[pct-l] sleeping bags

[G. Lowe aka Wheeew]

I line the bottom compartment of my backpack (this is a separate compartment from the main one) with a trash compactor bag, then stuff my bag in there.  It is afforded complete protection from the weather, yet not stuffed so small that it does damage to the loft.  (It's a pretty big compartment).  I like making my bag "as small as a loaf of bread" but I have the room to carry it less compressed, so why not?

Wheeew

Greg Kesselring <gkesselr at whidbey.com> wrote:        One more point that's kind of a follow-on to Steel-Eye's suggestion of not using a stuff sack: If you do use a stuff sack, use the largest sack you can get away with.
 
 I like a stuff sack because I feel I stand a better chance of keeping the bag clean that way.
 
 Greg Kesselring wrote:    
another way I like to look at it is this:  If you bend a fiber and then 
unbend it, how much damage will there be to the fiber?  Maybe none.  But 
if you bend it in an extreme way--for example, creasing it--how much 
damage will there be?  Probably some damage.  Keep creasing it in the 
same place again and again, and eventually the fiber will break.  This 
is what we do when we want to tear a piece of paper--crease it along a 
line, then crease it in the other direction, do this a couple of times 
and the fibers that hold the paper together break, and you get a clean tear.

Using a compression stuff sack puts all the fibers in the down under 
extreme pressure.  It will be like creasing those fibers that are bent 
in an extreme way, resulting in damage to those fibers.  Down is 
extremely resilient, but it will wear out eventually.  IMO a compression 
stuff sack will only accelerate that process. 

Greg

Steel-Eye wrote:
  
        
Good afternoon, Neil,

In my opinion, compression sacks not only add cost and weight, and require
time to use, but the repeated compression of down is damaging to its loft.
One noted writer of PCT hiking, and an ultra-lite guru, states that the
first compression of a new sleeping bag causes a loss of 18% of loft, and
each subsequent compression reduces loft by an additional 3%.    Based upon
that algorithm a new bag with 5.00" of loft would be reduced to 0.20" of
loft at the end of 100 days .. a fairly quick PCT hike .. and would be
further reduced to 0.04" thick after 150 days.  I think that's total
baloney, but I can't prove it.  Suffice it to say that compressing will
cause undesirable and unnecessary damage.

I never compress my sleeping bags, nor even sack-stuff them. I just poke
them loose in whatever space remains in the pack, and doing so doesn't take
long.  As a result, my pack usually looks full regardless of the consumables
I have on board at the time.

Steel-Eye



  
    
      
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-Wheeew-
www.trailjournals.com/wheeew/
---->MexiCan----> 2008
       
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