Warm nights in winter bags

[Jedd G]

My 15 degree down bag is perfect for California winters. But when I'm backpacking closer to home (like this coming weekend) and the nighttime lows are in the 40's, what should I do? I only own one sleeping bag, and there's no way I could find money in my budget right now to buy another bag. Currently I just zip up from the bottom, and leave a small part of the zipper connected near the top so that the bag covers me while I sleep but still has some ventilation along the size to cool off. But the bag is so warm I often still find myself waking up sweating in the middle of the night. Are there any tricks for getting around this?

[Lynn Tramper]

Simple. Unzip the entire bag and just place it over you like a quilt. You can easily adjust you temperature by sticking out arms and legs as needed.

[Jedd G]

The difficulty with using it as a quilt is that my zipper does not go down all the way down, so I end up with sweaty feet. Or freezing feet if I just drape the outside of the bag over them, and I tend to adjust a lot in my sleep, so I'll undoubtedly wake up with my feet out from under the bag. But I suppose my wool socks could suffice in 45 degrees, unless someone knows of any other technique.

Thanks for the tip though, I'll experiment with the idea.

[Lynn Tramper]

How far down does your zipper go? If it goes *most* of the way, then you should be fine just wearing socks and leaving them out of the footbox. If it only goes 3/4 or 2/3 of the way down, then you might consider Tim Marshall (www.enlightenedequipment.com) to add a full length zipper to your bag. much cheaper than buying a new bag!

[Ken Thompson]

Rent a bag from REI or borrow one from someone.

[Author]

Posts