Engearment

Patagonia Black Hole MLC Convertible Carry-On 45L – The Reformed Dirtbag’s Weekender Workhorse

Drew Thayer

There’s a special kind of satisfaction in walking onto a plane with a single bag that holds your entire life for the week — camp smoke–stained flannels, climbing shoes, dress pants for a wedding toast, and a laptop full of overdue spreadsheets. The Patagonia Black Hole MLC Convertible Carry-On 45L has quietly become that bag for me: the rare travel piece that works for both my “reformed dirtbag” weekends and my grown-up work trips.

Patagonia markets the MLC (“Maximum Legal Carry-on”) as a versatile travel system for people on the move. After several trips this fall — from camping and climbing in North Carolina’s Linville Gorge to speaking at a friend’s wedding — I’m convinced this is one of the most intelligently designed, durable, and low-drama travel bags Patagonia has made. And unlike some of my favorite Patagonia climbing packs, this one actually fits in an overhead bin.

A Travel Bag That Actually Fits Where It Should

One of my long-standing gripes with “travel-ready” outdoor packs is that they’re often too tall for overhead bins — the 45L Cragsmith, for example, is phenomenal at hauling a winter’s worth of climbing gear but fails the carry-on test by several inches. The Black Hole MLC? No such drama. It slides into standard overheads horizontally or vertically with ease.

On two different flights, the bag tucked cleanly into overhead compartments (photos above). No gate-check roulette, no pleading with the flight attendant, no anxiety while the boarding herd piles in behind you.

This one detail alone made me a convert.

Smart Internal Organization — Dirtbag Mode Meets Wedding Mode

The main 45L cavity is surprisingly cavernous, easily swallowing a week’s worth of clothes, a pair of nice shoes, toiletries, and whatever miscellaneous camp funk you’ve accumulated from the days prior.

In my Linville Gorge → wedding-weekend test, I loaded the main compartment with flannels, warm layers, climbing pants, approach shoes, and a small stove and pot, with travel essentials like a 20 amp hour battery, headlamp, and charging cords stuffed into the organizer pockets. 

Patagonia’s organization philosophy here reminds me of what I appreciate in their climbing and alpine gear: enough pockets to keep things separated, but not so many that you feel like you’re negotiating a filing cabinet. Much like the Cragsmith’s “big bucket” simplicity but adapted for travel

A Laptop Compartment Designed By Someone Who Actually Uses a Laptop

This is where the bag surprised me most.

The laptop sleeve is positioned against your back inside a protected, slightly rigid compartment that prevents flexing or torquing the computer — the kind of stress that happens when you just stuff a laptop into a floppy front pocket or in a day pack. It fits modern 15–16″ laptops with room to spare and has pockets for chargers, notebooks, pens, etc.

And because the sleeve is narrow and structured, it doubles beautifully as a “formal wear safe zone.” For the wedding, I slid folded dress clothes into the laptop compartment. They stayed pressed, unwrinkled, and isolated from dirtier layers lingering in the main cavity. Honestly? Brilliant.

Slim, Streamlined, and Built for Real Travel

Patagonia intentionally minimized external straps, daisy chains, and snag points — something I loved after years of hauling climbing packs through airports where every loose strap seems engineered to hook onto a seat armrest.

When you want the MLC to become a clean, sleek travel unit:

• stash the shoulder straps

• tuck away the waist belt

• grab the bag by any of its cleverly placed handles

It transforms into a compact soft-sided suitcase, making it much easier to navigate tight aisles or overhead storage.

This design restraint mirrors Patagonia’s approach to fast-and-light kits: the Alplight Down Pullover, for example, is warm because it’s ruthlessly simple and focused . Same logic here. No fluff — just function.

If you need to look presentable — e.g., walking into a client meeting or, in my case, a wedding rehearsal dinner — the optional shoulder-sling orientation works cleanly and professionally.

Durability: Classic Black Hole DNA

The Black Hole fabric lineage is famous for a reason: these things take abuse. Drag it across a parking lot. Stuff it into a shuttle trunk. Drop it on a muddy picnic table. The fabric shrugs it off.

It’s not built like a climbing pack meant to scrape against granite, but it shares the same overbuilt confidence as Patagonia’s other Black Hole gear — a welcome contrast to the ultralight travel bags that look tired after a single flight.

Only Complaint: Give Me a Water Bottle Pocket

For a piece this obviously optimized for air travel and multi-modal days, the lack of a water bottle pocket is noticeable. When you’re hustling through connecting flights or walking an urban stretch, quick access hydration is invaluable.

Not a dealbreaker — plenty of travel bags omit them to maintain a clean exterior — but I still missed it.

Bottom Line

The Patagonia Black Hole MLC Convertible Carry-On 45L is the best travel bag I’ve used for hybrid dirtbag-meets-professional life. It’s:

• big enough for a week,

• organized enough to stay sane,

• protective enough for work tech,

• sleek enough for overhead bins,

• durable enough for real world travel abuse.

If you’re someone who jumps between worlds — crag dust on Friday, wedding speeches on Saturday, laptop meetings Monday morning — this bag hits a rare sweet spot.

A true one-bag travel solution for the reformed dirtbag.

Drew Thayer