How to Re-Pack a Sleeping Bag

Video Transcript

" Hi, this is Bruce Lessels from Zoar Outdoor on behalf of expertvillage.com, talking about choosing and setting up a campsite. So you’ve had a great weekend camping and now you’re ready to take the campsite down. So the first thing you’re probably going to do is take your sleeping bags out and air them out, a good idea is to pull them out of the tent kind of lay them out on the ground for a little bit, somewhere dry, this is assuming of course that it’s not raining. Just let them air out for a little bit before you roll them up, we’re going to pull the sleeping bags out and I’m going to pull the mattresses out as well, the foam pads out, lay those out and let those air out a little bit too. Once they’ve aired out for a little bit, then you want to roll them up. With the rectangular bag you often roll it up instead of stuffing it, so I’m just going to fold in half. This one happens to have a nice strap on the end that I can use to pull the bag to cinch it together when it’s rolled up. I’m going to put it down on the ground and just take and roll from one end trying to keep a fairly neat tight roll. You can use your knee to compress it a little bit if you want, once I get to the end I’m going to put that strap around it and you have a nice compact sleeping bag. A lot of other sleeping bags you stuff in a stuff sack and this is a compression stuff sack so this is one that’s actually going to allow me to make it even smaller once I’ve stuffed the bag in it. When I’m stuffing a sleeping I like to start at the head end, just start putting it in the bag and it doesn’t have to go in any kind of special pattern or order, you just kind of stuff it in there. This is best for some insulation that don’t like to be rolled up and actually you retain their loft better by doing this. Once it’s stuffed all the way in the bag I’m going to compress the bag, tighten up the closure and use the straps on the side to make the bag smaller and again it’s like I’m hike backpacking or canoe camping and size is at a premium, this is a great way to end up with a really tight package and there’s my sleeping bag."