From: ari@world.std.com (Ari I Halberstadt)
Subject: Parka + sleeping bag advice sought; reviews + sources given; long
Summary: Need help with these major backpacking purchases
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 05:25:33 GMT

Perhaps netland could help me decide on some important equipment 
purchases. The two major purchases remaining (to complete my 
backpacking outfit) are a shell and a warm-ish sleeping bag. 

Primary use: backpacking in New England, mostly 3-season including 
late fall and early spring with probable occasional forays into 
winter (snowshoeing and x-country skiing, though these skills 
would have to be learned/improved). Basic guidelines: get the best 
for the purpose; price is secondary.

This post is moderately long, but at least it includes capsule 
reviews of several parkas, sleeping bag details, and references 
for further research.

Email welcome, will summarize. Please indicate if you do not want 
your response included in a summary.

* Parkas

At the store (Wilderness House, Boston, MA) there seem to be two 
good choices. The Marmot Alpinist Lightweight Jacket and the Lowe 
Alpine Flash.

On the positive side for the Marmot Alpinist Lightweight ($300) 
are its flexibility and coolness, which come from use of 2L/3L 
GoreTex: 2 layer in low wear areas like back and chest, 3 layer in 
heavy wear places like shoulders and elbows, making it a good 
choice for hiking in warmer weather. On the negative side is the 
Marmot's size: whereas a medium is too small when worn over a 
fleece jacket, the large is a little on the baggy side, though 
large would probably be better than medium. Also, the pockets are 
all mesh pockets, which seems slightly flimsier than fully lined 
pockets, though that seems like a rather trivial drawback (of 
course, one may add that mesh pockets allow for ventilation by 
opening the pockets, though the contents must then be removed).

On the positive side for the Lowe Alpine Flash ($315) are its 
large chest-high bellows pockets, better fit (medium in the Lowe 
is just about my size), rugged 3-layer design, lightweight, superb 
hood which can be adjusted for excellent peripheral vision and 
which was designed to go over a climbing helmet, and its price 
which will go up to $350 very soon. On the negative side for the 
Lowe, the 3-layer GoreTex design is somewhat stiffer than the 
Marmot's 2L/3L design and, according to the salesman, it was 
designed for winter use and will be a little warmer than the 
Marmot.

In the 1992 Lowe catalog there's a jacket called "Antarctica" 
which may bridge the gap between the Lowe and the Marmot jackets. 
The Antarctica uses 2-layer GoreTex in the body and 3-layer 
GoreTex in the shoulders and elbows, which should make it more 
flexible than the Alpine Flash yet retain most of the durability. 
The excellent hood is still present, and Lowe also added a couple 
of hand warmer pockets though they seem to have done away with the 
bellows on the chest pockets (there are still chest pockets). 
Depending on price (which only Marmot seems to put in their 
excellent no-nonsense catalogs) this may be the perfect shell for 
me. Unfortunately, the store didn't have the Antarctica on 
display, so I'm not sure how I'm going to get one or even try one 
on.

The other parkas I looked at were the Moonstone Advantage and the 
NorthFace Lightweight (the precise name escapes me). The Moonstone 
didn't appear as technically well assembled as the other parkas 
and the salesman said it would be a little less durable than the 
Marmot. The NorthFace was a good jacket, with an excellent hood, 
but it was rather heavy and quite warmer than the other parkas (I 
prefer a cooler shell, and this seemed even warmer than the Lowe).
One thing which will eliminate a parka from consideration is a 
detachable hood: the attachment points will probably leak and I 
don't have time to mess with attaching the hood or, worse, 
discovering it's lost. All of the parkas mentioned above have 
integral hoods.

Typical questions I'd ask people if they were with me in the same 
room would be: What do you use? Do you like it? Why? Are the 
particular parkas I'm looking at really good, or is one of them 
reputed to fall apart after 2 weeks (I don't expect this to happen 
to Marmot or Lowe equipment)? Is there some other parka I should 
look at? Do you have experience or can you recommend any of the 
particular parkas mentioned above? No need to answer all of these, 
as any help would be greatly appreciated.

