[pct-l] Heavier Sleeping Bag versus Lighter Sleeping Bag & Extra Clothing

[John Abela]

Hello All,

I just want to thank everybody that has joined in on this discussion
of heavier bags verses bags+clothing.

While it got a bit side-tracked with the topic of silk liners, I think
for the most part is showed that the vast majority of those who shared
their thoughts felt it was better to go with a lighter weight sleeping
bag and augment additional warmth with clothing. What also came out of
the discussion was that the vast majority of us target the 20-degree
mark as the sweet-spot for sleeping bags (+clothing).

Based on a ton of private email I got the vast majority of hikers out
there are using these three sleeping bags:

Marmot Helium (15F / -9C)
Western Mountaineering UltraLite (20F / -7c)
MontBell U.L. Super Spiral Hugger #1 (15F / -9C)

So even though the majority of those who responded are already using
15 or 20 degree bags they still indicated that they liked lighter bags
with layering of cloths. Makes one wonder if this is an indication
that they are wishing that they went with lighter bags from the get-go
and instead took more clothing, or if they really do love their 15/20
bags and just feel the need to have the ability to get down to the 10
or 15 range. Another interesting bit of response I got back was that
while the vast majority of people said that they preferred using silk
liners, almost nobody that responded indicated they did so to gain the
extra warmth that a silk liner is suppose to gain you, rather the vast
majority of hikers are using them to help keep bags clean. While on
the other side of that, only two people that responded said they took
dedicated 'sleeping cloths' and thus never had the need to worry about
their bag getting dirty. This raises the interesting question of
whether it makes more sense to have some super light weight clothing
(perhaps something along the lines of 150gram superfine merino wool
tops, bottoms and socks) that could be dedicated for sleeping and in
using while washing your other cloths, rather than going with a silk
liner.

I hope this discussion has given some of you out there some things to
think about.