Down Bag or Down Clothing?

[clindley]

Which is warmer for a cold night in January at 11000 feet? A zero degree down bag inside of a tent or wearing a down jacket and pants and sleeping in a bivy sack in side of a tent?

 

My goal here is to possibly drop the usage of a down sleeping bag for down clothing. Is this an absurd notion? Would it be pretty stupid to use a bivy sack in combination with down clothing? I absolutely love my bivy sack because it keeps me on my pad.

Edited April 8, 2008 by clindley

[DPS]

A down bag will keep you much warmer than down clothing.

[Bug]

I use fairly light down or synthetic parka with hood and light moonstone polarguard 3D overpants for real cold over my schollers.

It would be pretty miserable to not have a sleeping bag with this combo, even with a bivy bag inside a tent. Sometimes I take a very light sleeping bag (1 lb, 8 oz) inside a bivy bag with my parka and pants on.

I have spent a couple nights out without bivy or tent or bag and survived. Those nights really stick in my mind. Adventure is great but I prefer comfort and have more energy the following day.

[Joe_Poulton]

I've used the Chugach pants and the Voodoo Belay parka with my legs in my backpack at 13,000ft on Grizzly Peak in Colorado during Feb...the next day we found out the temp was -15 F...we were fairly warm with that set up.

[Bug]

I was raised in Montana and thought I knew what cold was. On one trip, we were in -50F with no wind.

In the Cascades, the humidity is way higher and the cold is more penetrating. This is magnified by any wind and elevation.

It took me a couple years to get used to it. I thought that if it dropped below 32F there couldn't be any humidity but, experience is different.

[Dannible]

If you are planning on bringing the down jacket anyway why not bring a lighter sleeping bag (20-30 degree) and wear your jacket in your bag. That way you shouldn't need to bring down pants. You can survive with just down clothes, but in most cases you won't be comfortable. The bivy sack will do very little as far as keeping you warm if you are already in a tent, if you leave it and your down pants at home, you've saved enough weight to just bring a sleeping bag.

[Figger_Eight]

I was raised in Montana and thought I knew what cold was. On one trip, we were in -50F with no wind.

In the Cascades, the humidity is way higher and the cold is more penetrating. This is magnified by any wind and elevation.

It took me a couple years to get used to it. I thought that if it dropped below 32F there couldn't be any humidity but, experience is different.

 

I agree. Just like there's "dry heat" compared to places that are humid, the same holds true on the other end of the thermometer.

 

[mattp]

A few years back Cliff Mass, the local weather expert who pontificates on KUOW on Fridays, gave a little talk about how "wet cold" is really no more penetrating than "dry cold." I was aghast.

 

Maybe there is no difference if you take a thermometer and place it in a specific amount of insulation in a "wet cold" lab and a "dry cold" one, but all of us know that there is a difference. Might it be that your wet clothing stays wet - the moisture coming off your body doesn't pass through and away so you insulation is less efficient when it is wet outside? Assuming there is a basis for Mr. Mass' pronouncement, what is the mechanism that we all experience?

[Tom_Sjolseth]

I did a little experiment this weekend..

 

I slept in a snowcave wearing only a FF Icefall down parka, primaloft jacket, Volant pants, hat, gloves, and Scarpa Freney boots (on a blue foam pad). I was warm enough to fall sleep everywhere except my feet - which kept me awake. My watch read 4 degrees at 3AM. My partner slept in a 30 degree rated bag with all his clothes on and he seemed to be about as warm as I was, but his feet weren't cold in the bag and he slept the majority of the night. His bag weighs about 1.5 lbs. He didn't have a down jacket, but had a down vest and primaloft and was wearing them. Conclusion: sleeping bags are the way to go. I would absolutely not want to go up to 11,000' in January and rely only on down clothing. Although it probably won't be any colder than it was this weekend where we were, things have a potential to get a lot nastier at 11,000'. I doubt the addition of a bivvy sack would be the deal maker.

 

The snowcave was not designed to stay "warm" for this experiment (i.e. sleeping chamber was not above the entrance). It was only designed to keep the snow and wind off of us.

 

[Bug]

Pussy.

 

 

 

Just kidding.

Thanks for sharing that tooth chattering experience so we can learn from your purposeful mistakes.

 

I also noticed that you are both using one pad on sub-freezing snow. That may have been a major heat loss avenue for you as well.

[Bug]

Seriously, I do appreciate your post.

Just thought I should add that.....