Spring, Summer and Fall Sleeping Bags

One of my first "ultralight" purchases was the Western Mountaineering Highlight sleeping bag. That was over six years ago, and since then I have used the bag on dozens of occasions. In fact, until I made the Hennessy Hammock my primary three-season solo shelter, and added a pad pocket to a RAB Top Bag in order to make it suitable for use in a hammock, I used the Highlight every time I went out – summer, spring or fall. These days I use the Highlight when I sleep in shelters, a tent or a bivy. It also serves as a winter liner bag in my Feathered Friends Great Auk.

In the summer I find the Highlight perfect by itself. I never feel too warm in it. And, while it is nominally rated at 40 degrees, I’ve used it in a tent without clothing or liner in 36 degree weather, although I can’t say I was toasty in those conditions. However, wearing clothing I’ve slept very comfortably when the temperature inside a one-person tent was 25 degrees. I’ve also substituted a reflective vapor barrier suit for the clothing and slept comfortably into the mid twenties.

Although I’m careful with my gear, the Highlight has proved as durable as any bag I’ve owned in forty years. The one I've got is constructed out of a nylon taffeta fabric that can’t weigh much more than 1 to 1½ ounces a square yard. As flimsy as it appears, this fabric has proved very strong, and I no longer treat it as if it were rice paper. (Current Highlights appear to use a light microfiber ripstop fabric.)

Moreover, the weave of the fabric is so tight that when I pour water into a small depression all I get is a puddle of water. Even after a minute or so there is no incursion of moisture into the down, and after the water is poured off the fabric doesn’t feel damp or show a moisture stain. On several occasions I’ve slept in a cold rain in my Stephenson 2R with a friend and my dog and a lot of wet gear. A substantial amount of condensation has collected on the walls of the tent, and the bag's outer fabric, especially on the foot, has stayed wet all night. However, I’ve not noticed any dampness inside the bag that I couldn’t attribute to perspiration, and the down has appeared to stay as dry as it does in dry conditions.

The 775 fill power down is held in place with square, stitched-through baffles. Even when sleeping with no clothing in sub 40 degree weather I haven't noticed any drafts, so the baffle stitching must be very tight. It is also very even and has never shown any wear or tendency to pull, even in high stress areas. Occasionally, a down feather seems to work it’s way free, but this happens rarely. Fully fluffed, the bag lofts at 5 inches, giving an effective over-body loft of 2½ inches.

My regular size Highlight’s interior length is about 71 inches, measured from the foot box seam to the bag opening. With the hood completely open and laid flat the length is 84 inches, measured from the foot box seam to the hood top seam. Cinching the hood is accomplished with a single non-stretch cord secured by a barrel lock on the right side of the bag.

The interior girth of the round footbox is about 36 inches. Girth at the hips is 56 inches. At the shoulders the girth is 60 inches. My bag has a 35" # 5 half zipper with inner and outer pulls on the left side, although it can be ordered with a right-side zipper.

My only beef with the Highlight is that the zipper separates at the bottom. Before I stitched the zipper tracks together so that the bottom can’t separate it was a real pain to align the tracks and get the zipper started from inside the bag. Other than that, however, this bag has proved that it is worth every bit of the $200 I paid for it. Weight: a little less than 18 ounces. Source: www.hikelight.com .

My hammock bag is a modified Top Bag. This bag is made by a British company called RAB that specializes in climbing gear, so they're no stranger to the concept of going light. Consequently, they use Pertex Microlight fabric throughout, stuff the bag's slant baffle tubes with 700 fill power down, and include neither a hood nor a zipper. The name Top Bag arises from the bag's most interesting characteristic: it has no insulation on the bottom side and is enclosed only by a panel of nylon mesh. Therefore, with a few simple modifications, it makes a perfect three-season hammock bag (see the section on the Hennessy Hammock ).

You'll notice that I refer to Oware and Moonbowgear a lot. That's because, in my experience, they're the best of the lot at custom fabric gear construction and modification. They specialize in different things, one is right coast and the other left, but they're both real good.

After a bit of experimentation, I had Dave Olsen of Oware add a silicon-coated, ripstop nylon panel to the bottom of the Top Bag. This sealed the bottom of the bag against drafts and formed a pocket between the silnylon panel and the mesh panel. I then cut a piece of closed foam to fit the pocket.

However, it only took one try to figure out that getting into and out of a zipperless bag that has been stiffened by a piece of closed cell foam is not something I want to do while enclosed in a hammock, or even while not enclosed in a hammock. So, I had Rhia of Moonbowgear add a 40 inch, dual pull, #3 zipper to the left side of the bag. The resulting contraption has 3 inches of over-body loft, weighs 21 ounces, and works as well as I could have hoped. Varying the thickness of the foam pad and what I wear when in the bag, it's good from the sixties down to the low twenties.