Light, Practical, and a Refreshingly Fair Price: Exped Lightning 50 Review

I heaved the fully loaded Exped Lightning 50 off my back onto the ground, right in the middle of a gem of a creekside Colorado campsite. It was packed to the absolute limit with gear and food that was quickly extruded into a neat pile beside us. Within moments, I had alpine charcuterie served, camp chairs pitched, water heating, and a diaper changing station deployed.

With a new baby in tow, the demands on my day hiking pack have grown exponentially. 20 liters? Forget about it. I nabbed a sample of the freshly updated Exped Lightning 50 to pull double duty as both an extended-volume day hiker and a light-duty backpacker. As our family’s newly minted gear mule, I’ve been putting the Lightning 50 — and my hips and back — to the test over the last 3 months in Colorado’s central mountains.

The Lightning 50 lands right between the hiking and backpacking categories in terms of volume. But what stands out from the crowd is the pack’s focus on bang-for-your-buck design in the lightweight realm with a feature set that didn’t leave me wishing for much more.

In short: Exped’s updated Lightning 50 Backpack ($270) can get you and all your gear deep into the mountains for day trips or several overnights. You get all the bells and whistles, plus a sturdy aluminum frame that keeps its contents suspended. A rolltop closure expands or compresses depending on the payload. An arsenal of external straps, while annoying when not needed, effectively attached every odd and end that I threw at them. Great pockets, a comfortable hip belt, and competitively low weight make it a great pack at a fair price.

Compare the Exped Lightning 50 with the best backpacks.

Exped Lightning 50 Backpack Review

The Ultralight backpacking craze is only growing more accessible as gear gets lighter, more compact, and cheaper. The updated Lightning 50’s aesthetics caught my eye at a gear show early in 2026. It’s a good-looking design with a Swiss Pedigree. It’s when I caught the price tag that I leaned in — $270 is competitive in this lightweight backpacking category.

While Exped may be best known for its line of sleeping pads, it offers a wide range of backpacks and camping gear. The overhauled Lightning line comes in 40L, 50L, and 60L volume options, all priced to appeal to a wide swath of outdoor adventurers. I’ve been testing the 50L option as a light-duty backpacker and big-volume day hiker to get a sense of how the platform performs through different mountain scenarios.

Value vs. Competition

Take a stroll down GearJunkie’s Best Backpacking Backpacks guide, and you’ll find a mix of the best options on the market today. The Exped Lightning 50 and its siblings are not the cheapest backpacks in this class — see the REI CO-OP Flash 55 for GearJunkie’s best value pick. Still, $270 is hundreds of dollars cheaper than some of its competitors.

Similarly sized packs from Hyperlight run about $100 more. Osprey offers backpacking packs this size from $300 to about $470. Mountain Hardwear packs range from $315 to $595. It’s also a hair cheaper than some of my personal favorites, Outdoor Vitals’ $280 Carbon Evo 50 and that brand’s Shadowlight Carbon 60.

The Lightning 50 lands at a verified minimum weight of 1,239g (2 pounds 10.5 ounces). That’s light enough to sit comfortably in the under-3-pound lightweight backpacking category, but it’s far from class-leading. The Carbon Evo 50 pack weighs in at a svelte 850g, for comparison. The extra weight comes from the sturdy aluminum frame elements that start to wither the deeper you get into the ultralight category. It’s just a hair lighter than the aforementioned 2-pound, 14-ounce budget pick, the REI CO-OP Flash 55.

The Lightning 50’s value proposition fits somewhere in the middle: It weighs in under the 3-pound “lightweight” threshold while retaining a metal frame that most packs in this weight class ditch to their detriment. And of course, the Lightning 50 is competitively priced.

Pack Design

The Lightning 50 comes with a Swiss design aesthetic that’s easy to get along with. Not completely minimalist, but rather refined simplicity. The external features mirror those of an alpine climbing pack — tight, compact, snag-free, and that’s a design language I quickly got on board with the second I started bushwhacking through the Gore Range’s overgrown forests.

This pack skips the NASA-quality fabric in favor of a more utilitarian polyurethane-coated 210D HMPE ripstop nylon main fabric and a 600D polyester secondary fabric in high-wear zones, like the bottom. And I’m pleased to report that the package has passed the bushwhacking test — it’s a fabric weight well-suited to the use, and one that should last many, many trips into the woods.

Like most of the roll-top backpacking packs I’ve tested, I’m again convinced that roll tops are far superior to packs with lids or “brains.” The Lightning 50’s roll-top allows it to adjust to a wide range of volumes with a few rolls or unrolls.

A hooked strap runs from the top of the back panel over the roll top and hooks into loops sewn to the front of the pack, adding additional compression support while leaving enough slack to secure a sleeping pad, a jacket, or whatever else needs to ride outside the main pocket.

The main feature of the carry system is the adjustable “T-Rex” frame suspension — a single vertical aluminum frame, akin to a backbone, that supports the pack’s body. The lumbar pad and hip belt are attached to the bottom of the frame. The upper back pad and shoulder straps attach to and slide-adjust along the upper part of the frame.

Fit and Adjustment

At 6’1”, 200 pounds, I’m usually squarely in the Large torso and hip belt categories. The Lightning 50 comes with an effective torso adjuster along the pack’s metal spine, with a nylon strap adjuster handling the tension duties.

The system offered unencumbered adjustment through its full range. The L/XL torso length easily adjusts between 19 and 22 inches (the smaller S/M adjusts between 17 and 20 inches). I set the back length before my first hike and didn’t need to adjust it again. The pack simply disappeared on my back with loads of 20 pounds or less.

