The
Ultralight Sleeping Bags
Why
ultralight sleeping-bags? Because ultralight
backpacking is just made possible by cutting
the load of the "big 3;" the backpack, shelter
and sleeping bag. The periods of five-pound
summer bags have passed away - at least for all
those of us who prefer to go light.
One Pound
Ultralight Sleeping Bags
There are
several one-pound ultralight sleeping bags in
the marketplace now. My own is 17 ounces. It
really weighs 19 ounces using the stuff sack,
but stuff sacks aren't always essential. It can
be stuffed directly into my pack or place in a
half-ounce bread bag. It is a down sleeping
bag, and contains kept me warm down to below
freezing - warmer, actually, than my four-pound
bag utilized to keep me.
It appears
fragile, and I've babied it through the years,
however it may be tougher than I thought. I've
used it from sea-level to 16,000 feet, in every
types of weather, generally camping under a
tarp, yet it still has its loft, and it appears
nearly new. The zipper goes only half-way down,
to steer clear of wasting weight, and it is a
mummy bag, but I'm 6'3", 165 pounds, and I've
always been comfy in it.
Sleeping-bags
weighing around one pound are summer bags,
rated as a result of 40 to 50 degrees
fahrenheit. An instant check of the newest bags
in the marketplace, though, shows that even one
or two in the 0 degree bags are under 3 pounds
now. These are generally down filled bags,
naturally, as down continues to be lightest
insulation for its weight.
An additional
appealing factor of any down sleeping bag is it
is compressibility. Nothing packs much less
space-consuming than down. Nevertheless, a
great synthetic bag may perhaps be better than
down should you be regularly getting it
wet.
A number of
sythetic-fill sleeping bags now come close to
down inside their warmth-to-weight ratio. A
minimum of one summer bag, utilizing Polarguard
fill, weighs an even 16 ounces. That's
amazingly light to get a synthetic
bag.
Using
Ultralight Sleeping-bags
Ultralight sleeping bags usually are not
tough. The lighter the bag, the harder fragile,
but treat them gently, and they work fine. I've
used mine for countless years, in snow and
rain, from Ecuador to California to Michigan,
and it shows little wear. Baby these things,
and they can last quite a long time.
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