What's It For?
This is a seriously light sleeping bag for seriously cold temperatures.
Don’t be fooled by the ‘zero’ in the title – remember that Mountain Hardwear are a US-based company and they think in Fahrenheit on the far side of the big pond, as do some of us over here for that matter. The ‘zero’ translates to about –17 degrees Centigrade, and it’s not often you see temperatures like that in Snowdonia.
Bear in mind though that the Phantom family of sleeping bags is a pretty fertile one, containing bags for all temperatures. Even if you aren’t looking for a real frost-beater, it’s still worth knowing what technology it uses in cases one of the Phantom Zero’s siblings could be the bag for you. Speaking of which …
The Techy Bits
High quality materials and some thoughtful construction have gone into this bag.
The word ‘down’ offers some guarantee of quality in itself – after all, it’s the warmest material on the market per gram of weight – or per ounce of weight as we’re doing things in Imperial measurements today. It’s 800 fill power in this case, which places it near the top of the range. And the baffle construction, as opposed to stitch-through construction, means that there are no cold spots. They fall pretty close together too, which stops the down moving around.
The lining and outer fabrics are also very light – transfer 15-denier fabric into a pair of tights and they’re almost transparent, and weightless into the bargain. Ditto here – you may not be able to see through the bag, but it’s definitely light.
It’s not just the fabrics though – there’s also the shape. This sleeping bag’s mummy-shaped, so it tapers towards the feet, rather than being a uniform tube-shape all the way down. The advantage is that you cut down on unnecessary bulk at the lower end of the body, and saving those extra few grams counts for something when the slope steepens and the air thins.
How It Performed
We haven’t managed to push this bag to its limits yet, but the testing we’ve done so far suggests that the temperatures it can cope with are at least as low as Mountain Hardwear says they are.
We tried sleeping in it on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, at 4500m, and while ice formed on the inside of the unheated hut’s windows, we stayed thoroughly warm. In fact, we never had to zip the sleeping bag all the way up, so we’d happily carry it higher and still be sure of a good night’s sleep.
At the same time, the weight really is minimal – this is Mountain Hardwear’s lightest four-season bag and you really notice it – or rather, you really don’t notice it, if you know what we mean. The fit’s pretty snug to keep things light, but not so much so that you feel cramped in any way.
And have any important features been sacrificed to keep the weight down? No, we don’t reckon so. The zip extends about two thirds of the way down your body rather than the whole way down, which cuts a gram or three, but we think that’s a good move as you don’t really need a full length zip in any case. You still have plenty of flexibility to sleep with the bag quite open when the temperature’s a bit warmer and close it again when the going gets nippy.
Features-wise, the hood and neck adjustments are both easy to work, as you’d expect from a quality bag, but there’s one extra thing you’ll notice when your hand reaches for the drawcord at the neck. There’s a small zip pocket there. It’s big enough to hold your wallet and keys, if you’re in a communal space and don’t want them to disappear into someone else’s pocket. Or you can use the pocket to tuck away your headtorch in case you get caught short in the night and have to leave the warmth of your sleeping bag at short notice. It’s really rather handy.
One more thing: the Phantom Zero comes in a women’s specific version as well as the men’s one, so if you’re a gal you might want to look at that option. The shorter body means you don’t waste energy carrying redundant grams of insulation, but at the same time you get a bit of extra down in the feet, because rumour has it that cold feet are a common female complaint:-)
Verdict
This is a top quality down sleeping bag. OK, so it’s not cheap but you get what you pay for: it’s light, it’s warm and it’s got some pretty nifty features.
If –17 Celsius sounds like a colder night out than you’re planning, there are plenty of siblings in the Phantom family and most of them cater for more temperate camping trips, so a less insulated, and hence cheaper, bag is always an option.
If we had one tip it would be to cure yourself of rolling off your sleeping mat in the night because there isn’t all that much insulation in the part of the bag that goes underneath you, and besides, down doesn’t like to get soggy. But so long as you stay safely mat-bound, the Phantom 0 should give you a cosy night’s sleep, even when the going gets very icy indeed.
