Top Customer Reviews

“Top Customer Reviews on the Endurance Solo Hawk I Tactical Backpack 1175 versus the Hawk II 1175B”

Customer Comments:

Rick

Clean rugged every day urban and wilderness back pack

May 19

Color: Wolverine Gray

Clean, rugged everyday urban and wilderness back pack. A good go-bag for throwing in the trunk for a day, weekend or extended hike, camping, climbing or survival game, Reserve maneuvers or Reg. Army recon or patrol. Tough and simple, like me! Triple stitched heavy grade metal zippers with vinyl-coat teeth, (like me! No, kidding!!) and wide generous clam-shell maw, and padded straps with keeper loops, storgy waterproofing, exterior and interior shovel pockets, adjustable dividers, extra throw-in daisy chains, side compression straps, and upper and lower MOLLE (that’s Modular Lightweight Load Carrying Equipment, for you gear-heads out there, like me!) strapping, AND rubber gasketed hydration and head phone/ear bud wire holes at top, AND sides! Rugged, no-nonsense, no-frills, easy to be with, all-around great investment! Like me!!!!

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Ric, stop talking about yourself and evaluate the product with some objectivity

May 20

Color: Probably white middle class

Stop talking about yourself and evaluate the product with some objectivity. Keep on topic and don’t  indulge in jokey self-promotion and gear-head fetishism. These comments sections are for consumer reviews and sensible advice. There’s no comparison here between the Hawk I and Hawk II, which is supposed to be the topic of your review. So let me say right out that the Hawk II is vastly superior to the I. Size matters, Rick. Also, real padding in the backstraps (the Hawk I’s padding is thin and only on the upper half of the straps. The II has thicker padding  and stitching on the upper and lower, making the straps less likely to snap from weight bearing, but also if gripped from the bottom, which happens if you travel by plane or train a lot, as I do, and your bag faces the abuse of underpaid and part-time baggage carrier personnel who hate themselves, hate you, and, above all, hate the “gearhead” pretension of your Solo Hawk Backpack). Because, let’s face it, the Endurance brand has an attitude. Sort of wanna-be military, but with too many bells and whistles working too hard to not look like bells and whistles. Crawl through a tunnel or thistles or sand dunes with your MOLLE daisy-chain regalia and see how much of it is torn off, ruined by sand and dirt or dumped and buried because it catches on shit or makes noise.  Sure, I love the backpacks. Clamshell makes better spatial and aesthetic sense than shovel and stuff. But if you’re true military you’re probably spending part of your deploy and mission time in choppers, Humvees, tanks or trucks. Your backpack is on the floor between your feet. There isn’t enough width to spread a clamshell and pick through dividers. It’s open top, dig-in, pull out. No wonder baggage workers hate you. They’re probably all vets strung out on PTSD and flashing back on your ugly ass glory stomper bag. It’s a backpack, not an identity.

Customer Comments:

Rick

Jeeze, excuse me for existing, Miriam

May 20

Color: pissed off and hurt red-green

Jeeze, excuse me for existing, Miriam. I presume from your obvious knowledge and experience that you are a veteran, and you have my respect and gratitude for your great service to our country for that. I’ve never had any trouble with baggage handlers. Not that I travel all that much. I’m kind of a stay-at-home sort of guy. I don’t do survival games, except in my head. I just take hikes. Really, more like long walks. Sometimes just to Walgreens or the library. But I always take my pack. I am not a veteran and have never served. I’m just a guy who likes to walk around and have a good pack with me for whatever comes up. Not that much comes up. Mostly I just want a pack to take my laptop to the coffee shop, or to carry home books I find in our local Little Library. I’m a gear-head, yeah. I like stuff. Equipment, and such. And yeah, I’m a white dude and middle class, I guess. I don’t want a bag for combat, just for fun. It’s all just for fun. I’m a fun guy! What’s wrong with that?

Customer Comments:

Miriam

It’s none of your business whether I’m a veteran or not

May 21

Color: none of your business 

It’s none of your business whether I’m a veteran or not. Also, no one cares if you’re a fun guy or not. I’m not a fun gal. I pack my shit and take off and disappear for a few days so I don’t have to see anyone or talk to anyone or smile at stupid shit. I live out of my pack to be alone and far away from anybody. I’ve used it to camp out, to survive homelessness, and to go hunting for food. It’s not fun. It’s survival. I couldn’t afford the Endurance Solo Hawk II. I stole it from an outdoors store, along with a bunch of MRE’s and Clif Bars, because they treated me like garbage and a moron when I asked questions about the stitching. I know stitching. I’ve stitched boots, sails, circus tents, knock-off Gucci bags and flesh. 

Customer Comments:

Rick

Please don’t be so angry at me I’m not a bad person

May 22

Color: Same bag.

