Cold weather camping gear for warm weather Scouts – on the cheap

You can use a lightweight (summer-type) sleeping bag inside another bag, and get some additional loft and warmth. However, there can be some problems if the outside bag isn’t large enough to allow the inner bag to loft all the way, plus the footbox(es) and the hoods can interfere with each other.

I have had some very positive experiences using a huge, heavy-duty trash bag as a vapor barrier liner. This can add 15 degrees to the warmth of any bag — BUT, there are some caveats for using any VBL. I wear a lightweight set of synthetic long johns inside the VBL, and it creates a reasonably comfortable environment. Humid, and sometimes a little damp, but not wet. (The one time I mistakenly wrapped my feet in a Primaloft vest, I woke with the vest totally soaked through, enough so that I could wring it out.) So the Scouts need to have some instruction in the use of a VBL to get the most out of it.

More recent editions of The Complete Walker have a pretty good discussion of this topic.

Of course, you know that a good sleeping pad (or two) and a warm tent will significantly help with sleeping bag temperature ratings. Also, have the Scouts eat something right before they go to bed — to fuel the furnace, as it were.

Hope this helps. Have a good trip.

–Ken

Mike, clothing is the key.

This weekend I was up in my families vacation home in west virginia, while I was there I tested using my summer bag in winter conditions.

I was under a golite poncho tarp. with a torso ridgerest under my torso and a torso length TARGET blue foam mat under my legs.
I slept in a 45 degree hoodless synthetic sleeping bag in a equinox mumy bivy.
I wore a long sleeve shirt, fleece vest, fleece jacket, and golite wisp wind shirt, fleece hat and gloves, and cotton/polyester, pants and some thin synthetic ski pants. and I forgot to mention some wool socks.

any way there was 2 inches of snow on the ground the night before and a foot the next day, so part of my tarp was burried. the temps were under 15 degrees and I was warm most of the night except for one point when the pad under my legs found its way on top of me, this was easially fixed,but I recomend a full length pad instead of to torso pads.

!!!DANGER!!! I dont really recomend this, I am only able because I am a crazy kid with a high toleration for cold. if I were anyone else, I would probably be in a hospital with hypothermia, but me I was rather comforatable. but with a good layering system, mabey your scouts could get to 15 degrees with a 30 degree bag. good luck :-)

And for scouts, I have to recomend my $25 2lb synthetic sleeping bag
its about 2lbs.

scroll down the link to see some pics, and info.

be careful, the temp rating of this bag is incorrect, it is more of a 30 degree bag, but the 5-15 degree rating can be acheived with a good clothing layering system

I started winter camping with a 40 degree bag – cause it’s what I had. I used a “liner” on top of the bag (inside a bivy), along with down clothing to sleep comfortably to 0 degrees. I figured total rating of the system (bag, liner, down clothing) by adding up the loft on top of me. I used the WesternMountaineering.com spec table which lists total loft and temperature rating as a guide. I compared the loft (on top of me) of my system with their lofts and ratings. I used the rule of thumb that 2/3 of the total loft of a sleeping bag will be on the top. So, if I measured 4 inches of loft for the top layers of my system, that would be 2/3 of total loft for the WM system (6 inches of total loft in a WM bag). So my system would be approximately equivalent to a 10 degree bag. As someone else mentioned, make sure everything has room to loft, so you’d need to measure loft with someone inside the “system” if possible. A quilt works great to put on top of a bag.