Date: 2012-01-14
To: Sleeping Bags
Miles today: 0.0

SLEEPING BAGSFear = Weight. You have heard all this before but once again, this statement is so very true. It may take time and experience to build your confidence level on several areas on the many facets of fear, but if you could, you could dramatically reduce your pack weight without compromising your comfort or safety. Here are some of my thoughts regarding the topic of sleeping bags. What you do with the suggestions, if anything, is entirely up to you. Everyone is different with individual needs and fears as will be shown with the examples below. Many gear choices depend on personal comfort levels, hunger levels, time of year you start your hike, how long you are willing to spend hiking each day and for the length of the trail and last, but not certainly not least, how much you are willing to spend. The sleeping bag is one piece of gear where you can save a lot of weight for a single item but it will come with a higher then normal price tag. I will first share my person experiences regarding sleeping bags and then two cases I experienced with my other fellow hikers. First, my own story. I started my first hike in mid march with a Marmot Helium 15 degree bag. It is an older model and has 900 fill. I think the current models have 850 fill. There is also a newer outer liner which adds a few ounces of weight and claims to make the bag ¢waterproof¢. There were many nights below freezing and this bag was always more then enough to keep me warm.   But at 2 lbs it was not something that I planned to carry for long. I figured after I completed the higher elevations of the Smoky Mountains. I would have a lighter bag sent to Hot Springs. The only negative experience I had with this bag was in the Smokies. You are required to stay in the shelters, if there is room. One night landed me at the Mount Collins Shelter. This night had a ridge runner present so everyone was required to stay in the shelter, except one guy who was allowed to set up his hammock since it would not cause an impact on the surrounding area (which was odd). The shelter has two levels to it. I set up on the lower level of the shelter. While I was outside the shelter watching a storm come over the ridgeline, I see a fellow hiker run out of the shelter carrying a bag. It looked a lot like mine, because it was. A hiker on the upper level did not fasten the lid on his water bladder tightly enough and of course my bag was under the flow. It was cold so the bag never had an opportunity to dry. Being a down bag I did lose some loft in the mid section where the water landed but the moisture did not seem to reach the inside lining. I simply put a warm shirt on at night and all was fine. The good news here is that if you go with the higher level Marmot down bags, most of them now have an outer layer that is more water resistant, waterproff according to Marmot. I think this option adds three ounces and cost a lot more but here the extra ounces may have been worth it.The first example of an extreme ¢bag¢ experience involved a young guy, 18-19 years old hiking with his sister. His sister was on some sort of probation from attending West Point so they were hiking together through the Smoky Mountains. This poor guy was given a generic 40-45 degree bag by his dad as an opportunity for him to ¢toughen up¢.   Seriously, that is what he said. His sister more-or-less confirmed her brother¢s ¢opportunity¢. Of course even though she was the one attending her final year in West Point, she was using a 20 degree bag. Go figure. It also seemed that he was shorted any real warm weather clothing. I don¢t think the dad thought the weather was going to be quit as bad as it was or at least that is what I want to believe. It was the last night in the Smokies for us. The weather was still grim, wet and cold. Night temps were 30-35. It wasn¢t long after the lights went out that you could hear this guy tossing and turning. In a bit more time you could literally hear him shivering and his teeth chattering. He was getting into trouble. You could hear hushed voices between him and his sister and then he said something like ¢but i'm f¢in cold. Every hiker in the shelter heard this and turned on their lamps, went through their packs and got him enough extra clothing to get him comfortably through the night. This type of unrehearsed support among hikers is not uncommon on the trail. The two of them made it to Standing Bear Hostel the next day where they ended their hike. I think the only thing the dad taught his son is to hate hiking. When I arrived at Hot Springs, I received my 30 degree Marmot Hydrogen bag in my mail drop. At 1 pound 8 ounces, it was lighter and also packed smaller which was a plus since I also shipped in a smaller pack. This bag also proved to be a great choice. I was never cold. With the weather getting warmer as I moved north, I switched once again to the Marmot Pounder when I arrived in Damascus. The Marmot Pounder is a 40 degree synthetic bag weighing in at one pound, six ounces (it isn¢t a pound) with the stuff sack. I don¢t think Marmot makes this bag anymore. From the very first night I used it, my body condensation seemed to be trapped inside and built up instead of transferring out. As such, when the night time temps dropped, I became chilled by the morning. This occurred every night. Once I go to the I-81 interchange area on US220 in central Virginia, I took a zero day at