Quilt Concerns

you should probably change your subject line as it's misleading as it is. Your question is not about quilts but about down.

It depends on local conditions. For a mostly dry environment, most (everybody?) will agree down works, no problem. For a wet environment, you'll get different opinions but there's people who use down succesfully with no farther precaution than the usual: keeping it waterproofed while not in use, avoid taking wet things inside while in use, let it air dry when there's a chance… if you add cold to the equation, things get trickier (also for sinthetics) and you'll get more pro-synthetics opinions.

Down is not that easy to wet out. I think you usually have to do a few wrong things to get to that point in the typical 3 season conditions. What's your planned hike?

Jacob,
My experience is similar to Inaki's – although most of it was not in bivi. I have recently converted to using bivi for shorter/not as harsh trips and had no problems…but as Inaki points out it depends on your details (like – how long is long, what avg temp, what is expected precip, will there be stops on the way to exit or dryout in case something goes wrong etc.)

Just one note – copying somone here (john fredricks) i am converting to a modular system – i am buying (waiting for it to arrive ;) a MLD XP but in the 2.5oz/sqyd weight and will use that either stand alone with down jacket, pants, booties, balaclava – or over my summer down bag.
This way i hope to be able to work out any combo of temp and wet i should encounter and the penalty isnt that great.

Would love to hear how you fared out…
Mike

Sorry about the misleading title. I'm located in Indiana and had been planning on hiking the knobstone trail (58 mi) with a buddy on his spring break for quite some time. Needless to say, he's pretty unreliable and I'm not counting on him to come through. So I plan on hiking that (this is also a section of the American Discovery Trail) and continuing west on the ADT. Don't have a set date to leave yet, but probably mid-March.

Both isn't such a bad idea. Current setup is the bivy, Montbell Thermawrap, ID Hot Socks, Icebreaker 200 base layers, Balaclava, gloves. I would definitely rather lug around an extra 19 oz for a few days until I felt comfortable.

Thanks everyone.

Well, we took down sleeping bag/quilts through France for 3 months, mostly tenting. Worked fine.

In fact, as already noted, it is not that easy to get down wet. And drying down may be easier than drying synthetics. There is a lot of marketing spin by the synthetics companies, but reality is different. Read:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/wet_weather_performance_down_vs_synth_vests.html

Cheers

Roger-
You may have noticed, I have little use for most synthetics–but even for me that article was a bit surprising! I think what most got stuck in my head was the question of clumping; when I dry down sleeping bags after such soakings (ie washing) the down clumps up and loft is relatively horrid. Any idea why that wasn't a problem in Don's test? I mean, I get the oil on the down bit, but most of my down bags/etc use the same down as the Flash…

I think it has to do with distribution. In something like the flash or MB UL inner, there is very little down PER POCKET, so there is not much scope for clumping. In sleeping bags there is a LOT of down per baffle, thus clumping becomes more of a problem. I noticed this difference the first time I washed my WM POD30. It has down in smaller, square chamber, and I had very little clumping problems with it compared to a traditional baffled bag (POD 15). Just a theory…

Roger,
not to try and flame against anyone – but that article doesnt really provide any rigorous testing of down articles vs synthetics…merely gives a teezer.
I know that there is a counter culture that says that you cannot soak down in real life circumstances, but since i have first hand experience that says otherwise (extremely poor site selection leading to a river flowing through my tent that soaked everything etc)i prefer to be cautious.
Would love to see some real scientific treatment of this issue but i fear that is beyond the scope of BPL – i feel that not only is this probably a factor of environment (humidity, temp, fabric, wind etc) but also maybe as indicated down, being a natural substance might have more variation than the synthetics and as such would be hard to test rigorously.
Mike

>I know that there is a counter culture that says that you cannot soak down in real life circumstances,

I dont think it's a counter culture, and I think the sentiment would be more fairly stated that it would be unusual and unlucky to saturate a down piece of gear in the field. It HAS happened to people in the real world (Ryan Jordan no longer uses down due to a bad experience), but it is avoidable most of the time with good preparation ans site selection. For instance, Ryan walked into a known storm front, with no bivy bag and just a small tarp for protection. To me, that is unthinkable, and is not apporpriate use of down. I would be interested to know how much better synthetics would be in a situation like you encouuntered, ie a river running through your tent. Difficult to test!

Anyone have experience whether hanging out a damp (not soaked/clumped) down bag dries it out more effectively than hanging a damp synthetic bag? In any environment, but particularly the PNW in winter?

Clumping – not sure. Allison has a good point about volume.
But I think clumping always happens, even in birds. They spend considerable time preening: sorting out their down and feathers and adding oil to them with their beaks.

Cheers

Jacob,

I can't think of any reason you cannot rely on a down bag (or quilt) for a long spring/summertime hike. So long as you're not dealing with relentlessly rainy weather hovering near freezing you should be fine. Incidental moisture from your body or from rain/condensation can be dried out, either in bed via your own body heat or from airing out when conditions allow. Part of my daily routine is to air out all my insulated gear.

If Andy Skurka were handy he could allay any fears you might have, to be sure! He's slept in down bags for continuous months, including some very crummy weather. (As a beta tester for GoLite he may even have experience with your very bag.)

Proper care and use, including watertight storage in your pack, should be all you need.

FWIW I've had the ultimate down bag nightmare of going to sleep in a tent pitched on several feet of fresh snow and awaking in two or three inches of standing water, in a tent collapsed from pouring rain and snow bombs from overhead tree branches. That bag took days to dry, hung up in a warm basement–it would have never dried in the backcountry. So I'm a member of the synthetics-have-their-uses club.

Stephen,

I've found it doesn't make any difference, given the scenario you've described. Down and fiberfill seem to yield moderate moisture equally, *given equally breathable shell material*. I try to choose black or dark-colored liner fabric to catch the sun's heat whenever possible. It seems to help speed up the drying time. The sun does shine there…sometimes.

Once down collapses the situation becomes very different, and that's where synthetics offer a benefit because they can be wrung or spun out, then forced dry by body heat, careful campfire heat or hanging up.

FWIW I've found either insulation will become pretty clammy after a time in the Hoh or Quinault valleys :-)

down can be dried by campfire heat. Not that I'd recommend it, but as a last resort it's worked for me.

Thanks Rick and Simon. I may have to try a synthetic bag this winter.

Thanks everyone, all this information has been very helpful.
I'll probably just stick with the Ultra 20, but if anyone has a lightly used MLD XP Quilt or something else comparable I would be interested.
As stupid as it sounds, I just hate the waiting.
Thanks again.