no insulation required under the legs?

I think what GG is getting at is that by placing your pack, trash, etc, (essentially everything you can find to put under you), you ARE putting insulation under you. It's just not what we would normally think of as being "insulation". So instead of having down underneath you (which we all know won't insulate because it's compressed), why not find a double use for things you already have?

To be honest, I've never done that. I always have things in my pack (like a pot or a GPS) that would not be too comfortable to rest my legs on and I don't want to bother with the clutter of having a bunch of loose items next to me. I also don't want to have squished food because I choose to use it as insulation. If I was in danger of becoming hypothermic, or there was no way I was going to sleep at all because I was so cold, then I would give it a try. Until then, I'll just tough it out or bring a few extra feet of 1/8" Thinlight that will do a way better job than trash wrappers.

Your legs don't constitute as much surface area as your torso and are not always in contact with theh ground, so I guess the idea is that it's not as much of a problem. however, with an UL backpack, there's not much substance there to provide any insulation. You could always fill the pack with something (leaves, weeds, etc.). I have at times found it helpful to borrow my hiking partner's thicker traditional backpack.

If it is going to be cold, then people often take a full length 1/8" closed cell pad to keep the legs warm.

I've experimented with using two torso-length pads as a system. In the first scenario, I set them end to end so I had full body coverage, and in the second scenario, I stacked them on top of each other for use only under my torso. I've found that the second scenario keeps me warmer, even though I still feel a slight chill in my legs.

Depending on how much of the night will be spent below about 45 degrees, leg insulation might not be required. In the desert in springtime, even if the low is only 45, I'd bring leg insulation because the temperature will dive very quickly after sunset and stay that way until after dawn. In a more humid environment like the Midwest United States, which is mostly temperate forest, I'd leave leg insulation at home even if the overnight low is 45 because the air temperature will probably stay relatively warm until about 2am, and shortly afterwards it will start to warm up again.

With regards to what Gossamer Gear is saying, I would not count on stuffsacks or food wrappers as insulation. Unless there's actually food left in them, the thin plastic is not going to provide any insulation. A backpack will provide insulation, but only if it has a foam back panel. A lot of Gossamer Gear's backpacks don't have foam back panels so they wouldn't provide insulation.

that pretty much clears up my concern. thanks for the comments.

I usually put my insulated vest under my legs in the shoulder season (along with a few other things I might find in my pack). In winter tho'… you do need at least a foamie under your legs. I use 3/4 air mattresses year round in combination with me vest or a thin foam or whatever under my legs and it works for me.

That said… I don't use a top bag or quilt. I roll around too much when I sleep… front… side… back… you name it… I sleep in all positions. So I find I need full insulation all the way around… otherwise I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the bag twisted up so that the un-insulated bottom was on top of me and the insulated bottom was under me. I think top bags may only make sense for those freaks of nature who sleep like an Egyptian mummy all night long… LOL.

> I think top bags may only make sense for those freaks of nature who sleep like an Egyptian mummy all night long
So what do you have on your bed at home?

I turn over regularly – have to! But I turn over UNDER my quilt. Absolutely no problem at all.

Actually, I think it may be a mental thing. If you think of and clutch at your quilt like a sleeping bag, then you will probably have problems. If you think of it as a quilt …

Well works for me anyhow.

My bed at home?! Apples and Oranges.

I don't think I quilt would work for me. I'm gonna "cling" :-P I wake up all the time with my sleeping bag turned around… so I think I'd be adjusting my quilt a lot thru the night. Personally.

I think turning under the quilt takes a little practice, but once you get used to it, it is not that difficult. At the most now, I might have to pull one side over a bit and tuck it under me. It's almost an automatic reaction and doesn't really wake me any more than the need to turn over does.

I have another related question -If you are using a quilt with a full insulated footbox can you get away with just a torso pad. Can your legs off the torso pad compress the insulation beneath it that much?

I have a sleeping bag made with Polarguard 3D, which for some reason was marketed for its compressibility, but it's actually extremely resilient to compression. That said, when I use a down sleeping bag of the same temperature rating, I find myself needing thicker/warmer sleeping pads underneath me than with the Polarguard bag. The compressibility of the insulation makes for different experiences with a torso-, or 3/4-size pad. Another thing I've found is in the summertime and fall, the ground seems to hold warmth long into the night; while in the wintertime, the ground is cold no matter how warm it was that day.