the Howard Johnson. There was a strip mall with a sports store located in it. I purchased (at full retail of course) my Western Mountaineering 35 degree Highlite 850 fill down bag. Much like the Western Mountaineering Flight Vest I picked up at Neel¢s Gap, this remains at the top of my gear choices to this day. Not only did I complete the rest of my first hike using this bag, I also completed my entire second hike with it. I plan to use it again the entire hike this year. At one pound, it meets every expectation I have with it. It has a great weight/warmth ratio and I have had occasions where the temps have dipped below freezing. On occasion, I may need to wear additional clothing for the colder temps but since I am carrying them already, I include them into my overall warmth calculations. It is also a great warm weather bag to sleep on during the hot nights during the warm season. The only issue I had with this bag was with the last of a series of issues/events that almost took me off trail right before Glasgow, VA. on my first hike. At the end of a longer hiking day, a storm was starting to roll in. It wasn¢t really raining yet so I decided to keep hiking an additional five miles to the Thunder Hill Shelter. Of course as I started my ascent up Apple Orchard Mountain, the storm hit. The winds were probably 50-60 mph at the ridgeline, with rain. The shelter was only about another mile and I arrived in relatively good shape. I set up in the shelter along with several other hikers taking refuge from the storm. At the shelter were two trail dogs. The black lab was named Trucker since the hikers adopted them after it was abandoned at a truck stop they were at. The other dog was a larger breed dog, well seasoned to hiking and well behaved. You can tell that Trucker was not used to the trail life or his new owners. During the storm, when everyone else was sleeping, Trucker was very restless. His new owners were fast asleep and oblivious to the situation but Trucker kept running out of the shelter, stop, look like it was watching for his owner or something, and then run back into the shelter and curled up next to me on my bag. This would have been ok if it only occurred once, but after the fourth time, I could feel that the wetness made its way into my bag and I was starting to get a bit cold. The next time I kind of shoed him off since I was now wet and becoming chilled. I was already wearing all of my clothing I had. Trucker ended up against the couple who owned the other dog since they thought it was their dog lying against them. Well, in the morning Trucker and his new owners left and I was tired and a bit beaten from not sleeping well.So I guess the lesson learned here is that no matter how much you try, sometimes shit happens that is out of your control and yet you still survive it. The only two negative situations regarding my bag getting wet, was not of my doing. I take extremely good care and take the extra precautions needed to use a down bag. I think the weight warmth ratio you get with down is well worth the extra care. Just be careful of others who may not be as caring or cautious As far as care goes for this bag, I have only washed it once. Of course you need to wash it by itself in a commercial sized front load machine. You tumble it, again by itself on low or no heat, by itself. I carry a clean pair of socks or liners that I wear primarily for night use only to both keep my feet warm and so I don¢t smell my bag up. I will also always wipe down any exposed body part at the end of every day to remove any dirt, grim and bug repellant before getting into the bag. When I pack it it first goes into a stuff sack. Then I use two plastic grocery bags in reverse direction to cover over that. I have had standing water in my backpack and yet I have always taken my bag out for the night completely dry.   The second experience I had was the other extreme of the story of the young guy above. This was during my second hike. A very pleasant, young married couple was hiking together. She was given the name (ass)backwards, since I guess she always would go over a fence style or steep downs in a backward direction. It was mid April and was somewhat cold at night, probably 35-40 degrees at the colder nights. Her body comfort level was obviously lower then most as she was complaining on how cold she was with her 15 degree bag. Now, a 15 degree bag should have been plenty warm, if not even toasty. I was warm with my 35 degree bag. In any case, the next time I saw her she had purchased a new bag, I think in Gatlinburg. Apparently the outfitter there was out of the 0 degree bag she wanted so she ended up with a -15 degree bag weighing in at something like 4 12 pounds. But she didn¢t care. She had a big smile, was happy with her warm nights and was young enough to carry the extra weight. This is a great example of you should do what is good for you. For her, the weight/warmth ratio to meet her comfort level was higher then most other hikers. I don¢t get it, but it worked for her. When I saw them in Hot Springs, they were both smiling ear-to-ear and having a great hiking experience. One thing to remember here is also when talking to her, it did not appear as if money or cost was an issue, which was good because that new bag probably ran them around $500.When your wants are your needs, you will be carrying a lot of excess weight. When your needs are your wants, you will be hiking ultra-light.