Alps Mountaineering 0 Degree Sleeping Bag

[Leroy Turcios]

Heyeveryone, in the market for a new sleeping bag for alpine climbing, and was curious what everyone's favorite is? Anyone got some good field testing notes on all the new hydrophobic-down bags? Looking for something extremely packable, around 15/20 degree warmth, and usable for bivvies climbing in the Sierras, Alps, Patagonia, etc. Used a few different bags in the past years and haven't really been happy with any (been on a budget just getting cheaper things) but now I have some dough and am willing to spend a bit.

Cheers!

It doesn't have hydrophobic down, but otherwise the WM UltraLite would fit your criteria exactly. Lightweight, 850+ down, excellent quality and rated for 20F (wear warm clothes and you can go a few degrees lower). WM's "850+" down is just as good as other manufacturers' "900+". I've used mine all over the place in Colorado, the Tetons and Canada.

Feathered Friends are also excellent and on paper the Swallow UL is very similar to the WM Ultralite (pricing is just about identical).

I use a Feathered Friends Swift. Similar bag to the Swallow, just a bit roomier inside, which was a big plus for me as a big dude (6'4", 210). If you're less ogre-sized, the Swallow would be perfect. The nano shell is pretty water resistant, 850 fill down is the best you can get (I don't believe the hype about '1000-fill power', the testing methods seem a bit contrived). WM also makes fantastic down bags, the Ultralite or Alpinlite already mentioned are equivalent to FF's Swallow/Swift.

If I were buying again specifically for climbing, I'd be very tempted by the FF Vireo as well. The ability to pack your bag down to nothing and supplement with the belay jacket you're already bringing is pretty awesome. Climbed with a guy who used that same setup for all his three-season climbing in the Cascades, he just varied the jacket of choice based on expected temps.

My personal sleeping bag is a Feathered Friends Kestrel UL, 850 fill power. Very, very well made bag. I purchased it about 3-4 years ago, right before the hydrophobic technology was released.

I've never owned one, but I imagine Rab's line of Neutrino sleeping bags would fit the bill. They are all made with 8-850 fill power hydrophobic down. The Rab website lists several temperature ratings, including the European Standard along with actual Rab athlete feedback. Pretty cool.

All of my down belay coats are currently Rab jackets & they are phenomenal. I've yet to find a down jacket that surpasses anything I've owned from Rab. Can't imagine their sleeping bags don't compete with their jacket line ...

Rab Neutrino 600 Sleeping Bag

I second the Montbell spiral stretch 30. It packs down really small and light for a 30 degree bag, plus with a bivi sack I don't worry about the moisture. Lately though I've switched to synthetic because "hydrophobic down" is a myth. The waterproofing lasts about 5-7 uses and then it's donezo. I think rab came out with a pretty solid hydrophobic treatment but for now I'll stick to synthetic.

I am looking to buy an ultralight sleeping bag, that would be warm enough for sleeping in the Alps in summer comfortably. I would be sleeping in a tent on a sleeping mat. I would probably be staying at around 2000, max 2500 meters. And I would expect I could be out there in between June and September. According to my research on the Internet, the lowest temperatures at that time and altitude should be around 0C, possibly a couple degrees below, but most likelly a bit above. How warm do I need the sleeping bag to be?

I have decided to go with the ultralight (and expensive) option in the end. My new sleeping bag is rated +4C comfort, and -1C limit. I have tested it on a few trips in the mountains during this summer. When sleeping on warm summer nights at altitudes around 1500m, it was actually too warm. No surprise there, and not a problem either.

Another trip I took was in the end of September, when the nights were fairly cold already. I am not sure about the exact temperature, but it must have been in between 0 and 5C. I was sleeping at around 2400. I must admit, I was a bit worried, but the only time I was cold was while cooking dinner outside of the tent. The sleeping bag combined with a cotton sleeping bag liner was certainly enough.

Everyone sleeps different. Some people sleep much warmer than others while others sleep incredibly cold. You can try and determine this in your house or better your backyard, but you really won't know until you are sleeping while hungry, exhausted and in the actual weather you are dealing with. Humidity effects people differently and so does altitude. The temperatures you have experience most recently also affect how you sleep. Just because you are a warm sleeper at -10 does not mean you will be a warm sleeper at +10.

To be ultralight in a critical piece of gear like a sleeping bag means to know your body. There is nothing stopping you from buying an ultralight sleeping bag, but if you don't know how you sleep, you need to buy an ultralight bag with warmth to spare.

