“Rayway” quilt kits

[Zach Verhey]

Might anyone have any experience with the Ray Jardine quilt kit? I am looking more for usage insight, not necessarily sewing the quilt. I am looking at the 2 person with the added loft. My wife and I are going to do a White mountain trip late May and looking for some options for carrying 2 bags. Thanks!

[Sebastian Boenner]

The RayWay Duo Quilt was our first quilt at all. Actually we took it with us on our honeymoon backbacking trip.
Ours features the extra thick layer of insulation as well as the zipper to split it in half.
Something we really liked about this quilt is the outer fabric as it is amazingly waterresistant! We once had rain dropping into our shelter. We hadn't realized this until we discovered the puddles of water on top of our quilt! No soaking thru!!!
The draft stoppers work quite well, too. And the insulation is very warm and reliable (I guess two layers of the standard insulation will be more than sufficient for 3 season use!)
Of course there are some down sides:
As it is synthetic it ways more than a similar sized down quilt (but you could save some gramms as you would probplably not need a bivvy!)
The insulation material is very stiff and not easy to compress! Even when the quilt is split in half, each part of the quilt takes up an amazingly huge part of your backpack volume! That is really something to be considered. My wifes old GoLite Pinnacle was filled up to 1/3 (or maybe even 1/2) of it's actual volume when carrying her part of this quilt. The same goes for my backpack. With our MYOG down duo quilt rated for nearly the same temperature I'm carrying the quilt alone. Using only 1/4 of my backpacks volume (not that much compressed to protect the down).

All in all we where quite happy with the performance of the RayWay quilt, but it's been demanding stuffing it into our backpacks! If you're looking in using a RayWay quilt I'd go for the standard insulation and the standard number of layers! Everything else is overkill!

[Jay L]

Ive been using a single with standard insulation for about 6-7 years.

I like the fit though if I were doing it again I would make it just a few inches longer than what I ended up with using Rays instructions. I like the draft stoppers – they keep it tucked in nicely. I did do my foot box a bit differently so that it is flat and wide rather than tall and narrow. Works better for me as a side sleeper.

Temperature wise I would have to go back through my journals but Id say I use it into the mid 40s with shorts and a tshirt or mid 30s with light long johns and a stocking hat.

Space wise I usually put it in the stuff sack for my winter bag but I have crammed it into an 8L dry bag (the large one from the Outdoor Products brand set of 3 bags).

The instructions were clear and the sewing was pretty easy. My first real MYOG project – as I recall it took probably 10 hours over the course of a week.

[Elliott Wolin]

I made our 2-person Rayway quilt, Alpine upgrade with draft stopper and split-zip, in 2005 and we have been using it ever since. We are very happy with it. We've used it down to slightly below freezing without wearing much, and I expect it would go lower if we put some thicker clothes on. Around freezing we typically wear thin long johns, socks and a hat.

If I were to do it again I'd make it a bit wider since I toss and turn all night, causing drafts. I might make the draft stopper a bit wider too (we love the draft stopper!). We have no problem with storage space, perhaps our packs are larger than most (Golite Pinnacle and Golite Speed).

Since then I've made a number of quilts based roughly on the Rayway design, both one- and two-person, of varying thicknesses. One is a large but thin two-person overquilt (or summer quilt I suppose) that goes over the Rayway quilt and allows us to use it in much colder temperatures (coldest we used it was 15 degF and we were warm and toasty in long johns, socks and hats). We are happy with the Rayway footbox design, no problems at all.

Note: in ADK and similar leanto's place a ground cloth below you as drafts will rise up through cracks in the floor. We spent one night being cold no matter what we did until we realized this the next morning. No problems the following night using a ground cloth.

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