In any camping trip a sleeping bag is always a major part of it. Your choice of sleeping bag will offer you either a good night’s sleep or several hours of damp, cold misery and in extreme circumstances even worse. Hence it is important that you ask yourself as many questions as possible when you come to decide on a bag. This article acts as a guide that will help you show main considerations and highlights and a few scenario which your bag would be particularly important.
The dead or non circulating air next to the body is trapped and held inside the rei double sleeping bag and this keeps your body warm. The dead air is further heated by the metabolism of the body or the body heat and a barrier is created by the bag between the colder ground and outside air. The less air space there is to heat, the faster you warm up and stay warm. Nevertheless, the camping bags are roomier than backpacking bags with greater comfort, with the trade off being less efficient warming of this dead space.
Therefore it’s always essential to treat all manufacturers’ figures as a guide. So, if you’re a warm sleeper probably you’ll be comfortable with a bag somewhere below its comfort rating but a cold sleeper would probably require a bag rated as little colder. Generally a bag is rated extreme by the producer to emphasise the minimal temperature at which an experienced user can make use of the bag to stave off hypothermia.
Apart from the temperature, insulation system and body metabolism there are other additional elements which you should consider. For instance, a factor you need to always consider when obtaining a sleeping bag is that if its wet resistant. Your bag is always likely to get moist one way or another, if your plan is to camp for number of days in a wet climate. Hence, here rises the question if you should select a down bag or a systhetic bag. If you select a down bag, you should always understand that its efficiency is severely reduced when it gets moist. Nevertheless, when comparing with the down bag, synthetic sleeping bags are much better at shedding water and even if it gets moist it could retain some insulating value.
Similarly metabolism of a person also determines the temperature of the person. The metabolism varies from person to person. In the similar way from one manufacturer to the next, the temperature of the sleeping bag also varies. Nevertheless, these rating should be taken as a guide only but not as a guarantee.
Joshua Geddes is an avid fan of outdoor adventure and activities. You can check out her latest website at lightweight sleeping bags, where she offers unbiased reviews and buying advice for a range of sleeping bags, including pink hello kitty sleeping bag, children’s sleeping bags for camping and much more.