Gear Box: Mountain Hardwear Phantom 0 Degree Sleeping Bag

Like most gear from Mountain Hardwear, the Phantom 0 Degree sleeping bag will immediately impress you with its quality and style. It is a lightweight, high quality offering that will keep you plenty warm in inclement weather without filling your pack or weighing you down on the trail.

The Phantom clocks in at just 2 pounds, 10 ounces, making it one of the lightest 0º bags on the market. It uses tried and true 800-fill goose down as insulation on the inside and superlight Ripstop fabrics along the outside to keep the elements out. The interior of the bag is lined with nylon and is soft and comfortable whether you’re lounging on a bed or on the ground. This combination of fabrics and stuffing helps to keep the Phantom’s weight down, while remaining durable for extended use in remote, rugged, places.

The Phantom is a mummy style bag, which automatically make`s it a bit of a love-hate affair for some people. Personally, I don’t’ mind the mummy cut at all, but I know others who find them impossible to sleep in. For cold environments I happen to believe it s the best option, but critics of the mummy bag complain about feeling claustrophobic when the hood is pulled up around their head. If you’re one of those people, you probably won’t enjoy the Phantom either, but for those who don’t mind the style, you’ll find a hood that is warm, comfortable and designed to allow you to breathe easily without getting cold. There is even a handy little pocket built into the hood’s draft collar, which is a perfect spot for an iPod or small light, keeping your gear in easy reach.

I put the Phantom through its paces recently while in the Himalaya, and found that it was warm and comfortable for long nights in the drafty Nepali teahouses. The rooms in those lodges are unheated and can get quite cold, especially at the higher altitude, but the Phantom kept me warm throughout my trek. Better yet, the bag is well designed to allow you to sleep without feeling like your movements are restricted or that your body is too confined. And at the end of the night, the Phantom rolled up easily and slipped inside its high quality stuff sack. When compressed down, the bag has a small footprint and doesn’t take up much space in your pack.

If I have one complaint about the Phantom it is with the zippers. While they have a solid feel and are of high enough quality to match the rest of the bag, they did tend to get caught on the excess fabric that lined the zipper teeth. This led to occasional frustration with getting the bag properly zipped up, whether from the inside or out. The question is, was it a bit of a design flaw or user error brought on by the thin air? Only further use of the bag will tell for sure.

If you’re looking for a very good, high quality 0 Degree sleeping bag, the Phantom from Mountain Hardwear should definitely be on your short list. It is a warm, comfortable, and well-designed bag with nice touches from the warm hood, down to the well padded end. If mummy bags aren’t you’re thing, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere, but otherwise, this is a perfect sleeping bag for your cold weather adventures. (MSRP: $475 (regular)/$485 (long) - Buy it at TravelCountry.com for just $380!)

Gear Box: GoLite Adrenaline 4-Season Mummy Bag

Let’s face it. When you head out on an extended backcountry trip, there are three pieces of gear that are essential to your comfort. You need a good, comfortable pair of boots, a good, comfortable pack, and a proper sleeping bag to help you sleep comfortably at night.

While preparing for my recent trip to the Himalaya, I knew I had the first two items more than covered, but I was a bit concerned about the sleeping bag. My guide service recommended that I bring a four-season bag in order to stay warm at altitude, and even though we would be staying in Nepali teahouses, I was keenly aware that they were unheated and could get quite cold over night.

Luckily for me the good folks over at GoLite offered to let me try out their Adrenaline 4-Season Mummy Bag on my trek to Everest Base Camp. As a long time fan of GoLite gear, and their eco-sensitive approach to manufacturing their products, I jumped at the chance to put their bag though its paces, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed by the results.

