New Western Mountaineering bag

It's only a 45F bag though.
Duane

How about the Terralite?

I got to see one of the first batch off the line in February when I took my Alpinlite in to WM for overfill. The photos below show the 6'6" version. It's incredibly wide, at 65" shoulders / 60" hip / 42" foot. The 6' version is 5" narrower at shoulder and hip, 3" narrower at the foot, but it's still very generous.

Gary, the Production Manager, confirmed the rating as 45F, or adding 10-15F to a sleeping bag as an overbag. It's a stitch-through design like the Caribou, which he said added significant time/cost to making the Everlite, but was the best way to prevent the down from shifting in use. There's a draw-cord at the foot and the shoulder, with a full length zip which can be opened to lay it flat as a double quilt / blanket in warm weather. It's a #3 coil zip, and didn't snag when I opened / closed it. The outer shell is 12D ripstop and the inner is 15D taffeta. Both are smooth to the touch. It's a nice piece of kit, but for where I camp I went with a Terralite for summer use instead.

Sounds like a winner to me as I could use it as a quilt for two in the Southern Appalachian summer time. Funny that I could not locate specs/pics/etc on their site but found it through their various retailers. One thing I did notice is that accordingly to the retailer's site it seems really short, even the long version (which I do understand is the norm for quilts).

Looks pretty danged awesome (and pretty danged light).

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim’s Blog

WM makes some of the best bags on the market, and I am a huge fan of my Megalite, but I cannot figure out why I would buy this over an EE quilt of similar temp rating. The EE would be of equal quality (materials, construction, etc), cheaper, and is fully baffled.

This EverLite bag doesn't seem to show up at WM's website, at least not in the big specification chart:

http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm?section=products&page=Sleeping%20Bags&ContentId=27

Yeah…it doesn’t show on the Pricing page either.

Only place I find it is the Product Page

What's the hood in the second image?

Looks to be the inner hooded bag when the Everlite is used in "overbag mode"

Ah, that's probably it.

Wonder if anyone sells an add-on hood – above and beyond a down balaclava.

When using my quilt in colder temps, I just wear my down puffy…great hood and extra insulation to boot.

That's my slution too. I'm just not a fan of hoods on jackets, but I've come to the conclusion it's the best option of those out there. Just wondered if a better mind than I had come up with another solution.

Also have a Pat Cap4 beanie and a Cap4 balaclava. Makes a great 3-piece system that's very adaptable. Wearing them both and the jacket hood, well, I've got no worries :)

Should be good to -40 or so!

Aaarrrggghhh! Now I'll have to have one of those blue beauties so folks won't think I have an older bag.

(sigh) I really have been trying to keep my gear purchases to a minimum but this tears it.

Response to Ken T below:

OOPS! That's right Ken, the WM bags still don't have DWR treated down. An oversight on my part. Now I'll have to cancel my "new, blue" Megalite order and buy back my old bag. :o(
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You're going to buy a new one for fashion's sake and for what other people may think of your kit. Really? Doesn't have your so important, to you, treated down. Shrug's shoulders and leaves room.

I think he may have been joking……

Like I wasn't

Nm

I just got one of these in the mail today from Backcountry. Wow this thing is beautiful. I have never owned a really nice bag before, never wanted to spend that much money. What i have always wanted was a sewn-through summer bag without continuous baffles, a drawstring foot closure, size long, full length zipper, and very lightweight. It has been an exhausting search, so when i saw this i did not hesitate to buy it immediately. A thousand THANK YOUs to KC for posting this here on BPL. The perfect sleeping bag to slip right up over my hammock to form a little chrysalis of fluffy excellence.

I have not tried it out yet, i just took it out of the box and had a little moment with it haha….flawless. I'm quite proud to say that i finally own a WM bag. Now time to upgrade the entire kit just to make sure the bag stays happy :)

P.S. Backcountry absolutely puts REI to shame in every way. I placed the order with the coupon code for 20 percent off, and it didnt work, so i asked about it on the live chat on the website, and the guy told me the 20 percent did not apply to WM bags. I said "darn, oh well" and he insisted on giving me 10 percent off and free Priority shipping. So i ended up paying 285 total for the long version and i got some cool little bonus items in the box like a granola bar, 5 hour energy, stickers, and a 100 dollar wine voucher. The bag shipped immediately and arrived just before the long weekend. Perfection. Such a pleasant experience. My REI card has just been downgraded to a pot scraper.

I will try to report back in a few weeks with a gear review. The nighttime weather here in Great Basin National Park this time of year should be just perfect for putting that temp rating to the test.

"Wonder if anyone sells an add-on hood – above and beyond a down balaclava."

Richie, I know that Jacks R Better do, and I think there's at least one other source, don't recall. I've got the JRB hood but haven't used it yet. I like it overall; it's quite thick and warm. They give you a sort of velcro kit that you can sew to any jacket or sleeping bag/quilt to firmly attach the hood, but I ultimately didn't sew that on to anything. I find that the roughness of the velcro-like stuff on the hood makes it stay in place pretty well (without much in the way of air gaps) with, say, my light down jacket or thermawrap jacket, or when I've got my JRB quilt in serape mode. And I don't want my head so firmly connected to the quilt when in quilt mode.

Their quilts are pretty nice too. Overall I'm a huge WM fan, but for a really light weight (truly summer weight) bag, I prefer the flexibility and multi-functionality of the JRB quilt (I've got their "Sierra Stealth").

Maybe that's just the natural tendency to vigorously defend what we've recently purchased however! :-) I will perhaps know more after I've used mine a lot, later this year.

Stephan,

I had my Megalite overfilled by WM. The cost was about $45. and now it is good to about 20 F. which, for cold mountain summer nights is very cozy. For hotter nights I unzip all the way, stick the foot of my Prolite pad into the foot and use it as a quilt. Sooo comfortable.

But, of course with overstuffing you can't shift down from the top to the bottom as you can with the original.

To me the Megalite's strongest point is that it's larger interior size permits you to wear insulating clothes to greatly extend the bag's temperature range.

I would have to agree with John h. I don't see how it's better than the fully baffled EE revelation. Does someone know what fill power this bag has? Only other thing different is that it's a bit different on sizing and has the full length zipper instead of pad attachments… Which for me I prefer pad attachments to keep bag on the pad and to adjust the width…