How to Choose a Sleeping Bag for Warm & Cold Conditions

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Bruce Lessels from Zoar Outdoor for expertvillage.com talking about camping. Staying comfortable and warm when you’re sleeping outside is really important to having an enjoyable camping experience and your sleeping bag is a key part of that. There are a couple of different kinds of sleeping bags you can get, the more basic sleeping bag is called a rectangular bag in which the shape is a rectangle and its not really shaped to fit your body much but this does give you lots of room to move around at night and if you are a restless sleeper or you just want to spread out a little more, a rectangular bag is a good option. For colder conditions, the conditions in which you really want to be conserving body heat, a mummy style bag which is really contoured to your body and doesn’t have a lot of extra space for your body to heat is a much better option. These are for temperatures anywhere from 40 or 50 degrees and below, you can get mummy bags that will take you down to those temperatures. The way a sleeping bag is rated by temperature, it depends on the amount of loft it has. The thickness of the bag when it’s fully lofted and that thickness is depended probably on the material that’s in it and the amount of material that’s in it. The synthetic fill bags are great because they have, when they’re wet they will keep you warm and they have a fair amount of loft and they keep their loft when they’re wet. Down bags which are lighter and compactable better aren’t as good when they’re wet, when they do get wet they completely loose their loft and they’re very cold. So for wetter conditions and for colder conditions, a good synthetic fill bag with a lot of loft in it is a good idea. Either way if space is a consideration, you want to make sure that you get a good stuff sack and that when you stuff your bag into the stuff sack that you can get it nice and small. For backpacking a compression stuff sack like this that compresses down by tighten the straps around it will give you the smallest package."