Next, while I always want to be safe, I also want to be usually comfortable. Some areas have very consistent temperatures and the very rare incredibly cold night. In these areas I plan on being comfortable most nights and figuring out how to survive the once a season cold night (e.g., is it an area I can hike to lower elevation or the safety of town or can I do jumping jacks all night long). Other areas every night is essentially the coldest it gets. For these areas I never want to get close to the safety limit since I will never be comfortable. I would describe the Alps as being pretty consistent in temperature in the summer meaning you should expect to actually experience the extreme low on a regular basis.

The Alps are a big region, but that seems like a reasonable lower limit of expected temperatures. If I had did not have an escape plan, I would want to make sure my system would allow me to be safe, but slightly unconformable at that temperature. Lacking an escape plan, beyond get up and hike, I would probably want to sleep with all my cloths on and in a tent down to -10C. If I can check the weather and choose days and campsites, and don't mind canceling a trip because it is cold, 0C is probably fine as a low limit of sleeping safely.

This depends on a number of factors (wind, tent, number of people, sleeping bags, etc. This blog post claims 20 degrees F, but I wouldn't count on that much of an improvement. It is also worth noting that sleeping bag ratings assume a pretty optimal tent.

The EN 13537 standard has a lot of values. The extreme temperature is essentially the lowest temperature that an average women can survive. This is a very cold night. Even though women sleep colder than men, this is still a very cold night for a man.

The Limit temperature applies to a man sleeping curled up and not feeling cold. This is by no means a comfortable night, but generally is far away from risks for the average man. If I was an average man and didn't have any thing but a light set of cloths, a tent, and a good sleeping pad, and had an escape plan, I would probably want the limit temperature to be around 0C. With a light weight puffy jacket, I might be willing to go warmer depending on how often cold nights happen.

The Comfort temperature is for the average woman sleeping in a relaxed position and feeling comfortable. For an average man who is willing to curl up and has a light puffy jacket, this is probably too warm.

3) For these temperatures, I would buy a sleeping bag -5 C Comfort. You can find such a bag that weighs about 1.5 kg. Speaking from experience. Temperature ratings on sleeping bags can be overrated by more than 5 C.

I would say that very broadly this assumption will hold, but the question is what you will be betting on it. There can certainly be situations where it gets colder, although this is probably quite unlikely.

If it getting colder means that you would be uncomfortable for a single night, or be forced to maybe wear all your clothes inside the sleeping bag that is suboptimal but (in my eyes) a small risk. However, plan to bring very limited/light-weight gear and plan spending a longer time in exposed/difficult terrain then the risk will be a different beast altogether. We would have to know more about the exact trip that you are planning.

This of course depends on the tent, how exposed you will pitch it, the prevailing weather/wind and also it's occupants. My experience is that a full 3-person double-wall tent will easily be heated to a couple of degrees warmer than the outside temperature. How big the difference will be is however hard to predict.

This varies a lot depending on the manufacturer of the sleeping bag. After all what does 'extreme' mean exactly? That you'll survive but with both arms and legs frozen off? Manufacturers will always try to come up with the most exiting numbers to sell their products, so don't put too much faith in them.

My suggestion here is to go to your trusted local outdoors store and talk to them about the sleeping bags they have. They should be able to recommend one that fits your needs. The shop in my home town for example does their own sleeping bag grading, allowing you to compare sleeping bags of different manufacturers.

It is tempting to attribute the difference in reception of the events to the fact that on the descent from the summit of the Matterhorn the rope assuring the safety of the party broke and four members of the expedition fell to their deaths, including Lord Francis Douglas, a member of the British aristocracy. In contrast, the Everest ascent itself was generally without incident. Yet one needs to be cautious about such an explanation, which implies that had a similar event occurred on Everest there would have been a similar response. This, in fact, could not have been the case: by the time of the ascent of Everest enough incidents involving the loss of life and limb were part of the popular history of mountaineering that injuries and fatalities were certainly to be expected on an expedition of such magnitude. Alternately, then, it might be argued that the difference in reception of the events might be attributed to significance of ascent, that Everest is after all the tallest mountain in the world and, though striking in appearance, the Matterhorn is just another peak in the Alps. Yet this explanation fails to account for how the feat of ascending of the worlds tallest summit could come to be seen as a significantespecially nationally significantachievement (as if significance were something inherent or naturally occurring).

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