Baby backpack for hiking

[TheFunPolice]

I'm keen to get back to traipsing up my lovely hills and starting to think about doing some short hikes. However in a few months I'd like to be hiking 'properly' again.
Can any of you lovely people offer some recommendations please? I was thinking about s Littlelife voyager/cross country or a Macpac possum. I like the fact of being able to put these on and off by myself, and also the mirror.

[lljkk]

I had a MacPac, can recommend but DH didn't care for it.
Look closely at the carrier's own weight, we mostly used a Tomy Dreamrider for our big hikes (including carting a 20-month old up Ben Nevis).

[TinyTear]

We have the Deuter Kid Comfort 3
it's great, have done a 13k walk with it once and if it wasn't starting to snow could have gone longer (with a 14 month old)

We thought the littlelife was ok if the baby was awake but not as good for naps, the Deuter has a removable cushion we can slot in when she naps.
also the Deuter can pop out a thingy for stabilising when putting her on and off...

But for the Deuter, the III is the best one, the 2 wasn't as good.

The Osprey Poco Premium was the other option we were going to go for but got a good price on the Deuter 3

[Cyee]

We used the macpac vamoose and can recommend it. In fact we have two :) Happy hiking.

[pootlebug]

I hike with a soft structured carrier or woven wrap rather than a backpack. Admittedly you can't store stuff in it the way you can a framed carrier, but if there are two of you, one carries the baby and the other carries most of the stuff.

The advantages for me are:

• most hiking backpacks are made to fit blokes...I am quite small and have never found one that fits me properly
  
• they tend to hold the baby further from your centre of gravity, so feel much heavier
  
• they are heavier in themselves, again adding to weight
  
• they are massive when baby isn't in them, while other carriers pack down small
  
• also more useful when your 'baby' is actually walking a good bit of the way....you can have a toddler/preschool carrier in a bag and just carry them once they get tired.

[HappyJoyful]

How old is child ? We've borrowed a friends littlelife one and loved it and so dd 1.5yr old last summer.

[EssieW]

We had a little life which was great. No problem with naps etc.

Beware of soft carriers though. I have used my ergo for hiking but child is much less protected if you fall. The other carriers seem to be designed with a crumple zone at the bottom and protects the body. I fell over on ice once with our little life - child completely fine. That would not have been the case with a soft carrier. Also they're not waterproof

[Anja1Cam]

We used a Bushbaby Lite and it was great, I can recommend it and it's very adjustable - easily/quickly adjustable for height when switching between carriers too. Bushbaby also do a more serious version with sun hood, stirrups and rain cover which might suit you better.

One feature to look for - that it stands up by itself when not being carried, which makes 'loading' so much easier!

[TinyTear]

Yes the Deuter stands up by itself.

It also has a fully adjustable back and it's really easy to change from my settings (1.63m) to my husband (1.80m)

[HappyJoyful]

The littlelite we used had a foot/boot hole to hold it up for loading and 2 handles which I recall finding really useful for 'loading'