Selecting Your Sleeping Bag

Camp Set – Nomad Style

Sleeping Bag Criteria

Selecting your sleeping bag can be relatively easy; however, if you want to get the right features for the dollars you are spending, this short discussion should provide you with some good value. First, you will have to decide what your primary use for the bag will be. You might be camping, backpacking, hunting, or whatever else you have in mind. Weight or bulk might be an issue, or they may not. Let’s examine the backbone of selecting your sleeping bag.

Temperature Rating

Generally you will not have a comfortable sleep if you are shivering. Similarly, sweating is also not conducive to restful sleep. You will have to pick something like a 30 degree range that will represent the climate for which you will use this sleeping bag. This might be 32 degrees to 62 degrees for a lot of us in the western mountains. It might be 67 degrees to 97 degrees in the south, in which case a couple of blankets might make better sense anyway.

Typically, in the mountains or deserts of North America, summer nights are going to range between perhaps freezing or below to maybe 80 degrees or so. You will need to study your climate a bit and pick a sleeping bag to work in your conditions. For summer outings, I usually pick a sleeping bag that will allow me to put my wool underwear on and be comfortable at 25-30 degrees. With maybe lighter poly underwear would allow me to be ok up to maybe 60 degrees or so.

Always give yourself some room at the bottom of the temperature scale. A reasonable rule of thumb is to add 10 to 15 degrees to a bags so-called temperature rating for men, and generally about 15 to 20 degrees for women. If I plan to sleep in 10 or 20 degree weather, I’d feel pretty good with a zero-degree rated bag. So for me, two bags cover everything I will encounter. I sleep out enough and enjoy backpacking and backcountry hunting, so I just stick with lightweight high-loft down bags.

Weight and Bulk

The second consideration for me is weight. If I’m going to be backpacking with my bag, I get pretty twitchy about any sleeping bag weighing over three pounds. If weight is a premium for you, often the best selection will be down insulation in a mummy bag, particularly in the west where humidity and rainfall are manageable. In wetter environments, you may have to stick with synthetics. The higher the loft rating, the lighter and more expensive your bag will tend to be. If you will not be overly-cold settings, you can give up some temperature rating to use high-quality synthetic insulation and still keep weight under reasonable minimums, but the corresponding down bag will be even lighter.

Lightweight sleeping bags have their purpose. 2 lb down bags.

When selecting a sleeping bag, be exceedingly aware of your height.

Mummy bags tend to give the least bulk and weight with the lowest temperature ratings, due to their compact form. That said, many more claustrophobic people cannot stand to sleep in a mummy bag. If it is cold outside and weight is an issue, you have little choice; however, for summer outings, the rectangular bags with down or synthetic insulation can serve you well and give you space to roll around and shift in your bag.

If weight is of no concern, there are some high-end bags that are essentially like those little Russian nested dolls…a bag within a bag within a bag within….These bags can be customized to the temperature range just by adding or eliminating layers. They are bulky, heavy, and spendy, but might be a good choice for a single bag that can do it all from a drive-in campsite. For summer campouts where low temperatures might get into the 40s, many of the canvas bags with flannel linings will work just fine and they are quite inexpensive.

Dimensions

When selecting a bag, be exceedingly aware of your height. I am 6’0” and I always buy a bag with a “long” designation, even though the paperwork says regular should suit me fine. If you can check out a show-room model on the floor, do it, but I tend to want my sleeping bag at least 6 inches longer than I am.

When it comes to shoulder and hip girth, I want as much of both as I can get. You won’t have much range to select from so it may not be that big an issue for you. Consider it if you do any switching from side to side as I do. Hint: wearing full long underwear helps you to slip around in the bag and not have sweaty stickiness in the bag. I use super light poly underwear in the summer and medium or thick wool in the cold times. Socks are also helpful, as your feet will be the first part of you to get cold.

One final size consideration will be your sleeping surface. If you are on a camp pad, those only get so wide, so you will be limited in width right there. Cots are also limiting, so compare the width and length of your bag to your available or selected sleeping surface.

Sleeping Bag Fabrics

This is pretty simple, as far as shells go. Nylon or other synthetic shells tend to be wimpier but lighter. Canvas or cloth tend to be stronger, but heavier. Select accordingly. Often, you will find that cloth and canvas bags are machine-washable, so that might be a consideration as well. Many synthetic bags can be washed and machine dried, but check the label carefully before you buy. All bags are capable of withstanding getting wet, so very gentle washing is possible with any of them, but getting them dry might be more of a chore.

Inner fabrics are also simple. Cloth is more comfortable and easier to clean, and also allows more comfort if you sleep in the buff. Synthetics will be lighter and generally associated with either high-end warm bags, or very cheap bags. Again, if you choose a synthetic inner, it helps to wear some kind of long underwear. I’ve had great luck in the buff in cloth sleeping bags, but it is no fun to stick to the insides of a synthetic. That will happen even on cold nights where there are warm spots. The bonus of long underwear is to extend comfort in cold weather by at least 10 degrees, possibly more. For summer, you want the absolute lightest long underwear, like rash-guard layers for water sports.

Really, that is about all there is to it. I presently use three mummy bags and one canvas bag to suit all the permutations of my sleeping out. The synthetic mummy isn’t all that light and handles from 30 degrees to 50 degrees very well. The lightest down handles from 40 degrees to 60 degrees perfectly. The better, but still surprisingly light 3.0lb long down bag will take me down to about 0 degrees. My wife uses the same one even when it is 50 degrees out. The canvas bag is for sleeping on motel floors or in some summer back-of-the-truck quick campouts. I could probably get by with just two bags. I like to backpack, so down is my go-to choice. Two bags pretty well fill the needs from 70-degree to 0-degree nights.