Okay,
here's a bit of a scoop for you from the guys over at Mountain
Equipment. It's a new sleeping bag that's due out next Spring and we
reckon it could be a winner if you're after a lightweight sleeping
solution - ooops, sorry, weird marketing speak.
Like a few other manufacturers before, ME have realised that the
base of the sleeping bag doesn't actually do much insulating, seeing
as how the filling is crushed flat by your weight, so rather than
wasting weight by insulating the base of the bag, they've simply
added a pocket for an inflatable sleeping mat.
It's been done before, notably by New Zealanders Macpac, but the
neat touch about the ME version is that the mat is sold with the
sleeping bag and is cut in a mummy shape so not only do you minimise
the weight of the bag, you save on the mat too. The mat's one of the
excellent Insulmats sold in the UK by Mountain Equipment. We've been
using one of their standard lightweight inflatable mats for the past
few months and been impressed, by the way.
Two Integral models are touted for the spring 2003 range, a
down-filled Classic Integral O-degrees, rated down to freezing point,
which weighs in at a claimed 1300 grammes for the full caboodle of
mat and bag, and a synthetic Firewalker I Integral offering a similar
0-25 C comfort range, but weighing a little more at 1750 grammes
complete.
Neatly the synthetic version's going to be priced at around
£100 all in, which is pretty good for a bag and a quality
self-inflating mat and has a pack-size - you can roll the whole thing
up in one package - of just 24 x 30cm.
Like we said it's not a completely new concept. Macpac had a
similar idea, though it was pricey and the mat wasn't included and
RAB's ultralight minimalist Top Bag has a mesh base, but without a
mat pocket, whereas the ME bags are fully featured. The Macpac
version was effective, but lost marks for comfort, perhaps inevitably
when there's no base insulation, whether the same is true of the
Integral remains to be seen.
The only other potential drawback that we can see is that the mat
being inside the bag means there's a danger the base of the bag could
get damp from condensation where it lies directly on the groundsheet
making it problematical to pack, but again we'll have to wait and
see.
Looks interesting. For more information on Mountain Equipment see
their web site.
jamie maguire