So in answer to your question, it depends on a lot of things. The best way to find out how much insulation you need is through trial and error and by thinking about all the factors which make you cold.

I've spent many nights with a a torso or 3/4 pad where my core was warm enough to keep me comfortable and my legs were chilly. Cold legs aren't going to kill you. It's just a minor discomfort and a lot of people (myself included) can sleep just fine with cold legs.

I think some even use insulated pants for this purpose. Insulated pants for three season use seem to be a new thing over the last few years esp in the ultralight world. I have never used them this way, but I see it here frequently in the gear lists.

I guess I'm the only one like this:

I have boney ankles and heels that are downright uncomfortable on harder ground. They always seem to find the sharpest, tiniest stick or rock I accidentally left on the ground, too. So for me, it's a pad all the way!

A good solution for moderate weight is the montbell pad of choice "toggled" to a CCF pack frame (which I carry anyway) for leg indulation. The CCF adds a miniscule bit of weight but comfort & warmth go way up. I don't prefer CCF for my torso, but for the legs it's not an issue.

YMMV…..Todd

David: "I think top bags may only make sense for those freaks of nature who sleep like an Egyptian mummy all night long… LOL."
Roger: "If you think of and clutch at your quilt like a sleeping bag, then you will probably have problems. If you think of it as a quilt …"
I do not equate a quilt and a top bag. For my own conceptual convenience, and I don’t try to pressure anyone else to adopt this, I picture a top bag as an extension of the strung bow shape. In a cross section of the top bag, the pad in the sleeve assumes the shape of the taut string, and the bag part assumes the shape of the bow. Extend this cross section into the third dimension and you have a non-round hole into which one must insert the round peg of the human body. In practice a top bag feels un-natural. A quilt and a normal bag both have a cross section much closer to the round peg shape. A quilt has the additional advantage of allowing girth adjustment, but the disadvantage of allowing gaps to open up and let in drafts.

Hi Robert

> I picture a top bag as an extension of the strung bow shape.
Ugh. I see what you are saying all right. Too narrow, and drafty at the sides!

My quilts are quilts (using your distinction) down to about 3' from the foot, but they are wider at the top. That means they could be a few ounces lighter (by being narrower), but at least they don't let in drafts! The fabric across the underside of the foot region seems to help to keep the whole quilt under control.

Your body cover seems to be a combination of a Quilt and a Top. A Tilt? A Quop? My only experience is with the Big Agnes bags, which use a full-length pad, and with those bags it is very difficult to control the neck opening. Do you insert a mini pad in the foot section? Do you insert the end of a larger pad, then let the upper part come up onto the top of the pad, like a Nunatak quilt?

Thanks for the comments.

I curl up while sleeping. I exprimented with sleeping 4' from edge off my bed with my legs curled up a bit. I was alright. I will try more such expriments to find the minimum legnth I need to sleep comfortable.

Chilly legs are alright but what I want to know is whether they act as heat drains? Because -like Robert said – 800+down will easily compress if even some part of the legs touch the the ground. If legs get chilly does body lose heat overall? that could compomise the insulation of my setup.

Another expriment I am interested is keeping my legs crossed while sleeping on my back and legs curled when sleeping on my sides. I will need a wider girth at the bottom of my quilt but the overall weight can be siginficntly reduced and it will be warmer because of less surface area.

I opened up the footbox of my quilt to try sleeping with my legs crossed. Too fussy. And foot girth is a bit narrow to prevent draft.

Then I slipped bottom bit of quilt under my the bed. less fussy. I think a 3/4 quilt with bottom attatched by zip or ominitape to 3/4 pad would be best for this style. But you will need to loosen up the whole quilt everytime you want to change pose.

Hi Robert

There is very little difference between a sleeping bag with a (central) hood and an 80% zip and my 'quilt'. I included a zip on my quilt so that it can be converted back into a sleeping bag if wanted – but I don't normally do this.

However, the hood on my quilt is 'central': midway between the sides. So if you put the hood down on the ground the zip runs up the middle (on top), not up one side. This means that the hood goes over my head when it is used as a quilt.

