NEW Western Mountaineering Quilts!

John, this is incredibly helpful, and perfect timing for my decision. Very much appreciated, sincere thanks!

Glad to be of assistance. Which way are you leaning in your purchase?

i’ve yet to own a WM bag, but the fill weight looks low for its temperature rating.

the long astralite (rated at 26 degrees) has 11.25 oz of 850 down, where the long/regular katabatic alsek (rated at 22 degrees) has 14.2. that’s 25% more! (nunatek and EE have 15-16 oz of 850 for their 20 degree quilts in long/regular).

and from john’s review, it even sounds like the astralite is wider than the alsek (which is fairly quite narrow in regular width).

what am i missing?

The Alsek will be warmer and my experience with all the Katabatic bags has been that they are quite conservative in their temperature ratings. I don’t have enough experience with the Astralite (1 night) but I think it will be realistic for most people provided their pad has adequate insulation and a warm hat is worn.

I would also add that IMHO, 10.5 oz of WM down will fill a larger space than 10.5 oz of Allieds 850 fill down. How much more I don’t know but it is a higher fill than the reported numbers indicate.

I can vouch for John’s assertion that WM fill power is way higher than advertised. I saw a report a few years back from the down testing facility in SLC where the WM 850 fill was in reality around 970. I don’t mean to say it’s always that high, (I’m sure it varies) but it was on the report I saw.

that’s interesting about their fill power. i hadn’t noticed that WM advertises 4.5″ of loft. the alsek reports 2.75″! it seems impossible that they could have 63% more loft with 25% less down, but what do i know. i’m certainly intrigued.

Wester Mountaineering is reporting double sided loft. Katabatic lists single sided loft.

double sided for a quilt?

Yes. The WM Ultralite (rated at 20F) has a listed 5.5” of double sided loft, which exactly matches the 2.75” of single side loft for the Alsek (rated at 22F).

just seems strange to list double sided loft for a quilt. good to know.

I’d assume so it aligns and is consistent with their sleeping bags.