The small back pads will be polarizing. The benefit of a more compact back panel is breathability — very little of my back is actually touching the backpack, and I loved that during the scorching heat of early summer. The tradeoff is that the small back panel and lumbar pad lends itself to lighter backpacking loads. Having more surface area on the back would better distribute the weight and add more lateral stability.

So even though we’ve got a sturdy metal bar here to provide support, it’s a lightweight pack for light(ish) weight loads — the brand’s stated 48.5-pound max weight is aspirational. I’d personally choose a sturdier pack for loads exceeding about 35 pounds. I had to painfully overtighten the waist strap on one trip with 39 pounds of gear to support the weight (my lack of hips didn’t help the situation).

Despite the low surface area in contact with my body, the hip belt and lower back panel were comfortable under moderate loads. I didn’t feel any notable pinch or pain points after wearing it for many trail miles, and that’s saying something given that I’m basically a rectangle from the neck down. Along with good adjustability, the Lightning 50’s hip belts come with voluminous pockets big enough for an arsenal of snacks, an inReach, or a phone.

In addition to adjustability and structural support, another benefit of the back panel’s metal backbone is its integrity under pressure from a very full backpack. Unlike some lighter-weight packs lacking burly frames, this Exped pack doesn’t barrel out under load — the carry system feels the same no matter how stuffed the backpack is.

Pockets and Storage

You can spot the bulk of the pack’s features from the outside. In addition to a zippered pocket accessed from the top of the pack, you get one big expanding mesh pocket on the front, a large water bottle mesh slot on each side that’s big enough for a Nalgene, and zigzag compression straps on each side that have enough room for a Thermarest Z-pad.

The inside is similarly streamlined. You get one hanging storage pocket (about 1 L), a big water bladder pocket, and that’s about it.

Even though 50L is about the bottom limit for pack volume in my neck of the woods, it’s just enough for one or two nights out.  During one trip near Vail Pass in May, I was able to stuff Big Agnes’ new Tiger Wall UL tent, warm layers, a 0F sleeping bag, MSR Windburner stove, and the rest of the odds and ends required for a relatively comfortable night in the woods without fighting with limited volume too much. The pack’s open layout swallows an enormous amount of gear for its size.

The big benefit of roll-top-style packs is that they can shrink or expand depending on your immediate gear-carry needs. At one point, my wife and I brought the Lightning 50 along for a day hike in fully rolled-down, compressed mode, with the zigzagging compression straps tightened.

It carried more naturally than the other 50L packs that I’ve tried. It was overkill for sure, but it didn’t feel like a huge, hulking backpack only partially filled. Instead, it packed down adequately and carried it well. The 50L version wouldn’t be my first choice for a dedicated day hiker, but you could do a lot worse.

Unlike some pricier options, the Lightning 50 doesn’t come with any kind of side or back access zippers for accessing gear in the middle or bottom of the pack. I found myself dumping its contents onto the ground to reach the items at the bottom.

Not a dealbreaker by any means, but it’s worth remembering as you’re stuffing gear into the pack that avoiding a mid-trail gear yard sale is in everyone’s best interest. Thankfully, the external organization provided plenty of quick-access gear storage.

While not waterproof per se, the Lightning’s main fabric comes with a 1,000mm waterproof rating. That’s on the low end in the grand scheme of waterproof fabrics. GORE-TEX rain jackets usually clock in around 25,000mm, for reference.

I found that the Lightning 50 will shrug off a light spritzing and morning dew just fine, but it won’t protect its contents from a proper downpour. The pack doesn’t come with a rain cover like some pricier options, so snag one at checkout or pack a big trash bag.

Durability

As pack designers look to shed weight, durability can be one of the first characteristics to suffer. Thankfully, there’s nothing flimsy about the Lightning 50. Repeated dragging has done nothing more than scuff the burly 600D bottom panel.

The 210D HMPE ripstop nylon main fabric has continued to withstand jabs from branches and some frankly clumsy handling. I did manage one small tear in the hip belt pocket’s stretchy mesh fabric while scraping between two boulders, so now my Leatherman rides elsewhere. But it was an easy enough fix with a pair of NoSo patches.

The anchor points where aluminum frames attach to a pack’s fabric can be failure points over time in lightweight backpacks. Fortunately, the Lightning 50’s aluminum backbone is well integrated into the pack — the anchors appear solid and the chance of the frame ripping through the fabric over time seems minimal.

As with a lot of packs, the durability vulnerabilities primarily lie in the plastic buckles and adjusters sprinkled around the pack, but they weren’t an issue for me during the test period. The overall integrity of the pack seems solid, and the lack of zippers substantially reduces the risk of major backcountry failure.

Conclusion

Exped clearly didn’t set out to reinvent the ultralight backpack or redefine value. Instead, the Lightning 50 is a simple, well-executed 50L pack. Who’s it for? A wide swath of folks just venturing into the world of backpacking, or those who would rather skip the futuristic designs and big price tags.

The Lightning 50 delivers value with a great roll top, roomy pockets, and a comfortable hip belt. While fairly rudimentary, the adjustable back panel can accommodate a wide range of torso lengths at the expense of some comfort and stability for larger payloads. But that feature makes it more adept than most at fitting a wide range of users well. And it carries well with light to medium loads.

Still, dedicated ultralight backpackers can save hundreds of grams by spending more. And folks who’d prefer premium comfort, especially for heavier loads, should bump up to a pack with a full frame and padded back panel. Check out GearJunkie’s top picks for the best options in that regard.

The Lightning 50 aims to combine light weight, comfort, and affordability — it’s a solid option for backpackers on the hunt for a sub–3-pound metal-framed pack that’s well south of $300.