REI Downtime -20

Ok, I bought this bag on sale and granted I got it fairly cheap. I tend to sleep a little but not very cold and this is not a minus 20 bag. I was in real -10 in the daks in my single wall tent and I was cold. slept well until my water bottle got cold at about three am. I was actually worried about my feet. There are some problems with this bag that make it fail. One, I think it is just to big (for me). I am 5'9" and one fifty. I can't heat all that room. The hood is not much to speak of and the zipper snags like most other than WM and Marmot in my experience.

I do use this bag alot during cool fall trips and I love it. It is just not confidance inspriring. In defence of the bag, I have learned alot since that trip, I was using one (yes one) sleeping pad, which of course took most of my heat, and I didnt put clothes under my feet to keep them off the snow. I did wear all my clothes though, including a Nuptse jacket 200 weight fleese farmer john and thick smartwool socks. Minus 10 is about as cold as I encounter and if I two pads, down or polarguard botties, I think I would sleep pretty well with this bag at that temp.

On another trip I was with my wife and it was +10. We had learned and brought the two pads and this time I zipped togehter a +20 and my -20 downtime and layed an old blackice down bag across us under the REI bags. This was overkill with the body heat and I had to strip off everything to stay cool, although I was still annoyed at the huge amount of space. My new thing is a bag expander made by functional design. It is polarguard and kips onto my downtiem, (either one, allowing us to share a foot box and not have so much excess space to heat up. This worked pretty well on a recent trip along the Ca coast, but I have yet to try it in winter...

This isn't the most expensive bag in the world, so I tend to baby it. It's very warm and very light, even in the long version. It also doesn't have a waterproof covering, so I try very hard to keep it dry, store it in a waterproof bag, etc...

At 6'3" I feel like I come pretty close to filling the bag. Overall, I'm happy with it. It is certainly worth the price.

Great bag!!! Very warm. Warning: Never use this bag above freezing unless at gunpoint!!