging from the bottom of the pack is, in fact, an ice axe loop. Here’s a photo from Gusha showing how it is employed:

This pack probably won’t hit the trail until early August, when I will be doing a leisurely 5-day stroll through 43 miles of the North Country Scenic Trail including the Pictured Rocks section. My LighterPack for this trip looks like a total weight of 16 lbs., so this should be a perfect test for this pack. I’m predicting in advance that it will perform awesomely; regardless, I’ll post a review after that trip. But don’t let that stop you from checking out the Cutaway pack sooner at Nashville Pack & Equipment Co.