[pct-l] sleeping bags

[chwillet at indiana.edu (Christopher Willett)]

I used to use a Marmot Arroyo, rated to 30 degrees.  This is an 
optimistic rating, in my opinion.  Brand new, 30 degrees is about 
right. But, the bag lost down through the shell. The remaining down 
shifted around alot, to the point where I'd have to massage the 
down back into place everytime I took it out of the stuff sack. 
In short, after a year of use (about 60 nights), there was little 
to no down left in the chest and upper stomach areas and I would
be cold on 40 degree nights.  I shipped it back to Marmot, who 
restuffed it (for free) with a whole lot of down.  In fact, it 
came back to me weighing a svelt 2.5 lbs.  Great, I thought: Now 
I've got a super warm bag, even if it is a little porky.  
However, after another 40 nights of use, I was having the same 
problems.  Not wanting to repeat the episode, the Marmot became my 
care camping bag and I bought a western mountaineering, which hasn't 
given me any problems, despite being used harder and more frequently 
than the Marmot.

Note: I'm 6'4" with broad shoulders and the 60" cut of the long 
WM bags is perfect for me. The 63" cut of the Marmot feels way too 
loose now.

Chris

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Steve Setzer wrote:

> 
> I know this is kind of arbitrary and has probably been talked to death
> before, but I'm wondering about sleeping bag ratings.  I've been looking
> at the lightweight Marmots and Feathered Friends.  The Marmot bags seem to
> be a bit lighter so I'm leaning towards those.  Anyway, there's a 30
> degree bag and then a 15 degree and I can't decide which to get.  I can't
> afford to have different sleeping bags for different sections of the
> trail and all the one's I own currently are not so lightweight.
> 
> So is 15 degrees overkill?  Or is 30 degree pushing it?  I tend to sleep
> on the cold side so I would lean towards a warmer bag.  But I'm not sure
> if 15 would be way too warm for much of the PCT.  Feathered friends has a
> 20 degree bag but its the same weight as the Marmot 15 so I'm considering
> them to be comaparable.
> 
> What do y'all think?  I know this varies from person to person but I'd
> like a general idea of what people have done in the past.
> 
> Steve
> 
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----------------------
Christopher Willett
Department of Mathematics
Indiana University
831 East Third Street
Bloomington, IN. 47405-7106
(812)-855-1883
chwillet@indiana.edu
mypage.iu.edu/~chwillet