[Review] The Hopper 30 by Yeti

The Yeti Hopper 30 is anything but ordinary.  Not only does this portable cooler keep ice colder and longer, it is tougher than that guy at the gym with the cutoff jean shorts and muscle-bursting-white tank. Throw this thing on the back of your motorcycle and I guarantee you’re going to have a mechanical issue with your motorcycle before you even have to worry about the condition of your Yeti Hopper.  I wouldn’t even question strapping the Hopper down to the back of my motorcycle, a KTM 640 single cylinder moto deemed the “paint-shaker.”  The “paint-shaker” has been known to rattle hands and toes numb, break many GoPro mounts, and shimmy bolts loose.  It’s a tough world on the back of that motorcycle but the Hopper would come off without a scratch.

Is there anything more annoying when you’re camping to have all of the ice in your cooler melt on a hot day and return to camp only to find you have hot beer waiting for you? Yes.  There is.  And that is when now, not only do you have hot beer and no ice, the water in your cooler from what was once ice is about to spill all over the back seat of your Subaru. And if you had some turkey in your cooler for sandwiches, you now have nasty turkey water in your back seat.  The Yeti Hopper is not only amazing at keeping your contents cold, it’s entirely leakproof.

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The leakproof Hydrolok Zipper allows you to mount or carry your Hopper in any way you can imagine.  Combined with the ample amount of tie-down points, and carrying straps, this Hopper can go anywhere with you.

The Hopper 30 is the perfect size for most of what we use it for.  This spring, we were car camping in Moab, Utah and used the Hopper 30 for all of our drinks and food.  We didn’t go crazy with our food stock, but we had some breakfast food, lunch food, condiments, drinks, and meat to grill over the fire for dinner.  While it wasn’t the ideal situation for the Hopper, we were able to fit everything in it including ice.  After a few days, we got a good system down and keeping the Hopper organized was key to our success.  To put it into perspective, we were in Moab for about 9 days and bought ice twice. And no we weren’t just eating rotten and warm food.  Our ice was lasting that long!  We had a few hot days-between 75 and 80 degrees-and wouldn’t be super mindful of where we kept our Yeti (which most times was in the car).  The spring before, Tyson and I took the exact same trip for about the same length of time.  We had some hard-sided bright blue cooler from who knows where.  We were literally buying ice every other day.

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Tyson did a non-scientific study the other day comparing the Hopper 30 with a random soft-sided cooler that was similar in size.  He found that, after 3 days of the two coolers sitting next to each other in the backyard under the sun, the Hopper had about 3 pounds of ice left in it and the other cooler had no ice left.  He didn’t have anything in the coolers.  The Coldcell insulation really works and the Hydrolock zipper not only keeps your cooler from leaking, it keeps the cold air in.

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Of course, when we go on short road trips in Minnesota and it’s 80 degrees and the Hopper is in the back of the truck, our ice doesn’t last nearly as long as it would if we were in the Rocky Mountains camping where the temps are still dipping into the 30s some nights.  Like with most coolers, there are a lot of variables that can affect the length of your ice’s life.

The Hopper 30 is a portable cooler that you’re not going to have to replace after a year of use.  It’s going to be with you through the long haul.  Take it on the water, to the beach, canoeing, camping, the options are endless and the abuse taken.  The Yeti Hopper is for hard adventurers who love to drink cold drinks and eat food that isn’t dehydrated. If you’re not into the portable cooler design, check out the totally badass and equally as tough (maybe even more so seeing as how they are grizzly proof!) line of heavy duty Yeti coolers. In 20 years, your kid’s kids won’t know what a cooler is. They will only refer to the tool as a Yeti!