![]() ![]() These are among the lightest and best quality summer down bags widely available, and if looked after properly should give years of service to justify the initial outlay.Īll pack away to a fairly similar size 1L water bottle for scale None of the three sleeping bags on review here is a budget option, but while cheaper down bags are available (see Alpkit for instance) I've yet to find a lower priced model that matches the sort of weight saving offered by these three. ![]() To my mind bird-fluff has only one down side versus nylon – it generally costs more. 'Two-season-plus is a broad category, covering quite a variety of conditions and as many possible activities. Still I remember only two occasions in the last couple of decades when my sleeping bag got wet enough to compromise its insulation - and actually neither took place in Britain. When wet even a synthetic bag is going to give you a very unpleasant night, but how often do you manage to soak a sleeping bag in the first place? I camp in the rain a lot – it's inevitable in the UK. In our damp climate this has obvious advantages for things that might conceivably get wet, like jackets, but with sleeping bags I'm less convinced. It's been in development for millions of years after all, and when have you seen geese shivering? Though they're heavier for an equivalent insulation synthetic fibres are sometimes preferred over down for their superior performance when saturated. To me that means a down bag, and specifically goose down.ĭespite the best efforts of the proverbial white coated boffins, good old fashioned down still beats synthetic fillings for warmth-to-weight. One of the joys of backpacking and mountaineering in the (relatively) warmer months is the freedom to travel without the encumbrance of all the winter weight stuff, so to capitalise on that the ideal summer sleeping bag is going to be the lightest one capable of doing the job. proper brass monkeys) your 'rest of the year' choice should be more a jack of all trades, suited to temperatures ranging from the low single digits to, say, the low twenties. While a cold weather bag has a fairly defined temperature remit (ie. This is a broad category, covering quite a variety of conditions and as many possible activities – a chilly spring bivvy on the Cuillin Ridge hut-to-hut-ing through a Pyrenean heatwave camping in rainy autumn gales in Wales. But really you can get away with a mere two - something beefy for winter and other snow-related mountain trips, and a lighter model for the rest of the year.įor the sake of brevity let's call this second niche two-season-plus. Unless your pockets (and gear cupboards) are bottomless it's perfectly possible to own too many sleeping bags I should know. Over this spring and summer Dan Bailey has taken three different top-end lightweight down bags up hill and down dale in an unscientific attempt to work out which one's best: the Rab Neutrino 200, Mountain Equipment Xero 250 or the Mammut / Ajungilak Sphere Spring. ![]()
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