Which Backpack Color Should I Get

How do you color a backpack?

My answer may be too late to help you, but perhaps this may help others. As a backpacker with hundreds of miles under my belt in the Western and Eastern Sierras, American and Canadian Rockies, Alaska and Hawaii, and a mountain biker on hours-long rides throughout the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, and Vermont, I know how an excellent backpack that fits you well can augment your comfort level and ease of use. I bought different brands over the years. (Okay, decades.) Like you, I found that Osprey made the best backpacks for multi-day hikes and for hours-long mountain biking treks that suited my sensibility and taste. The unfortunate thing was that the packs that I liked best were invariably colors I disliked. My Osprey multi-day backpack was teal blue. Definitely not my favorite color, but I lived with it. I never liked the color. (I gifted it to my nephew recently. He didn’t care about the color. He was impressed with the Osprey’s built-in “airscape” along the back.) My Osprey mountain biking daypack is purple. I get compliments on my backpack still, though it is a few years old. Osprey still makes my model, the Raven 10. I love the purple pack, but now the park agency wants us mountain biking volunteers to use a black backpack for our medpack. What to do? I researched that you CAN dye backpacks in a pot of boiling water with fabric dye, then set it to be the permanent color with vinegar — much like years ago when I dyed my daughter’s home-sewn Halloween Tinkerbell costume the color that Disney used. To be safe, dye test and vinegar-set one of the straps first. I would also be concerned about voiding the warranty if it is dyed. Best to refrain from using fabric paint. It will be a mess, and under stressful conditions (90F+ humid weather, climbing multiple 11,000 ft peaks, sweating like crazy), the paint may rub off onto your clothes or into your skin (and be absorbed). I decided against dying my beloved and functional purple Raven 10 daypack. Instead, I’ll buy another Osprey daypack — black — for when I volunteer.