To save an extra post on the subject, what's your favorite outer 
shell for your legs? And, to throw in some more questions, what's 
you favorite hiking pant and material? Does wool still rule as 
some books have it? Are pile pants a great way to have a sweat 
bath? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

* Sources for further information on parkas

Catalogs. Especially the Marmot catalog (it has prices!) They're 
quite fun to browse through :-)

Backpacker Magazine, November 1991, review of mountain parkas, 
several of which were mentioned above. The Lowe Alpine Flash was 
described as "...has everything you need...and nothing you don't 
need", which I found to be quite accurate. Please note that the 
Marmot Alpinist Lightweight jacket has a powder skirt, unlike the 
Alpinist 3L parka which was reviewed. 

* Sleeping bags

Currently I own an old (15yrs) but lightly used PolarGuard 3-
season mummy. This is fine for warm-ish weather, but I'd like to 
extend my camping to a greater temperature range. Down bags seem 
like the best buy due to their wonderful properties (warmth, 
weight, compression, durability), which is only offset by their 
tendency to collapse when wet. Given that I already own a 
synthetic bag a down bag seems like a good complement. Also, 
according to several sources, a sleeping bag is one of the most 
important items--if not the most important item--a backpacker can 
own, which means that I want a really good sleeping bag. The 
burning questions are:

- How warm should the bag be? It seems to me that somewhere around 
0-10 degrees (Fahrenheit) would be the best choice for what will 
primarily be a 3-season bag with occasional winter use. Of course, 
manufacturers aim to confuse, and, according to one salesman, vary 
their measurement techniques between different lines, for 
instance, the NorthFace uses less stringent tests on bags like the 
SuperLight ($180 on sale at Campmor, $270 regular) than it does on 
its higher end bags.

- Should the bag have a GoreTex shell? According to the catalogs, 
GoreTex makes a bag 5-10 degrees warmer for the same weight. But, 
it also adds about $100 to the price. The salesman said the 
GoreTex just helps reduce convective heat loss and does little to 
keep the bag dry. I've read that, on long expeditions, the GoreTex 
might help keep the down clean and hence warmer, but I don't 
expect to be going on expeditions. Thus, is GoreTex really 
necessary (read: worth another $100 and the crinkly outer shell it 
seems to necessitate)?

- And, for the ~$300 question, which bag do I get? At the store, 
they had the Marmot Kestrel (5 degrees, $320) and Peregrine (10 
degrees, $310), as well as the Moonstone Liberty Ridge (5 degrees, 
$320). The salesman said that both Marmot and Moonstone produce 
excellent bags, though Moonstone has only been making down bags 
for a couple of years (they made synthetics before). The Marmot 
Peregrine seemed to have a slight edge in loft, but that was total 
loft, not top loft. The Moonstone has a slightly more technically 
refined bag, with such features as trapezoid baffles and foot area 
and more down on the top than on the bottom. The same questions 
apply here as for the parkas (see above), just substitute "bag" 
for parka.

* Sources for further information on sleeping bags

Backpacker Magazine, December 1991. This issue is reputed to 
contain a review of medium to warm sleeping bags, but, 
unfortunately, my local library doesn't subscribe and the main 
branch of the Boston Public Library subscribes but losses half the 
issues it receives (which is to say, they also don't have this 
issue). Oh well :-(, the search for the elusive article continues.

Backpacker Magazine, April 1992 buyer's guide. This has a 
seemingly endless list of bags and, except for showing me what a 
wonderful thing it is for people who make sleeping bags to have a 
large free-market economy, does little to alleviate my confusion 
in choosing a bag. If anything, the profusion of manufacturers and 
models only exacerbates my confusion.

Backpacker Magazine, May 1992, review of 3-season bags, lighter 
than the bags I'm looking at.
-- 
Ari Halberstadt  ari@world.std.com  #include <disclaimer.h>  #include <quote.h>
Newsgroups: rec.backcountry