Choosing EE Revelation quilt warmth for use with down parka

I don’t understand your testing procedure. The various permutations of clothing and sleeping pad and hot water bottle combinations are not providing any clarity.

Are you planning to sleep on 2 Ridgerests in the field? Planning to carry the extra blanket for your girlfriend? Combining X-lites and RRs for both?

The first thing is to decide what you’ll actually wear while on your trip and work from that when testing sleeping air mats and pads. Testing at home with clothing and other items you’re not taking into the field is pointless.

Or are you working on your clothing system as well as your sleeping system at the same time?

Maybe there’s some logic in the way you’re going about it, but I fail to see it.

If you want to be assured of warmth, get a couple of X-therm air mattresses and put some Ridgerests on top of them. Done. Teetering on (and over) the brink of being cold at 0°C with X-lites is not a recipe for a fun trip. Too warm is easy to fix; too cold and you’re in for a long, miserable night.

Hey Bob,

Clothing is the same that I would have in the field. If I felt warmer, I went lighter. If not, I wore everything I would consider taking into backcountry with me.

When I suspected that ground chills might be the problem, I maxed out ground insulation by combining available mats and blankets. This does not mean I intend to ever take them with me but in the absence of XTherm this was the best I could manage to take ground insulation out of question on those nights and focus testing on the 20F bag.

Another night I was sure that the bag would be enough for me and wanted to check out how the pad with a known R-value would perform for me, so I put one pad on the ground and used the bag quilt-style.

Hot bottle method might also be used in the field, so why not try it now. This topic is about extending sleeping system warmth anyway, though it started on a more narrow subject.

Final test results
Night 7
Temps: -11C (12F)
Wore all clothes (2 merinos, fleece, long johns and pants), 2 socks. Sleeping bag in bag mode. 3/4 of the night was awesome, closer to the morning I slipped due to the slipping bag and stuck my feet against tent wall with snow behind it, making them cold.

Night 8
Temps: -7C (19F) inside tent / -22C (-8F) on a window ledge
This came as a surprise for me. Temperature inside the tent was higher than outside. A lot higher! The placed into snow on a window ledge showed -22C (-8F) that night! Yes, no typos, 15C lower! And I did check thermometers matching each other. Previously I’ve been measuring temps inside the tent only.

Wore all clothes, 3 socks. Sleeping bag in quilt mode. Legs became chilly, feet were better, suspect drafts somewhere in hip area since the only anti-draft system available with this bag as a quilt is tucking it under my sides.

Night 9
Temps: -6C (21F) inside tent / -10C (14F) outside tent
Last night we got a wonderful opportunity to test two bags zipped together (in bag mode) at exactly their rated warmth. Hot bottle per person, as before. From the start we both got very hot and stripped down to bare minimums, socks and long johns went off, hands went out of the bag. Should’ve been setting up in quilt mode, but better safe… After some time we finally cooled down and were able to fall asleep. In the morning we were good but we did not want it to be any more cooler. Girl was a bit chilly in her upper torso because she did not cinch the bag tightly around her neck. My gut tells me we would nicely go another 10F down if we did not take off layers, were draping two parkas over us and she would tighten her neck area properly. And I guess we should limit ourselves to one hot bottle per shared bag/quilt, if we even need one. Shared warmth and space was awesome and much better than separate bags/quilts. Just need to take care of neck drafts.

Conclusions
1) Mummy-style sleeping bags suck greatly for us. Quilts FTW!
2) I am okay 10F colder than bag’s rating wearing all my “go layers” without using parka or rainwear for extra warmth. Feet chills were caused by lack of experience and no bag or quilt will protect from sticking feet against the snow.
3) Based on Thermarest’s charts the XLite is about 8F warmer than Ridgerest. I felt ground chills with Ridgerest and quilt-mode bag at 32-35F, therefore I might feel the same on XLite at 24-27F. However, it might be warmer if the quilt would be secured to pad ends and not tucked under my sides which are most certainly shifting during the night, getting my legs on colder mat parts.
4) My girl alone got chilly during the night at 32-35F in a 20F bag. She felt a bit chilly in a shared bag at 21F but it seems that the reason for these chills were drafts in neck and shoulder areas. She should’ve tightened the opening better (and probably not just this time but on previous nights also). And those chills could’ve been fixed by me giving her a back rub if she wasn’t rushing to the toilet.
5) Temperature inside the tent is higher than outside (and on night 8 it was shockingly higher). Last night was -7..-8C (18-19F) inside the tent (before anyone entered), -10C (14F) measured outside the tent (thermometer hanging on outer tent wall) and -6C (21F) inside when we were there.

I think I should get an XTherm pad for her to be safe, stick to trying an XLite for myself for weight savings and get pad coupler straps from ZPacks to keep them together. I am also very inclined to get a 30F Accomplice double quilt and bite those extra grams when flying solo.

If I wasn’t considering an Accomplice, I’d probably lean towards a 30F Revelation for me and 20F for her (making sure she tightens that neck opening and with both parkas going over her).

While I am quite certain that we’ll do fine in a 30F Accomplice, the 40F would be nicer in weight but I’m afraid it might be very edgy in warmth. If the warmer-inside-tent effect would allow to permanently discount 4-5F from the outside temps, the 40F could be plausible.

I hope you can get out soon to test in the field… not too far so that retreat is easy.

You can crunch the numbers to the point of ‘paralysis by analysis’ only to find out in the field that all the finely crafted plans are rendered rubbish.

I remember well my first foray into the Seriously Cold World in 1985 when I drove 4 hours or so from NYC up to the Adirondacks only to realize 1/2 mile into my hike that I was woefully unprepared and that if I persisted I would likely die. Hiked back to the car, drove home and did better the next time… a lot closer to home.

I will add only this simple piece of advice. Not one single sole has contacted us to complain that they were too warm in one of our products. When it’s cold you will never regret taking additional insulation (within reason). I always suggest taking more insulation than you anticipate you need by at least 10* for avg men and 20* for women and cold sleepers.

What quilts, single or double or converts that can be zipper together is a personal choice that will be dictated by your styles and preferences.

Dont skimp on warmth, being cold sucks

-Tim

To echo Tim “Dont skimp on warmth, being cold sucks”

Thanks everyone. We have decided on a pair of 20F and 30F Converts.

The Converts will allow us separate use and make an awesome king-size double quilt even in its Slim width. We are not very interested in bag mode.

Average temperature rating would be more conservative 25F. I guess I’ll have other ways to optimize my carry-on weight than to stretch it aggressively.

But even if I did miscalculate something here, if I’d want a 40F or she’d want 10F, one of these 20/30F quilts is going to stay anyway. Enough theories for now. Next year the mountains will tell.