MidCurrent Tested and Trusted: The Yeti M30 Tote Soft Cooler
The Yeti M30 Tote Soft Cooler packs a lot of features into an easy-to-carry cooler.
Coolers are a problem. Whether you’re packing them with beverages for a quick few hours of fishing or for a week-long float, finding a cooler that can do everything is a flat-out pain in the butt. Most large coolers are heavy and cumbersome to load and carry, while smaller ones just don’t have enough storage space. On top of that, most basic coolers only hold ice long enough to cool your food instead of keeping it cold, ensuring that spoilage starts to occur after a couple days.
For years, I searched for a cooler that I could use for both day trips and long expeditions, one that wasn’t heavy or awkward to carry and one that would hold ice for at least a full day if not more. I honestly thought that such a thing didn’t exist, and then I ran into the YETI M30 Tote Cooler.
The Right Fit
The first thing I noticed about the YETI M30 Tote was that it’s roomy. The cooler has a 17-by-9-inch interior that’s 14 inches tall, so it’s got more than enough space to fit your favorite beverages, a couple meals, and a bunch of snacks. Yet, because it weighs only 6.8 pounds, you can pack the YETI M30 Tote full to the brim and it will still be light enough to carry around. With multiple double-stitched carry handles, as well as a long padded shoulder strap, it’s the perfect cooler for shuttling lunch/beer back and forth from your truck to your boat or for filling up with a night or two’s worth of supplies on a hike into the backcountry.
You can pack a lot of food and drink in the M30, and it keeps cold for a good, long while. Photos courtesy of Yeti
In addition to the carrying capacity and easy portability, the YETI M30 Tote also keeps things cold. Made with YETI’s patented ColdCell Insulation technology, the M30 Tote is lined with closed-cell foam, meaning that so long as it’s not sweltering outside, the cooler will hold ice for as long as you need it to. In fact, on a recent backcountry steelhead trip in semi-frosty conditions where I didn’t have access to more ice, my YETI M30 Tote held ice for an entire week! Which was great since I needed it for the scotch I used to drown my sorrows on the fishless trip.
Ruggedly Useful
Another thing that makes the YETI M30 Tote stand out, not just from totes but other coolers in general, is that you can beat the hell out of it. Made with YETI’s Dryhide Shell, high-density fabric, the YETI M30 Tote is both puncture- and abrasion-resistant and able to stand up to anything you throw at it. I’ve had my YETI Tote for a few years now and have done terrible things to it, including sliding it down a shale cliff to a waiting raft and dragging it through trail-less brush into the mountains, and it’s never even gotten a scratch.
The final thing that really makes the YETI M30 Tote awesome is the mouth. Unlike other tote-type coolers, which usually have a fragile zipper that breaks off or won’t completely close when you pack it full, the YETI M30’s mouth has been engineered with MagSheild Access. The lips of the cooler mouth have been lined with durable and powerful magnets that create a leak-resistant seal designed to stay open when you need it to and then snap close with a gentle push. This makes the YETI M30 incredibly easy to load and unload quickly, which is convenient when you have an armload of goods and know the fish are biting.
The author’s Yeti M30 has endured years of use and abuse. Photo: Kubie Brown.
A Worthy Investment
Like all YETI products, the M30 Tote Cooler isn’t cheap, retailing at $350.00. Buying one may knock the stuffing out of your wallet a bit, but it’s completely worth the price because it’s a cooler that will last. The DryShell Hide of the cooler is resistant to UV rays, meaning that it’s not going to warp or become brittle like other tote bags, and the interior of the cooler has been treated to be mildew-resistant.
So, as long as you rinse the cooler out with a little bit of dish soap and store it in a dry place, you’ll never get a funky smell or any sort of mold forming its own civilization in the bottom. With just a little bit of upkeep, your YETI M30 Tote can be an ice-holding companion for as long as you need it to and perhaps even solve your cooler problems forever.
