I'm having sleeping bag dilemmas. planning a 2/3 day wild camping trip in the black mountains in a couple of weeks or so and i was after some advice on down bags.
i've only used synthetic in the past, and i'm a bit paranoid about getting the down wet.
To be honest mate, unless the weather is below -5C, and you sleep cold, have a look at the Mountain Hardware Lamina sleeping bags. I have been in it down to about -12C in a tent (i was a bit nippy) and about -6C in a Bivvy (was ok but i slept in a merino baselayer and had a silk liner).
Other than that look at the PD 400, I have the 800 and it is excellent!
Also ensure that you have a decent matt, mine had a puncture (in the tent circumstance) and I think that thats why i was cold.
the lamina looks good... it was the lamina o right? the thing is it weighs about 3 times the pipedream 400... i guess the question is just how likely i am to get the down in the pd400 wet...
jo-ha, when I started out, I was paranoid about getting down bags wet too, but the weight issue persuaded me to go for down anyway. Unless you have a crap leaky tent, tend to splosh your morning cuppa down your bedclothes or are generally careless, on a 2/3 day trip you shouldn't really have problems with down getting damp.
I think I used a sleeping bag cover once and couldn't be bothered with it subsequently because it was such a faff. I just keep my sleeping bag in an eVENT drybag in the rucksack.
Black Mountains are ok, but the hills in the Brecon Beacons National Park get better as you go west
thanks kate. i think i'm going to go the down route... and just take care! the pipe dream seems very good value.
as for the beacons, we're catching a train to abergavenny and setting off from there, so its just a matter of how far we can get, but we will be heading west!
Sea to Summit to an eVENT roll-top drysack, the eVac drysack; you can squish the air out of the end because it's air-permeable. I actually use the compression sack version (I have to use a colder rated bag than most people, they're larger so I squish them more. But I don't worry about squishing my down bags for a couple of days - some people prefer not to).
You should be able to find them pretty easily with a Google search.
Unfortunately the Beacons Bus service only runs in the summer, but the Traveline Cymru website may be useful for finding transport back at the end.
