Looking to buy a down bag for use up to around 6000 metres in Himalayas and South America.
Have always borrowed a bag off a mate in the past, most recently a Rab Ladakh which kept me toasty warm at 6000m. But want to buy my own one now, think Ladakh is discontinued.
Max budget is £200. Is this realistic?
Always use silk liner and happy to wear my down jacket on in bed too.
Anyone got any feedback on the Rab womens Ascent 700. Seems a reasonable price.
Weight and pack size is also an issue as try to carry own gear.
Got a Go outdoors voucher for Crimbo so anything that they stocked would be even better!
Ladakh is a range of bags, not a model. So a Ladakh 1000 would be a lot warmer than a 600.
I don't have personal experience of a Rab Ascent, but Rab make descent bags and their ratings are usually sane, but having said that everyone's different and some people feel colder than others asleep and need warmer bags. 6Km is pretty high, and will be pretty damn cold as a result: I'd want more than a -5 C bag there, and I don't sleep cold. My main bag is a similarly rated ME Lightline, which was fine in Norway in a snow cave but with the caveat that it was with quite a lot of warm clothes on and about 4800 m lower than you're planning on being at.
So I'd look for warmer unless you normally find yourself happy in much lower rated bags than any companions.
Always use silk liner and happy to wear my down jacket on in bed too.
The Ascent 700 has a comfort rating of -12 or so; perhaps it isn't quite enough? Me, I'd err a bit on the side of caution and go for a bag rated to -20, but it might be difficult to get a good bag rated to that level for 200 quid. Might be extra difficult to get a women's fit sleeping bag at that rating too.
If ultralight and compact isn't a goal, you could get a larger synthetic bag to go on the outside of your down bag, but there's a certain amount of inconvenience involved there.
Wearing an insulating jacket in bed may help, but if you're going for that approach make sure the bag is big enough inside to fit the jacket without compressing it! In a close fitting bag there won't be any room for the down to loft, and you'll not be much warmer.
Suprprised no-one's leapt in and said Akpkit, their Skyhigh range come in the same filling weights as the old Rab range (600,800,1000gm), they all appear to be in stock, are available in 3 lengths and are all under £200.
Can you try to find out which model you used - I suspect it was the 1000.
Well there is the Andes 800 for women, but thats a lot more than 200. And fairly long too actually. In general very warm seems to be 300+. Unless you can catch a massive sale of course.
Well the Sky high 1000 is in the price range. Looks to be quite a weight premium mind, which may or may not matter.
Are you really trying to tell us a 1000gm fill bag is heaver than a 800gm bag Martin? . Cos the Skyehigh and Andes ranges look pretty similar weights to me, perhaps the Alpkit just shading things.
Rab 800 Andes Women 1470gm + 120gm stuffsac = 1590gm (RAB) Skyehigh 800 1435-1570gm (Alpkit) depending whether you use the lightweight stuffsac or the chunky compression sac,
Same sources Rab Andes 1000 1730g +140g stuffsac = 1870gm. Skyehigh 1000 1680-1820gm
Edit: More expensive down in the Rab of course and 2-3deg lower claimed comfort levels, but at a higher price.
Eh, I don't think Alpkit would claim the Sky highs are all that warmth/weight competitive at the top end. They're meant to be a better alternative than synthetics and in that price range, which they do certainly seem to manage well. The pipe dreams are of course much closer.
Warmth wise the comparison is Andes 800 vs Sky High 1000 so yes a non trival weight difference. Not that the Andes is that light (features I think) overall - golite (1250), WM (1050?!), PHD (<1000).
(and yes the 600g of fill in the PHD bag is at least very close to the sky high in terms of net loft.).
But of course there's also a real cost scale involved!!
I'm very suspicious about rab's rating. their sleeping bags perform very well in the lab but I've heard bad comment about their collars. The collar doesn't play a great role for a mannekin but with a real person it's very different. A real person moves. And at least on the rab alpine series the collar is poorly designed. The rab alpine 600 is rated -14 but it's more a -5 bag due to this flaw.
If you weren't tight on budget I would suggest Shocking blue. this is an amazing bags. I' used the shocking blue down to -18 without a problem. I was bivying with just the bag and an exped DM7. At -15 I had to vent the bag cause i was way too ho.
This bag is really amazing and worth the price. It's roomy so you can layer without compressing the insulation just in case. If you sleep on your back a roomy bag is not really an issue.
PHd products are among the best. But I have to say i had some durability issues with drishell. I used one of their jacket 4 times. Didn't do anything special with it except sitting and walking in the camp. But the jacket is ripped. I guess it happened when put it in or pull it from the compression bag. I have to see what happened with Peter though. I may have been very unlucky. I never ripped a down jacket before though.
The alpkit skyehigh 1000 is heavy but may do the trick. You should inform yourself. The down filling seems ok but you have to check the bag design.Check the design. It has a neck and zipper baffle wich is a minimum with those bags.Those need to be thick to be efficient. Moreover the neck baffle must stays in place while you move so you don't have to tighten up all the time (this is the flaw with the alpine 600). Check the foot box and the hood. And then check the fabric durability.
Advice :
First, except if you have enough experience, always take a bag warmer than the lowest temp you may encounter. If you're seek or exhausted you will appreciate the extra warmth.
second, don't save money on your sleeping systems. Be comfy while sleeping is the best way to enjoy your trip.
In genereal don't trust manufacturers and EN rating. EN rating is a scam. There's different labs. In some labs like the one in norway or kansas city, you'll have a higher EN temp rating than in Lyon for example. Moreover, mannekin based temp rating are useless. Listen to users.
