For most campers and hikers, Coleman sleeping bags do not need to be designed to withstand extremely cold temperatures. After all, most people do their outdoor activities from May to September, when the weather is fairly mild in most places. However, for those of you who enjoy braving the elements even when the weather turns bitterly cold, an ordinary sleeping bag will not do. Any camper that ventures out during periods of extreme cold or to places with very high elevation such as mountain peaks needs to be equipped with a
. Anything less invites the risk of hypothermia, frostbite, or other cold-weather injuries.
The0 degree sleeping bag is essential for several reasons. First, they could save your life. A person is especially at risk for hypothermia at night because they are sleeping and less likely to notice it setting in and then do something about it. Without proper insulation, many bags, including ones rated all the way down to 20 degrees, will just not be sufficient to keep your body warm on frigid winter nights. Also, even if the temperature doesn’t get below 20 degrees, less cozy bags will result in sleepless nights. Most people have trouble sleeping well if they can’t stay warm in their sleeping bag. Finally, it is always possible to cool down in a sleeping bag by cracking open the zipper, but it is not always possible to retain as much body heat as you may need. Therefore, even if you don’t expect the temperature to drop down to 0, it is a better idea to have a very warm bag than one that may not be warm enough for the conditions.
The problem that high altitude campers had early on with heavy-duty sleeping bags was that they weighed too much. All the insulation packed into the fabric weighed the bags down and made them extremely bulky. This, of course, was a bad thing for hiker trying to climb to the top of mountain peaks and camp overnight. Fortunately, advances in sleeping bag technology have made the huge, unwieldy cold weather bags a thing of the past. Most 0 degree camping sleeping bag products are now designed to be much lighter than they used to be, some weighing under 3 lbs. However, they still have excellent insulation to keep body heat trapped in the bag at night. Sleeping bag manufacturers realized that there was no point in putting a lot of insulation in the bottom padding of the bag, since heat escapes through the top anyway. So now, most extreme temperature bags are built with most the insulation on top, reducing the total weight and bulk of the sleeping bag. The only downside to this is that icy ground may still be felt through the bottom of the bag in some circumstances.
If you are interested in buying a 0 degree sleeping bag, check out all of your options and see which bag best fits your particular needs. Happy cold-weather camping!
