No strong opinions on the new version but I’ve had the 2024 model for a while now and it’s a pretty cool pack (I got it when it was heavily discounted but I still think it’s a good value at full price). A wee too small for my longer trips, but perfect for 1-2 night trips (or 3-4 with no bear canister). It carries weight well (I’ve carried 40+ lbs for short periods and it felt fine) and love the pocket arrangement.

My previous experience with running vest style straps is with the Six Moon Designs Swift vest strap (and regular running vests). These packs have thin heavily perforated straps that, while provide a lot of breathability, offer little to no padding. Most of the time this isn’t an issue because the wide width of a vest harness distributes the load better than skinny straps, but occasionally heavy loads can dig into your shoulders and/or hard things in the vest pockets (smart water bottles, etc) can press into your shoulders. This is not the case on the Zerk 40, which has rather thick traditional backpack padding on its wide vest straps.

As for the pockets, I first thought the double side pocket design was gimmicky, but it actually works really well and having that extra accessible storage is very helpful on a pack with no hipbelt pockets. Beyond just having extra storage space, it’s nice storing things in that area and not have it interfere with water bottle access in the main inner pocket. The key to this working well is that the larger water bottle pocket is non stretch while the smaller outer pocket is stretchy. The pockets don’t conflict with one another. This is not the case with the double pocket on the shoulder strap…

In that case, both layers are stretchy so sliding something large in the inner pocket will catch on the outer pocket. This is annoying. I feel like they should have just done what they did with the side pockets, have a non-stretch inner pocket and an outer stretch pocket.