For a really well designed and high quality 800EU FP down (be careful many manufacturers use US FP rating with the new steaming down conditionning US FP can be overated. but in general 850 US is 750 to 800 EU) the temp rating for men are the following :
600 gr : -8 to -15
800 gr : -18 to -25
1000 gr : -30 to -35
1200 gr : -40.
for women's rating substract 5 to 10 degrees to that.
For a 200 pounds budget you would go for a duck down or lower quality goose down with a 650 EU FP, the ratings are the following :
700 grams : -8 to -12
900 grams : -10 to -15
1000 grams : -15 to -20
for women rating substract 5 to 10 degrees. Be carefull though. Usually lower quality down sleeping bags comes with a poorer design. The have less compartments, the neck collar is smaller and the hood and footbox are not the same as their 800FP friends.
I asked about sleeping bags not that long ago and was suprised (although I have no personal experience) that a number of people said that Alpkit bags weren't that good in terms of quality. I make no judgment just passing on what was said.
Well maybe they're not 'perfect' but this sort of warmth at <200 won't be!
I dunno about EN. It might well not be perfect but when you imagine the alternative of free form temperature ratings? Thats surely quite a lot worse as it can easily end up downright misleading while EN is going to be ball park.
... Alpkit bags weren't that good in terms of quality
You tend to get what you pay for. With Alpkit you pay distinctly less so it's not entirely reasonable to expect the exact same degree of sophistication and QA that, say, MH, ME, Rab etc. will bring.
Alpkit are quite up front about not making The Best, Period. What they aim to do is give you a significant percentage of the performance of The Best for a very reasonable amount of money. So is my Gamma headtorch as good as the best Petzl? No way, but it is quite good enough for all I want of a headtorch anywhere outside a caving trip for a fraction of the cost so I saved my money and spent it where it matters to me. Same approach will work for sleeping bags and for a lot of people, a lot of the time, Alpkit's offerings will represent more than adequate quality and excellent value. Almost certainly much better quality (both construction and materials) than the Blacks Icelandic Mummy that was my sleeping bag for years when I got started, and which always kept me warm when needed.
I suggested Alpkit only because the original poster asked
Max budget is £200. Is this realistic?
Yes its realistic, you may not get the highest quality down or the highest quality bag, but you may get one that does the job within the maximum budget specified. I don't own an Alpkit bag myself, I just was just tryimg to help the OP.
Its one of the really annoying things about OM that someone asks a perfect reasonable question and people start rabbiting on about high end stuff, their clever purchases in sales etc. Sure there's room for such discussion, but can it be kept to threads where people ask about high end stuff.
My daughter climbed Kilimanjaro a few years back - did she pay out £500 on one of Ph.D.'s recommended bags. No she used an old one of mine and had a perfectly fine time.
I think there are a few things you could usefully consider, mountainleslie, most of which have already been raised.
1. How warm / cold do you sleep? I'd guess you should already have some idea of this from the Rab Ladakh you borrowed and where you used it, if you know what rating that bag had. If so, then you can start looking for a bag with a particular rating. I've not found silk liners helpful in increasing the rating of a sleeping bag, but others may have different experiences. Down jackets certainly can, as can socks, Sigg hot water bottle etc., though with my narrow PHD minim sleeping bags, I actually find it's better to drape the down jacket over the bag as inside it can't loft as effectively.
2. You say bulk and weight are issues - in my book that would eliminate the Alpkit Sykehigh 1000, which may well keep you warm enough, but is on the heavy and bulky side. The Rab Ascent series doesn't seem to be much better. But that's from my perspective of really wanting to keep things as small and light as possible, and being willing to fork out a bit more to do so.
3. Investment - a good down bag will give you many years good service. You can hire one for £80 for a fortnight. 3 such trips and you'd be over your budget.
My opinion is that, given your criteria, £200 is probably not realistic. If you can conceivably stretch your budget, go for it. If not, then ebay may be your friend.
Eh, I don't think Alpkit would claim the Sky highs are all that warmth/weight competitive at the top end. They're meant to be a better alternative than synthetics and in that price range, which they do certainly seem to manage well. The pipe dreams are of course much closer.
Warmth wise the comparison is Andes 800 vs Sky High 1000 so yes a non trival weight difference.
I don't think its a simple case of Andes 800 vs Skye High 1000. Claimed comfort ratings from the same sources as before. Skyehigh 800 -10, Andes 800 -13, Skyhigh 1000 -16, Andes 1000 -17. I'd stand by what I said in my previous post - similar weights, Rabs claimed comfort levels a couple of degrees lower (in fact 1-3), Rab higher quality down and higher price.
Actually the original question was whether that price range was feasible - with weight an important factor too. The answer seems to be yes, but you're going to lose quite a lot which may or may not matter more than the cost.
Not a judgement we can make for someone else that, so options
Of course the Hispars etc are very likely just over the top - I mentioned them for orientation - but, for instance, the Golite one does drop a lot of weight without an enormous price premium.
(The RAB temperature measures are EN tested so certianly not directly comparable. Futile to get too specific here as no real evidence I'd be pretty surprised if the 800 wasn't as warm as the sky high 1000. Its also a lot more expensive!).
Thankyou so much for all your replies and opinions. I appreciate it.
The search has moved on slightly and now considering the Rab Ascent End 900. May start another thread to see if anyone has personal experience of this bag before I buy it.
. Cos the Skyehigh and Andes ranges look pretty similar weights to me, perhaps the Alpkit just shading things. 
