Hello everybody, and thank you for this community and for sharing your experience.
Although I’ve been lurking here for decades, this is my first post, and it’s a long one. The TL; DR version is in the subject line.
The background is that I’m a 5’6″ (1.7 m) guy, very cold side sleeper, not claustrophobic, trying to decide between the WM Lynx MF -10F (-23C) in short (5’6″/165 cm) or regular (6’/180 cm). Although I try to keep my gear light, I’m not concerned about the 2 oz (WM lists 55 g) weight penalty in this case.
By now, I’ve read/watched everything I can find on BPL and elsewhere about my question and also have had some very helpful PMs.
For more background, I’ve had a WM Ultralite 20F (-7C) short (5’6″/165 cm) for 20+ years but am now getting in to cold-weather camping. So, I recently sent the Ultralite back to WM for overfill, but even before then I was not sure that I could cinch the hood tight without compressing the down at the top and foot. (I’ve since heard that you lose two inches or so of length when you cinch the hood.) The other night, I slept in the overfilled Ultralite in just Capilene and a balaclava at 25F (-4C) on a RidgeRest on top of an XTherm NXT MAX and was chilly, although my feet were warm, probably because there was no empty space around them.
The owner of Hermit’s Hut told me that for exact heights, he recommends to size up in WM winter bags so as not to compress the down, and that he has never heard anyone complain about “the six-inch (15 cm) pocket” of dead air in the footbox. He also said that his cutoff for the size-up recommendation would be maybe the Versalite, which he thinks might work for an exact fit, I guess because there isn’t as much fill to compress in the lighter bags.
Also, WM user/polar explorer Aaron Linsdau, who is 6′ (180 cm), insists on sizing up in winter bags. This seems to be mostly because he assumes that people will want to put lots of other stuff like clothing, electronics, and water bottles in the bags with them to keep it from freezing. But I’m not sure I’ll be putting all of those things in there with me all the time to take up the empty space, and bags lose heat when they are too big.
Unfortunately, I can’t try the Lynx out in outdoor stores here in the Midwest because they don’t stock them; and even if they did, I wouldn’t feel right doing that if I didn’t plan to buy from them. I probably will end up buying from HH, and HH has a no-return policy for bedding.
Anyway, thanks for reading my post and for sharing any actual field experience you have on this question.
