32/15 Degree F Down Sleeping Bag, 550/650 Down Fill Power Cold-Weather Mummy Sleeping Bag for Adults, Ultralight 4 Season Camping, Hiking, Backpacking

Here’s a little background to help you understand where my review is coming from. I have gone through a lot of camping gear over the years. I finally have tried enough gear and put together a sleep system that meets MY needs. I stress the “my” part of that because traditional sleeping bags that get great reviews and ratings don’t usually work for me. I’m a side sleeper who rolls around, twist and turns and basically flops around like a fish out of water at night. Most mummy bags are too constricting and don’t let me move and I don’t get a good night’s sleep in them. I now use a 0 degree F rated down quilt from Enlightened Equipment and a Thermarest Neo-Air X-lite pad as my primary sleep system for camping and backpacking. This combo works great until the temps drop below about 32F/0C. At those temps, the gaps in the quilt start letting in an unacceptable amount of cold air when I roll around. I started looking around for a cold weather bag or bag liner that could keep me warm when temps get down to the single digits.This is where the ForestDawn 40-60 degree bag comes in. It intrigued me because of its advertised small size, rectangular shape, reasonable weight and low price. I figured I could add this bag to my setup for Winter trips and use it as a liner inside my quilt to stop the drafts and keep me comfortable down to very low temperatures. With that use in mind, here are my thoughts on it.Warmth: By itself, this isn’t a particularly warm bag- it is only rated for 40-60 degrees, afterall. But as a liner, that should be able to add a good amount of warmth to my 0 degree quilt. So far, I have only proved this out on one trip with temps just below freezing. It worked great at those temps and did stop all the drafts that came in around the edges of the quilt. As for using it by itself, I don’t have any reason to believe it wouldn’t work at a limit of 40 to 60 degrees. I’m sure it is plenty warm at 60F. It might require some thermal underwear to stay comfortable if it is in the 40s. The biggest potential problem I see is the baffles for the down are through-sewn, so the stitch points basically have no insulation and will let the cold through. The attached pic shows light shining through where you can see the lack of insulation at the stitch seams. This is one compromise you make for the low price of this bag.Roominess: The bag mostly did great in this area. It had enough room for me to spread out, roll around and such. The only place that wasn’t roomy was the hood. My Trekology inflatable pillow basically took up the entire hood and didn’t leave any room to cinch it around my head. This isn’t a big concern for me since I have a standalone down hood that I wear on my head when the nights get cold. It has the advantage of rolling with me when I turn from side to side, so my mouth is always in fresh air and I’m not exhaling into my bag or hood. So, if you use a pillow larger than about the size of your hand, you may have trouble using it and the hood on this bag.Packed Size: This was a little disappointing. I think the ad picture of this bag showing it at 11in x 6.3in when stuffed in the sack must have been achieved using a shop press and vacuum sealer. I didn’t get it that small. The photo I attached shows my sleep system packed up ready to go in a pack. The orange stuff sack is this bag. The blue stuff sack is the Englightened Equipment 0 Degree revelation quilt. You can see the 0 degree quilt packs up smaller than this 40 degree down bag. This is another compromise you make for the low cost. The quilt is at least 5x more expensive than this bag and uses 800 fill power down rather than the 500 in the ForsetDawn. As an add-on for Winter camping, this is starting to get a bit bulky. I was hoping this bag would pack down smaller more like the ad showed.Weight: Acceptable for the price at 2.6lbs. Like the previous two categories, this is a compromise on price. This bag and my quilt combine to be a little over 4 lbs. That is in the range of single bags designed for sub 0F use, so as a system, it isn’t too out of line. Since I don’t (currently) plan to do long backpacking trips in sub 0 weather, I am not too concerned about the weight. Comfort is the top priority. If you are getting this bag to use in the summer as a standalone, it is an OK weight for the price. To get lower weight, you likely have to spend much more money.Price: As mentioned many times above, price is where the bag shines. It is a low-cost entry point into down bags and is great bang for the buck. It packs smaller and is lighter than synthetic bags in the same temp class and price range. As far as I can tell, there isn’t any quality penalty for the low price of the bag (except maybe the through stitching if you count that as a quality issue rather than design choice). The material of the bag feels good. The zipper works well and feels sturdy. It comes with a nice compression stuff sack. It has drawstrings on the hood and neck that you can cinch up to keep cold drafts out. The only thing missing that would’ve been nice to have is a storage sack for storing it uncompressed when you aren’t using it.Conclusion: 4 stars from me. I’m on the fence between 4 and 5. If I had been able to hit the unachievable ultimate compression dimensions shown in the advertisement, I would probably have gone with 5 stars

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