My Coleman sleeping bag let me down hard at 3am last Friday

Honestly, I thought I was good with this old Coleman bag I've had for maybe 5 years. Last Friday night I went out to a site near Pine Grove, and the temp dropped to about 38 degrees. By 3am I was shivering so bad I couldn't even get back to sleep. The filling was all clumped up in the foot area and there was basically nothing on top of me. I checked the tag and it said it was rated for 30 degrees, but that felt like a straight-up lie. Ngl, I ended up just sitting in my car with the heater on for an hour until dawn. Has anyone else had an old bag just stop working right after a few years?

2 comments

2 Comments

riverreed22d ago

You said the filling was all clumped up in the foot area, and that's your real problem right there. Old synthetic bags get their insulation crushed over time, especially if you've been stuffing it into a compression sack wrong for years. That 30 degree rating is for a brand new bag with even loft, not for one that's been used and stored poorly. I bet if you laid it out flat and fluffed it up by hand, you'd still see thin spots where the insulation broke down. Next bag, look into down fill or at least store it loose in a big cotton sack instead of cramped in that stuff sack.

kai_park22d ago

Man that's a lot of time and money to spend on babying a sleeping bag. Ive had a cheap synthetic bag for like 8 years, stuffed it into a compression sack every single time, and its still fine down to 35 or so. Maybe you just got a dud bag or the cold is making you overthink it.