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Just got back from the spring sale at the Summit Hut in Tucson and found a couple of great deals. I picked up two Western Mountaineering Sequoia bags for $100 off of each one! I have never found these on sale anywhere. These are the champagne of bags. Found a pair of Mountain Hardware Gortex pants with full side zips for those high country adventures for $45 off.

I visit these guys on a regular basis because they really train their staff, put in quick special orders and know how to be polite to someone bringing their business to them.

I was wondering, what temperture rating do you choose for a versital bag and what fill do you prefer? I know everyone is different in body type and preferences. I sleep cold so I go for a warmer bag. The one I chose zips completely around the footbox to make a quilt. It is semi-rectangular as mummie bags that are real tight make me claustrophobic.

So what do you prefer?

BoyN...

Well, I can't say enough good things about Western Mountaineering bags. I took a second mortgage a few years back and sprung for their Antelope with extra down fill. They rate it at 0 degrees F and it weighs about 2.75 lbs. The craftsmanship and tailoring is perfect and although here in AZ I don't get to use it frequently, I'd look at their other lighter-duty bags in a minute.

-Nealz

(Note added 4/6/02: As so often happens, a topic like this one can become REALLY informative! So informative, in fact, that we look at our old, dog-eared gear and decide it's time to buy new stuff. Naturally, we're going to use the advice of everyone who posted on this topic. Thanks to Glen for starting the topic and THANKS to everyone who has posted so far. )
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The original post:

Sleeping bags get to be like old friends. Susun's bag dates back into the 60's and I'm still using the one I bought when I moved to AZ in '79. It's a good down North Face. Quality really counts in sleeping bags. You might as well 'pay up' and not try to skimp. We did buy two new Coleman hollofills at a Popular sale last fall. We finally tested them this week at 23 overnight at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. We'd reckon they are probably good to 10-15. They were OK at 23. They are for car camping. The down bags are still our 'go to' bags for backpacking. Besides 'buy quality' our advice would include: get a great warranty--preferably lifetime. If you're buying your first and only bag, buy from somewhere like REI with a great return policy and test the bag immediately. Don't dilly dally! Make sure you're comfortable right away, even if you have to sleep in your backyard or on your patio. Don't wait until it's too late to find out you bought a bag that just doesn't fit or keep you comfortable. Sleeping bags are a lot like shoes. Imagine walking into a shoe store and buying a new pair of shoes without a fitting or a trial walk around the store! A lot of people do that with sleeping bags and it's little wonder a lot of people aren't as satisfied as they deserve to be.
J&S in RR

I use a North Face Cat's Meow from 96-7ish that is rated around the 20 degree range. This bag rocks. Generally, I don't get very cold, but I have used a liner once or twice when the temps dropped below 0. This is a great bag. We only use a tent about 1/3 of the time, so we're talking groundcloth, ridgerest then bag. I can't say enough about the durability of this product. It's been all over with me.

I like to stargaze so often I don't use a tent either. I might use a bug shelter though. It takes a warmer bag to do that. Especialy if you like to go into the mountains which I do. I was going to get a 15 degree bag but this 10 degree came up at a real good price and I like warm bags. If needed it unzips all the way to venilate. I have a 30 degree bag for warmer elevations.

I have gotten cold in the Hearts Prairie area in the middle of summer. The high country in Yosemitie can get cold to. I have a silk liner that will work by itself it things get warm.

Great find Greg! That's a killer pickup line if I ever saw one. ' I picked up TWO Western Mountaineering Bags' beats 'come up and see my etchings' all to pieces. They are indeed the champagne of bags, and usually priced like Chateau Lafitte Rothchild.

I still think down is king, although the best synthetics are getting very very good. I have both (Frankly, Scarlett, I have four...) After a very nasty week of torrential downpour on the Continental Divide in Colorado a few years back I decided a good synthetic bag was advisable for trips where one might spend time doing the backstroke. I now have two synthetics, a +15 three season bag and a light +40 summer bag, both in Polarguard 3D. I have an old trusty down bag and a Summit Hut Killer Sale bag, a -40 Mtn. Hardwear down bag with dryloft (Goretex) shell. I've never used it but it was half off.....

My basic rules for bags: Hunters have a saying for comparing rifle calibers, 'Dead is Dead'. Simply, if a given product gets the job done under all normal conditions, the excess power is meaningless. With bags, the yardstick is loft. Three inches of dead air space insulation is a fixed amount of insulation, no matter what the fill matter is. I wish all manufacturers would use loft as a criteria. Temperature ratings are all subjective. Wind, altitude, level of fatigue, and even personal metabolism all influence how you sleep.

