Tried and True: The Camelbak M.U.L.E. Remains as Popular as Ever

Camelbak has long been an industry leader in the design of hydration packs and related hydration systems for athletes, emergency personnel and the military and remains so today. Of all of its various designs and models, by far one of the most popular has been the M.U.L.E. This particular pack was originally designed for hikers and mountain bikers, but has evolved in many different directions today. Well established as a tough, durable and reliable hydration pack, most M.U.L.E. packs carry a three litre reservoir and have about ten litres of available cargo space. This makes the pack perfect for carrying both water and most of the additional gear one needs for a day out on the trails.

Designed in large part for mountain biking – it is, in fact, Camelbak’s premier mountain biking pack – the M.U.L.E. has remained extremely popular since at least 2001. Although the product line has been around for almost decade, Camelbak has constantly added new features and enhanced the technology as the years have gone by, meaning that the 2010 version is significantly different from some of the earliest versions. Coming with the three litre OMEGA™ HydroTanium™ Reservoir – with its lifetime warranty – the M.U.L.E. is designed to keep bikers (and others) comfortably hydrated and though the pack lacks a compression frame system, it does have a well fitted insulated reservoir pocket which both keeps the water cold for hours and helps separate the hydration pack from the cargo compartments and the exterior of the pack.

In that the M.U.L.E. is basically a large pack, one of the chief complaints is that wearers frequently end up with sweaty backs, though this is a problem common to any sort of affixed backpack. Camelbak has attempted to address this by creating the Camelbak M.U.L.E. NV. The ‘NV’ stands for ‘N.V.I.S.™ Back Panel’ system which is specifically designed to limit the backpack’s ‘footprint’ on the wearer’s back. This both increases basic ventilation and makes the pack more comfortable. Further, the NV version is also narrower, favouring cargo that projects out from the wearer’s back instead of wider along it. Otherwise though the Camelbak M.U.L.E. NV is very much the same as the standard M.U.L.E. though instead of ten litres of cargo space it only has about eight and a half litres worth.   

The M.U.L.E. gained considerable publicity when people began sending them to the British and American soldiers on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In these harsh desert and arid climates, the hydration packs proved immensely popular and ultimately resulted in the development of a military-specific version of the M.U.L.E. In that soldiers require less cargo space since they carry most of their gear in other bags connected to their uniforms, the military M.U.L.E. (the M.U.L.E. 500), lacks the cargo space available in the civilian models. Further, the military versions come with a specialized clip system designed to attach the pack to military issue body armour (the Direct Armour Attachment System, or D.A.A.S.™).

The M.U.L.E. has been one of Camelbak’s most successful lines of hydration packs and by almost all accounts remains immensely popular with users. The most common complaint generally relates to the reservoirs that were included in earlier versions of the pack; however, today the reservoir technology has greatly improved, so such complaints only really relate to much older models.