Since last fall, I have been truck camping most of the time, both to build savings faster and to learn what I can about the lifestyle as I prepare to build out either my box van or my school bus - or perhaps both.
If you want to be absurdly comfortable, you will eventually end up with a Wiggy's sleeping bag. There are a few pieces of gear you should spend top dollar on, and this is one of them. No matter how long you live, it will be the last sleeping bag you ever buy.
Wiggy's Lamilite insulation fiber makes down obsolete. You can spend an evening reading his site -
www.wiggys.com It will be time well spent.
Here are the highlights: Lamilite fiber does two things no other sleeping bag insulation - man made or natural - can do: first, it's incredibly durable. It just doesn't break down. Wiggy puts a lifetime warranty on all his products, yet actually encourages you to wash your bag every time you return from the field. This is not the typical limited lifetime warranty, either. It's repair or replace, regardless of how old or abused the product may be, regardless of whether you bought it new or used.
Second, Lamilite fiber insulates quite well but does not absorb a bit of moisture. In fact, you can climb into a Wiggy's bag that has been submerged in water, and your body heat will dry it from the inside out. You will wake up warm and dry! This has been proven in the real world by Alaskan bush pilots, and I and many other skeptics have replicated that test at home. (There s a Wiggy's hypothermia rescue bag that has a national stock number, a Canadian stock number and NATO stock number. These stock numbers are essentially permanent purchase approvals...)
I use a Wiggys two bag FTRSS. The inner bag is the Ultima Thule, rated to -20. The outer bag is the FTRSS overbag, rated to +35. Together, they are rated to something like -40. Winter camping in Colorado, I have never had to put the two bags together. This is remarkable, because to be comfortable in any other brand of bag, I need to deduct about 25 degrees from the rating
I have greatly increased comfort by using a 100% cotton flannel sheet inside the bag. In those moments of disorientation when I first wake up, toasty warm, I often LOL as I realize where I am and how comfortably I slept.
With any other sleeping bag, the sheet would get wet from trapped perspiration and you would freeze, but due to the moisture passing qualities of Lamilite it doesn't even get damp. On really cold morning, the outside of the bag will be moist and clammy, but the flannel sheet and the inside of the bag are always dry. Wiggy himself told me that moisture passes through so well that you can see steam rising from the bag in the morning, but I never have. Apparently I don't use it in cold enough conditions.
In the decade plus that I have owned the bag, I have washed the outer bag at least once a month. Whenever it was in constant use, I washed it two or three times a month. Overall, I would guess it has been washed around 150 times. Save for a small hole in the shell from a camp fire ember, it is indistinguishable from new. The much heavier inner bag has only been washed a few times a year, and you can't tell it from the outer bag that has been washed several times more often.
Interestingly, my dog has always sought that bag out and slept on it, no matter what time of year it was or where in the house it was stashed. Her shedding is one of the reasons the bag was washed so often over the years. I finally broke down and bought her a Wiggy's comforter, which is far easier to wash.
With the recent addition of the inner sheet, washing has been cut back even further. That is particularly nice for the heavy inner bag, which due to bulk can only be washed in a large commercial machine.
Hope this helps a bunch of people stay warm...
cd
. I will make a blog to chit chat in a couple of weeks when I am out of the house and have time. Thanks!