The books all used to suggest that one sleep au naturale. That was before polarfleece and polypro. The logic back then was that if you crawled into the bag wearing damp cotton or wool, the evaporation would cool you off. Since the new synthetics don't retain water, wearing them in your bag doesn't hurt much, and can boost the rating. A tent, a tarp or even a dryloft coating can raise the temperature rating by over 5 degrees by limiting wind's ability to wick heat from the insulation, creating the need for you to produce more. Other people or animals can raise the temperature in an enclosed area even further. I spent years warmed by BTUs-Beagle thermal units.

Basic values are a draft tube, which is a baffle behind the zipper, and non-sewn through constuction. Sewn through construction is used on items like vest, where the stitching goes all the way thru the item. This causes cold spots in a bag. Insist on slant tube or box construction. Hoods and shoulder collars add extra warmth to mummy style bags, which while less roomy, require your body to heat less air space.

Never, never leave a bag stuffed when you get home. Always leave it as uncompressed as possible (ditto for 'thermarest' style mattresses) which extends your investment for years. Never dry clean any bag, it will come back with an obnoxious odor that lasts for months.

Polarguard 3D and Polarguard HV seem to be the only real dependable versions of the synthetics (The North Face has a new version of same, don't recall what they call it. Kinda like Windows, every year a new version) Most of the other synthetics are fine for car camping, but not for serious backcountry use. Some one noted the 'second mortgage'. You get what you pay for, especially in down bags (lotta cheap down out there) but last year's Polarguard is still a very good product and is probably on sale. -R

Excellent advice Randy. Maybe you'll get to use that -40 bag someday. One good thing about these new bags of ours is they have continuous baffles so the down can be moved from bottom to top in cold weather and top to bottom in warm. Versitale!

Glen

Reading these posts can be hazardous to your wallet! Partly as a result of reading and reflecting on the collective wisdom penned here, we've decided to buy new sleeping bags. As much as we'd like to buy Western Mountaineering caviar bags, we simply can't afford them. We're pretty much in the North Face Cat's Meow or the REI Sub Kilo price range and, even at Spring Sale Prices, that's going to set us back about $300 for a pair of bags.
Sooooo.....our big household debate goes back to the age old, time worn, hackneyed, 'down or synthetics' debate. Synthetics HAVE gotten a lot better over the last few years. No doubt about it.

We did find a website that has a pretty simple explanation of the various 'generations' of Polarguard. Here it is:

http://www.kosa.com/staple/polarguard.htm

Apparently, the Polarguard Delta really is exclusive to The North Face products.

Polarguard appears to be manufactured in Oakland, California. As we were nosing around the net looking for technical information about these marvels of modern science and stumbled into some sleeping bag tests performed by the Institute for Environmental Research, Kansas State University. You'd probably really enjoy reading the whole article. This is just one small excerpt:

'To simulate long-term use and abuse, each bag was subjected to extreme testing. Two bags were secured side by side and held taut. A 250 pound octagon weight was rolled over the bags repeatedly for 50,000 cycles. This test was designed to replicate years of continual abuse in just a few hours, the kind of abuse few bags are likely to be subjected to. After the torture each bag was re-measured for loft and thermal efficiency.'

Here is the URL: http://www.polarguard.com/reporton.htm

Also, thanks, Glen, for your post below. All of this hard thinking is causing a pain between our ears!

J&S in RR

I did a lot of research on this subject in recent times and have come to the conclusion that good old down will keep it's loft far longer than any synthetic and it packs down smaller too. I spoke with folks who thru-hiked 28 days straight in the rain. They used down with no problem. Just take precautions to keep it dry. Everyone I spoke to that used synthetic said the same thing. After a short time of use, they bags lost considerable loft.

It takes an extreme act to saturate a down bag. No bag is comfortable to sleep in wet. Natural down works better for far longer. Those are my conclusions after talking with a whole lot of folks who use their equipment to the max.

That is why I broke the bank and got the 750 fill down bags from Western Mountaineering. If you search the net like Campmore and Sierra Trading Post and the like, you may find some great ones on sale.

These outdoor forums in general are a dangerous thing. I have spent more money on outdoor equipment than I care to say. With careful research it can be the wisest chosen equipment that you can get.

Have fun with your search.

I just wanted to post this for those of you who are turned off by the high cost of sleeping bags. Some of the best bags I have ever used have been found at garage sales and thrift stores. I currently use a WWII mountain bag I found for about ten dollars, they are rated to 30 degrees and I have never been cold in any part of the state at any time of the year (although from october to march we usually use a tent en high country). My bag does weigh a little more than other bags at about four pounds (including a stuffsack and home-made silk liner) but when the extra weight gets me down (no pun intended) I remember the amount of money I saved. I prefer the construction of older products in general anyway. I tend to be very, very rough on my equipment and I have destroyed some very expensive things. I know that my seventy year old sleeping bag is difficult to rip and easy to patch, whereas some of the newer bags are easy to rip and difficult to repair. Anyways good luck to all of you with whatever bag you decide to go with. Happy trails!

I thought I was the only one using military surplus. I use a poncho and liner and some times a wool blanket most of the time.