REI Magma Quilt

[Ryan Jordan]

New this spring: the REI Magma Quilt.

• 15d fabrics
• 30F rating
• 850 FP water-resistant down
• insulated / adjustable draft tube at neck
• pad attachment cords
• 19 oz weight (10.5 oz fill)
• MSRP $279.00

[John Vance]

I saw that on their site last week. Quilts appear to be going mainstream. This looks very good spec wise and at the typical 20% off that can be had during select times of the year, it should push a fair number of would be quilters over the edge.

[J-L]

REI’s carrying quilts and will be selling HMG packs soon. Even the new REI Flash packs can be stripped down pretty light. Getting easier to go lighter.

[TAG in AZ]

A few points:

• the 1st review is absolutely savage.  I’m not sure which one of you did that, but REI should take that down.
• on the surface, the specs look pretty good, but more like a 40 degree quilt.  Katabatic uses 13 oz of fill in a similar Palisade and the new EE specs call for 14 oz of fill for a long/wide Enigma.
• I wonder about those little plastic toggles.  If one of them gets twisted in the middle of the night and migrates to the top of the pad, will it cause Lego levels of pain when I roll over onto it?

At the end of the day, it is good to see quilts entering the mainstream.  It will certainly be easier to convince non-BPL folks to try a quilt when they can try it at REI.

[John S.]

Have been using my golite quilt lately…160 bucks back in the day

[Brad Rogers]

John,

I have one of the original Golite Ultra 20’s as well – I feel like I stole it for $140 ten years ago.

 

The REI Magma 30 looks like a nice quilt and should be good to about 30*F  The Ultra 20 had 10.5oz of down and I found it good to the mid to upper 20’s.  I wanted something warmer, so I had Jevan Dempsey make me a 20* quilt with 12.5oz of down and 21oz total weight.

There are several “mainstream” quilts coming out this year with the Magma, and the Thermarest Vesper 30 and 20* quilts.

[Paul S.]

So light!
I haven’t gotten to try this quilt on the trail yet. In fact, I haven’t even seen it since it hasn’t been released yet. I love that it’s imported, vs the made in the US quilts from cottage manufacturers. Better quality. The toggle clips look like they’ll hold the quilt on the pad well enough that there’s no way you’re getting out in the dark, which is great.

Posting this “review” for posterity’s sake as I assume REI will eventually take it down. Gave me a laugh and includes some fair criticisms.

[Jenny A]

I will be purchasing one of these as soon as they hit the stores.  I’ve been pretty impressed with REI’s Magma series of sleeping bags and down jackets, and it’s interesting to see them doing more with hammocking accessories.  This will shave a bit of weight and unused material over the sleeping bag that I’ve tried with my hammock.

[Ryan Jordan]

The Magma Quilt is now shipping…!

[Jenny A]

I just purchased one, a short.  Seems quite nicely made, and the high-lofting down and Pertex fabric make it very silky feeling.  I like the square enclosed footbox.  Outside temps are a bit cool right now, but as soon as nighttime temps warm up a little bit and I can figure out how to hang my hammock with one tree in the back yard, I’m eager to try it out.  It is too warm to use in the house…I tried.

Two minor quibbles:  the cinch toggle for the draft collar is smack in the middle of the top of the bag, maybe this is usual for quilts but seems annoying.  Also, the 3-liter stuff sack is about 1 liter too small – it is very difficult to get my short quilt into it, can’t imagine trying to cram a long into it.  Will probably grab a 5-liter compression bag to backpack with.

REI now offers all the pieces for a complete hammock camping kit under the house brand, albeit heavier than pieces available elsewhere.  There is now a thorough video review posted on Youtube and also on REI’s website.

[Jim C]

Looks nice. It’s very close to the fill and total weigh of the Katabatic Gear Palisade 30° in regular width, 850 fp (10.5/19 oz for Magma, 10.2/18.2 oz for Palisade). However, the Magma’s shoulder girth is 56″, versus 52″ for the Palisade (Palisade is also available in 58″)

On the one hand, that’s good; I wish my Palisade was a bit wider, as I tend to toss and turn, and it gets drafty sometimes. On the other hand, that means about the same amount of down spread across a larger volume, so perhaps the Magma is slightly less warm than the Palisade.

For comparison, the Palisade in 58″ girth has 12.2 oz of 850 fp down, 21.1 total weight. The Magma girth is closer to the wide Palisade, but its fill weight is close to the regular width.

In any case, it’s nice to see REI in this market. Especially when you factor in a 20% discount (which comes up fairly often, and should be available again in late March), and this is significantly less expensive than the Palisade.

[Dylan Atkinson]

Anyone else think of this while reading Jim’s post?

[John D]

As my first post here I’d like to take credit for that REI “review”.
That was me…

Glad some people got a laugh out of it! That was basically the point. At last count on the review rating system I was honored to know that 285 people had clicked not helpful. I’m guessing most of the 19 people who liked it are backpacking light members who understand those potential flaws / have a great sense of humor and are equally as sick of the much, much more worthless amazon reviews I was spoofing.

Owning the quilt now I’ll say overall I like it. 17.85 ounces w/o straps or stuff sack on my (schitty) scale.

The toggles still scare me with what I imagine could be LEGO status pain if you roll into one improperly, though living room tests haven’t caused that and I tend to just lie on my back and go sarcophagus. Still, I’ll probably just use the cord and some mitten clips, because the upper set of attachment loops is even with my butt/hips. I’m slim enough to close the quilt completely around my hips if I want less dead air space, and I don’t need huge toggles ramming me in the butt or tailbone.

I’m excited to get this quilt out in the field. It’s still chilly in the northeast, but soon I’ll get the quilt out for a full test.

Oh yeah, that stuff sack issue someone mentioned? 100% correct. I still like the quilt, but that stuff sack has got to be less than 1/2 the size of my girlfriend’s EE enigma 20 stuff sack.

I think they accidentally included the stuff sack for the magma jacket or something. Easy enough to replace with a DIY sil stuff sack (besides, included one is pertex – wtf, no sil?).

You’re better off trying to fit an R1 fleece into your Houdini chest pocket, because you’re definitely going to damage something or injure yourself trying to get an entire quilt into what amounts to a pertex pint glass.

[Jenny A]

HaHa, your review was pretty entertaining.

The included stuff sack is just ridiculous.  When I asked REI why they didn’t include a slightly larger stuff sack, they responded that yes, it’s a tight fit, just keep stuffing.  A really not-helpful answer.  It’s a minor quibble, but I’ve got a 5-liter stuff sack that works much better.  S’pose I can find another use for the silly little 3-liter stuff sack…like for my puffy that is a fraction of the size of the quilt.

Hope to get the hammock set up in the back yard here within the next couple of days and try out the quilt.  Overnight temps are forecast to be in the high 30’s to low 40’s, so perfect.

[Jenny A]

Well, I now have three nights using the Magma quilt in my hammock in the back yard.  Low temps have ranged from 36-40 degrees, and I am very pleased to say that the quilt has been absolutely lovely!  No cold spots at all, and the width and length (I am 5’3″ tall, so got the Short) are perfect and quite comfortable.  I’m still dialing in the under quilt situation, but the Magma top quilt is perfect.  I tend to be a cold sleeper and had doubts about the 30 degree temperature rating, but if it’s warm down to 36 degrees that’s good enough – I would be using something else if temps were forecast to be colder than that.  Wind gusts were supposedly up to 20 mph the other night, but I didn’t notice.

Overall this is really a nice addition to a lightweight kit, hammocking or not.  At some point I’ll test it in a tent on a pad on the ground, but very pleased so far.

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