As you progress in your
training, you will find yourself out in the wilderness on more than one
occasion. In our dojo, promotions through the Kyu and Dan ranks require
certain survival skills. I will direct my articles toward educating you
"city folks" to the ways of the outdoors and the equipment necessary to make
it fun.
To me, the most critical item to take with you is the sleeping bag. I don't
think there is anything worse than freezing my buns off in the middle of the
night on the hard ground. The following is a short course in the selection
of a sleeping bag.
There are four types of fill and certain advantages to each:
HOLLOFIL 808 is a hollow short-crimped polyester fiber. It retains most of it's loft when wet. It must be sewn to another fabric to prevent clumping, shifting and cold spots. This adds weight.
HOLLOFIL II is the same but has a silicone slickening agent added to make the fibers more resilient and more compressible.
POLARGARD is a continuous filament polyester that is manufactured in bats. These bats require no stabilizing fabric making the bag somewhat lighter. It too retains most of it's loft when wet.
QUALLOFIL is a four-hole microscopic short-crimped polyester fiber. Since it has more surface area, it is a superior insulator. It has a soft down-like feel and retains most of it's loft when wet.
DOWN is the best
insulator with the widest comfort range. Look for at least 550 cubic inches
per ounce as a fill guide. DOWN loses 90% of it's warmth when wet and will
take at least two days to dry. The synthetics lose only 10% of their warmth
and will drip-dry in less than a day. Carry your bag in a waterproof stuff
sack.
There are two styles of bags. The camping bag is rectangular in shape and is
usually quite bulky. Rectangular bags are usually only good for weather well
above freezing. The mummy style is less comfortable, but is more thermally
efficient. The mummy style is excellent at sub-zero temperatures.
Selection of a sleeping bag is a personal decision but should be carefully
thought out before spend a lot of money on any expensive mistake.
Weight: If you are going to be backpacking, this can be very important.
Every pound will weigh ten pounds out on the trail. If you drive to your
campsite, then weight is of no concern.
Temperature Rating: I would rather have a bag that is too hot than one that
is too cold. If I get too warm, I can always unzip the bag or sleep on top
of it. If the bag is too cold, there is nothing I can do to warm it up.
Size: I like a bag with more girth. If the bag is too tight then I feel
constricted. If the bag is too short, then either your feet or your head
will compress the insulation and either one end or the other will get cold
and uncomfortable.
Price: A good quality sleeping bag will cost from $80 to $300 depending on
the construction, fill, shell material, and the store you buy it from. In
general, you should be able to buy an excellent sleeping bag for $200. I
have purchased six sleeping bags over the last ten years before finally
finding one I like.
Other items to consider are a ground cloth and/or sleeping pad. Both will
keep the damp from accumulating under the bag. The pad should be either the
self-inflating type (expensive) or made of a closed-cell foam. Both are
lightweight and both make sleeping much softer and warmer. The final item to
consider is either a ten or a bivouac sack (bivy sack). I'll discuss tents
in a later issue. Bivy sacks are sacks into which you place your sleeping
bag. The bivy should have Gore-Tex on the top to allow it to breathe and yet
still be waterproof. The bottoms are usually made from a urethane coated
nylon packcloth. The bivy will ad about 10 degrees to the rating of you
sleeping bag. The bivy has the advantage of being significantly lighter than
a tent. Bivy sacks cost between $90 and $150.
Also found somewhere on the net...
Cocoon Sleeping Bag
The setup is a sleeping bag, ground air mattress & a tent . . .
all in 1. It is pretty compact & looks like a sleeping bag made out
of 2 air mattresses, top & bottom. Its got a canopy you can put over your
head for full enclosure. Comes in blue, with a yellow or camo canopy. The
bottom of the Cocoon 4 is thick enough to compensate for rocks, roots or
undulations in the ground. It even has slope compensation so that you won't
lean on sloped terrain.
The Cocoon 4 is a Sleeping System which is comprised of components serving
different functions. The heart of the system is a Sleeping Bag which uses
air pressure to control the loft of the goose down insulation. It is
composed of a 3.5" thick, down filled, air-inflatable mattress, and a
similar, separately inflatable blanket. The mattress is always fully
inflated to the degree of firmness preferred by the user. By virtue of its
thickness, and because of slope compensators built into the mattress, it is
comfortable even on rough, rocky terrain.
If the blanket is left in its compressed state, the Cocoon 4 is comfortable
at room temp. (70). As air is pumped into the blanket, by means of the
attached pump, the down within is progressively lofted, causing the user to
become warmer and warmer. When the blanket is inflated to the full 3.5"
thick, the Bag is comfortably warm at -45 F.
The fabric from which the Sleeping Bag is made is completely waterproof, so
that the goose down is never compromised by moisture. The System takes
advantage of the fact that human skin will absorb moisture as well as give
it off. This is why your fingers get wrinkled after being in water. The
absorbed moisture makes the skin too big to fit tightly over the underlying
bones, which do not absorb moisture. If you wear wet clothing in the Cocoon
4, they quickly cease feeling wet, since no evaporative cooling takes place
inside. In addition, wet clothing will generally dry out overnight when worn
in a Cocoon 4, due to this absorption.
At comfortable temps, skin can easily reabsorb all of the vapor it gives
off, provided that the vapor is allowed to remain near the skin. Vapor
Barrier liners work to a degree, but if you get too warm, the rate at which
you then perspire exceeds the rate at which you can absorb moisture, and you
start to feel "clammy." Since the Cocoon 4 has adjustable warmth, you won't
experience this problem.
Since the Cocoon 4 is totally waterproof, it does not need to be used inside
a tent. Rather, an attachable Canopy extends from the Sleeping Bag to
protect the user's head. Large, screened windows permit clear visibility,
free from bugs. Elastic, fitted hems provide effective barriers to insects,
reptiles & animals. If it should begin to rain, integral "flys" can be
deployed, rendering the whole structure completely storm proof. Similar to
the best of tents, the flys are separated from the windows by an air gap
which permits controlled ventilation of the interior space, and greatly
reduces condensation.
A Full Length Mesh Enclosure extends from the toe of the Bag to the crown of
the Canopy, allowing the user to roll the deflated blanket down to the foot
of the Bag, permitting bug-free sleep without cover, when the weather is too
hot for a blanket. If it gets chilly, or should it begin to rain, then the
blanket can quickly be unrolled, and the fly clipped into place in seconds,
all from within the Mesh.
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