North Face Iron Peak

Named after mountains, built for the city.

After loving the rugged and functional Recon, and then the beautifully designed (yet somewhat quirky) Access pack a little while ago, we’ve now dumped our day-to-day cartage into the The North Face’s latest commuter offering, the Iron Peak.

And the conclusion we’ve arrived at is that the brains over at The North Face’s product development department really do kinda know what they’re doing.

Crafted from 210D Cordura ripstop nylon, the Iron Peak features one primary 28L cavity for the bulk of your carry. Touted as suitable for 15in laptops, we actually had no trouble sneaking in our 17-inch MacBook Pro dinosaur. Just in front of the laptop pocket is the organisation section, featuring subpockets of varying sizes for your miscellany, alongside a fleece-lined slot for a tablet. We just liked putting our hands in it cause it feels so delicious.

The outside of the Iron Peak features a single quick access zippered — and again delightfully lined — pocket for your phone/glasses/ hands, as well as stretchy water bottle pockets flanking each side.

Loaded up and twostrapping, the Iron Peak carries really well. It sits surprisingly high and tight to the body given its length, which keeps it out of the way of your back-end actionstation during those quick platform changes or a cycle commute. Weirdly, comfort actually increases the more stuff you cram into it. That’s larely due to the fantastic back panel, spine channel and injection-molded straps. It’ll be a tough task to top this as a day-to-day carrier.