A cold weather clothing and sleeping system question

I am no expert, but this is what I did. I already had a superlight 2.5 oz apex quilt with a footbox (13oz) and a 5oz Apex M30 quilt (19oz). I have a thin hooded jacket and a thick down Sierra designs hooded parka that is super warm. The heavy parka weighs 21 oz.

I bought a montbell 800 down hugger for the room inside. With the hugger I can use either of those quilts inside. With the 5oz Apex quilt inside its like an oven and still roomy enough.

I can wear that heavy Sierra parka inside (or anything lighter) and either quilt on the outside.

A 2.5 Apex quilt inside or well tucked on the outside should buy you 10-15dF. 5oz Apex should add about 25dF+. A heavy down parka even more.

If going the outerlayer only route, Add Down booties or heavy socks and UL insulated pants.

You may want to watch this.

thanx Troy

To put things in context my heavy down parka weighs 1120 grams, 40 ounces and needs a shell layer for wind and abrasion protection

My system is:

-> LL Bean -20 F. down bag (Dri-Down DWR) size Long

-> thin fleece balaclava

-> Psolar face mask if much below zero F.

-> heavy wool sleep socks

-> thin glove liners (try it before you laugh)

-> Thermarest Trail Pro pad (1/8″ thick CCF floor underlayment pad beneath the Trail Pro if it is below zero F.)

-> Tarptent Moment DW or Scarp 2 (both winterized with several mods) Shelter is a must in winter.

-> or a snow cave/quinzhee

BUT…

If it is warmer than zero F. I use an overstuffed Western Mountaineering Megalite with a base layer and insulated jacket and pants if necessary. This may be more of the “system” you guys are thinking of.

** My winter pants are Duluth Trading “Dry-on-the-Fly” fleece lined nylon cargo pants. They are now my go-to winter pants. Very wind resistant and very warm over a mid weight base layer. Better than RailRiders equivalent, amazingly.

If you’re looking for data on how much warmth you’ll get from different components of a sleep system, PHD cover this in a dedicated section of their site.

http://www.phdesigns.co.uk/what-is-sleep-systems

Dig around there and you’ll find most of your questions will be answered.

It’s focused on their products, but it’s pretty easy to generalise the advice.

I just trolled thru the “Systems” pages at PHD and I do thik they are a little optimistic but it reinforces my thinking that I need to add a quilt to use over my bag combination.

My current bag is pretty much the PHD Hispar standard overbag, a tad bigger and a tad warmer perhaps because it has no zipper. The BPL formula for adding bags together says I get less than an extra 24C degrees of boost but not by much.

I could save some real weight tho by getting a new duvet parka and layering up rather than using my old Everest parka over my longjohn top

@Geoff

What are the new Mountain Equipment UK down parkas like in terms of fit, the old ones were really long, down to the crutch whitch I like in cold weather. Would the Lightline be worth looking at or is the Trango or Vega a better all-round parka?

Purchase your Mountain Equipment clothing one size larger than your regular US sizing. I’m a US size Large in regular cut clothing (5’11, 210) and need an XL in their Vega, Fitzroy, Citadel, Tupilak, Annapurna, K7 and MRT jackets. And the same goes an XL for all of their baselayers and midlayers too.

Thanx for the warning

I’ll need XXL then as I am an XL Tall in US army outerwear and a large tall in mid layers

I was thinking of something between my own old down parka at 1200grams and my Uniqlo UL and the Trango looked appropriate

Any experience with it Eric?

http://www.mountain-equipment.co.uk/trango-jacket

Hi Edward,

Sorry for the delayed response. I have not worn the Trango previously and it appears to be a relatively new item in their catalog. That said, I’m sure it’d be fine into the 40’s or 30’s at most. Bear in mind, I do run a bit on the colder side myself. I really like the Annapurna myself, as it does have a zip off helmet compatible hood and has plenty of pockets to hold most everything you’d want to keep in your pockets, but has the longer back length too.

Again, a big part is of course layering and the activity in mind. YMMV.

Eric

It looks like the “Annapurna” is the old Redline and about the same as my current HA climbers duvet in terms of warmth and weight and sizing, the main difference being that integrated wind shell which my duvet lacks

Nobody on this side of the world is stocking any ME products and this is too important and expensive a purchase to leave to trial and error.

For me it is back length that is important, I really need the warm coverage down low, Perhaps I should carry the extra weight and simply use US Army surplus ECWCS gear for this trip, it would only be an extra kilo and a half to do that but a saving of almost $600-

I wonder if Richard Nisley would be interested in doing some clothing tests on the new army clothing?

I can’t seem to find any NATICK information on their actual real life values but in use the L7 jacket seems as warm as my old Patagonia DAS