Please don’t be angry at me I’m not a bad person. It sounds like you have had a very interesting life and have many useful skills and a lot to offer. I don’t know why you want to be alone so much or about your homelessness or other challenges. I am not being condescending. I have a good job now but I had a stretch in rehab and lived out of my car and have had my own share of difficulties, maybe not much compared with some people and I know as a white sort of  middle class man I have certain automatic advantages in this society that it is easy to take for granted, but I try not to take anything for granted, anymore. I really do. Maybe that’s why I always pack my bag and take it with me, with water, something to eat, an extra shirt and socks, my laptop, something to read, my journal and sketchbook and phone and change. I don’t know what’s going to happen next and I want to be ready. I find the Endurance Solo Hawk I excellent for these purposes. That’s even going to Walgreens for my medication. I take an antidepressant. I’m sorry if I offended you. If you would ever like to take a walk with me in the South Cambridge area, you will know me by my Wolverine-Gray Endurance Solo Hawk I backpack, with a yellow reflector strip down the back because I like to walk at night. 

Customer Comments:

Miriam

You’ve got to be frigging kidding me

May 23

Color:

You’ve got to be frigging kidding me. You’re hitting on me through a customer comment section? No, wait, I’ll bet you’re a shill for Endurance Bags. Is that the good job that you’ve got now, Rick? You’d better hope I never run into you in the South Cambridge area. I’ll rip your lousy Endurance Solo Hawk I right off your back. Like I said, it’s not hard because of the lack of reinforcement in the lower straps. Watch out!

Customer Comments:

Rick

It’s not true

May 23

Color:

It’s not true.

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Too late Ric

May 24

Color:

Too late Rick.

Customer Comments:

Miriam

OK I think I saw you

May 25

Color:

OK. I think I saw you. Wolverine Gray Endurance I, yellow reflective strip. You’ve got short gray hair. A little wolverine.

Customer Comments: 

Miriam

OK I think I saw you maybe I was kind of harsh

May 26

Color: Wolverine Gray

Ok, I think I saw you. Maybe I was kind of harsh.

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Rick

May 28

Color:

Rick?

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Hey

June 2

Color:

Hey.

Customer Comments:

Rick

Hey

July 19^th

Color:

Hey. 

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Sorry

July 21

Color:

Sorry.

Customer Comments:

Rick

Want to meet up sometime 

July 22

Color:

Want to meet up sometime? Coffee?

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Yeah

July22

Color:

Yeah. Ok. Sure.

Customer Comments:

Miriam

This is going to sound weird

July 23

Color: Indescribable

This is going to sound weird, but I want you to do something before we meet up. I want you to take out everything in your pack, I mean everything, and reach all the way down to the main section, to the lining along the very bottom. Try it right now. Reach along the bottom. Do you feel something like very thick stitches, almost like sutures? They’re kind of rough, as if sewn by hand with a thick needle. And when you follow these sutures all across the bottom of your bag you’ll feel a little edge, like the flap of a pocket. It doesn’t make sense because this is the bottom of your bag and a pocket would just open up to nothing. But it is a pocket and it opens up to something. A lot of something. 

Customer Comments:

Miriam

OK I’m in 

July 23

Color:

OK I’m in. My hand is going through a hole in the bottom of the bag. I can see light and feel wind. But my hand is not coming through the bottom of the bag from the outside. From the outside there is no opening in the bottom of my bag. 

I am going to reach in with both hands.

I put both hands in and pull the opening wider. It keeps getting bigger. A lot bigger. I can pull it open until it’s big enough to crawl through. Do you understand, Rick? The hole in the bottom of my backpack is now bigger than the pack. Big enough to crawl through. I can see grass, and sunlight, and hear birds and wind and something like thunder. Should I crawl through it? I’m sitting here outside the bag with my phone typing this to you now and waiting for your answer, and if you don’t answer in the next minute I’m crawling through without you and I don’t know what’s on the other side or if my phone will work or if you’ll be there or if anything will be there but I’m going through—in one minute—if you don’t answer.

Customer Comments:

Rick

I’m already on the other side

July 23

Color:

I’m already on the other side. It’s like our world, but it isn’t. Not at all. I don’t know what it’s like. I feel a hopefulness here. Maybe hopefulness is the wrong word. It’s like I have hope because I’m finally meant to be somewhere, but it’s also dangerous. I feel like there is something very dangerous, very close, and it’s my job to stop it, before it’s too late. And I think it’s a one-way thing, Miriam. 

When I came out of the bag and set my feet on the ground, the bag disappeared. No more Endurance Solo Hawk backpack. No more opening into whatever I left behind. I’m stuck. Don’t come through. I’m meant to be here. To try and stop the bad stuff coming. But not you. Don’t come through. I’m sorry.

Customer Comments:

Miriam

Wait

July 23

Color:

Wait. I told you I’ve always lived out of my pack.

Maybe wherever you are

I’m coming through.

Gregg Williard lives in Madison, Wisconsin. His fiction and non-fiction  has been published or is forthcoming in Shenandoah, New England Review, Into the Void and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among others. He manages refugee ESL services for the non-profit Literacy Network, and does a late night book reading show, “Fiction Jones” on WORT community radio.