I know many American sleeping bags and quilts do not offer a hood, but quite bluntly I do not think their designers know enough about human physiology. Yes, I know that sounds extreme, but let's see…

Your highest priority is to keep your head warm. If that means your body has let your feet freeze (literally, with frostbite), then your body will do just that. It will keep diverting blood from your extremities to your head until your head is warm enough, no matter what the price. So it pays to keep your head warm if you want warm feet.

You will see adverts for special extra flaps inside the foot box and for increased down in the footbox, to keep your feet warm. They don't work, although apparently the marketing guys don't know this. If they do know this then they are lying in their teeth. Cold feet are cold because they lack hot blood circulating through them. The only thing which warms feet up is hot blood. Once you have that circulation, the same level of insulation as the rest of the bag is sufficient.

You can probably use any sleeping bag with a really long 3/4 zip this way. Sure, you don't save any weight, but you sure get a lot more comfort. Sometimes, in the cold, that has real value.

Two things make the idea work very well. The first is that the closed bit at the foot region goes over my feet, and this stops the quilt from sliding off the rest of my body. yep, it works. The other factor is the width of the quilt: wider than many of the 'top bags'. There is enough 'side flap' to just not let drafts in. We take these to France for our long walks.

Underneath I have a 3/4 length Therm-a-rest air mat, and some 5 mm foam at the foot end. This combination works in the snow as well as in ordinary conditions. I usually layer my day clothing on the foam at the foot of the air mat, but that is mainly for extra padding.

These summer quilts have 300 grams of 800 loft down. The shell weighs 250 grams. We (my wife and I) use them, with thermals, down to freezing. Below that we will put on a warmer top and some dry socks. If it gets even colder I sometimes snuggle very close to my wife and then layer my quilt over hers. Yes, they are wide enough to do this – just. Effectively, we get two layers of good quilt on each of us this way. We have used this down to a recorded -7 C (19 F) and been warm enough. (Our shoes were blocks of ice in the morning though …)

For serious snow conditions I will normally take a third quilt with us. This one has 600 g of 800 loft down and a single layer of UL fabric under it for half way up. A sort of top bag at the bottom end. It goes over our summer quilts and the bottom layer of fabric does go under the bottom end of the air mats. The purpose of the bottom layer of fabric at the foot end is to keep the quilt from sliding off us: that fabric is awful slippery!

With this winter arrangement Sue may sometimes turn her quilt into a sleeping bag to get 'draft control' between us, but doing so has not been essential. The over-quilt is also long enough to go over our heads – and it often does.

Cheers

Hi,
I get cold under the legs, even with a full lenght pad on some cold nights.
I spent some time hiking in the Himalaya, and the ground is cold up there at night.
What I ended up doing was putting a pashmina shawl underneath me as insulation. I bought it in the Himalaya for about 10 dollars, and don't leave home without it. It weights 180 g, which I'm prepared to take along as extra insurance. I used it on top of my NF Nuptse jacket at night, and it really trapped in the warm air, and kept out the cold wind. Multi use!!

All the locals use one up there and throughout India in the winter. Packs down to nothing too.

Just a thought Huzefa, as you are in that neck of the woods and could probably pick one up cheap.

cheers,
fred

Pashmina shawl for 10$? I would have believed if you said it was scarf. Is it 100% pashmina? because I am under the impression that pure pashmina is very expensive.

Hi Huzefa,

Yes, it was 10 USD, although this was about ten years ago.
I bought it from a Kashmiri in Dharamsala, just a gift shop type place.
The shawls we saw in Mussourie, and Shimla from specialist retailers were more expensive, but nothing like the hundreds of dollars you can find them for on the web.

I don't know Mumbai that well, but maybe a female relative could point you in the right direction.

Yes, mine's a 100% pashmina shawl not a scarf. It covers me head to toe, and I often use it as a blanket on top of my sleeping bag, although I find if I'm cold, it works better underneath.

cheers,
fred

Thanks for the info. I will definitely buy one next time I go north.

Hi Huzefa,
Although they may no longer be 10 USD, this place has them for a discount.

http://www.thepashminastore.com/Pure-Pashmina-Shawls-3-Ply-s/12.htm

Hope this helps to gives you an idea if the markup we pay in the US. They are most likley less expensive at the source. If you get the chance, I'm sure some of us would be interested in the price you find them for
Mike

What a discount! -enough to make a potential buyer like me uncertain about the quality of the product.

sure. when I find a good seller next time I go there I will let everyone know. I may be able to buy bulk at lower prices if people here are interested.