The 4-Season Adrenaline uses 800+ Goose Down fill inside a 100% recycled polyester and ripstop shell that is both water proof and breathable. Strip away the marketing speak, and that means you’ll stay warm and dry in a variety of conditions. Rated down to 0º F, the Adrenaline weighs just 3.3 pounds, making it one of the most lightweight and efficient sleeping bags from any manufacturer. Throw in the fact that it stuffs down to a very small size, especially for a zero degree bag, and you have the perfect sleep system for cold weather camping, hiking, and backpacking.

In real world performance, this bag more than met my expectations. While it never quite reached 0º inside the teahouses we stayed in, it did routinely drop into the 20’s and even the teens at the higher altitude. And while most of my travel companions scrambled for extra blankets to augment their inferior sleeping bags, I happily slept cuddled up inside my warm and toasty GoLite. In fact, I was so warm, that I never even needed to sleep in my thermals base layers, electing to crawl in each night in just my skivvies.

Unlike most sleeping bags, the Adrenaline has a single zipper along the front. As someone who generally sleeps on his back, I appreciated this placement, as it made it easy for me to adjust the zipper throughout the night to help regulate temperature while sleeping. There were times however when I wished the bag had venting zippers along the side that would have allowed more air in around my legs and feet. The Adrenaline is plenty warm, which is obviously one of its strengths, but when you’re too warm, it’s nice to have extra options to help vent.

Other than the lack of venting options, I did manage to break the drawstrings on the Adrenaline’s included stuff sack the first time I tried to use it, but I was able to improvise and make do for the length of the trip. But aside from that, I have nothing but good things to say about this bag. It is warm and comfortable, lightweight, and packs down very small in size for when you need to toss it in your backpack. Furthermore, I’m very impressed with the overall quality of the product. After two weeks of use, it looks exactly the same now as when I first took it out of the box, with no indication that it had been dragged halfway around the world, and used up and down the Khumbu Valley.

If you’re in need of a 4-season bag that offers plenty of warmth without adding much weight to your pack, then the GoLite Adrenaline is the perfect bag for you. It is definitely a welcome addition to my gear closet, and something tells me we’ll be spending a lot of nights together in the future. (MSRP: $500)

Gear Box: Eureka Kotey Sleeping Bag

Sleeping bags are another piece of gear that are crucial to our comfort while out on the trail. Whether it's snuggling up inside one at the end of the day or carrying one in our pack, we all want a bag that is light, versatile, and works well in the weather conditions in which we use it. In other words, we want it to keep us warm and dry in what ever weather we encounter. I recently had the opportunity to test out the Kotey bag from Eureka, and found that it fits that description, and does so in a small package.

The first thing I noticed was how small and light the Kotey was. When stored properly inside it's included bag, it compresses down to a very small size, allowing it to fit neatly inside your backpack without taking up much room at all. On top of that, the bag weighs just a shade over 2 pounds, which means that it's not going to significantly impact the amount of weight you're carrying while lugging it around all day.

Made from synthetic materials, the Kotey is rated for temperatures down to 35ºF (2ºC), which makes it ideal for spring and fall camping, and cooler summer nights depending on your location. Obviously, for winter camping, you'll want something a bit warmer. While I didn't get the chance to test it in sub-40º weather, I did find that this mummy-style sleeping bag kept me comfortable and snug. There was also plenty of room inside for my longer 6'2" frame, despite the bag not being rated for my size.

Eureka is a company well known for its excellent tents, with great options for backpackers and families alike. Their line of sleeping bags displays the same high quality design and construction, showing that as a company they "get it" it in terms of what we want while out on the trail. Lightweight, high quality products that allow us to enjoy our time in the backcountry. Small, but highly appreciated touches, like an internal pocked, perfect for storing your iPod, are just one example of the conveniences that this bag has to offer. Those touches will help you to really like this bag a lot, but it's small size and weight will make you love it.

MSRP for the Kotey is $95 but it can be found online at discounts too. If you're in the market for a good 3-season bag, this is definitely a winner. Now does someone have any suggestions for a 4-season bag for the Himalaya this spring?

Disclaimer: The Kotey that I tested was proved by Eureka for this review.