7 mistakes EVERY new camper makes with their SLEEP SYSTEM

have you ever been really excited to go camping or backpacking crawl in your tent for the night from a long day only to get no sleep all night long maybe your back hurt or maybe you paid a ton of money for the best sleeping bag and instead froze all night my name is dan in this video i've got seven tips for the new camper hiker or backpacker to hopefully help them discover what maybe mistakes they make when they're putting together their sleep system one of the biggest mistakes that i see out there for new hikers campers whatever is that they don't realize that their sleeping pad or their sleeping matter whatever you call it is actually half of the warmth of their entire sleeping system so they'll go out and buy a bag that's really really warm i mean just a monster warm sleeping bag like this one this is a negative 15 degree fahrenheit sleeping bag as it's rated but then it's on a sleeping pad that's really only about a two season sleeping pad so this is probably good like late spring summer early fall that kind of stuff so if i decided out here and it is 22 degrees outside fahrenheit to sleep out here for the night i would absolutely be miserable in this setup even though this sleeping bag is rated for 15 degrees below zero the big reason is because when i'm laying on top of this sleeping bag all of that insulation underneath me is compressed so it's almost completely useless and then i'm relying solely on a sleeping pad that's only two season so while i may be warm on top underneath me i'm absolutely gonna freeze another one is that people actually believe the temperature ratings that are printed on uh their sleeping bags or sleeping pads we'll talk about sleeping bags real quick so what many people don't realize is that sleeping bag manufacturers um can put any temperature rating that they want on sleeping bags and there's really three ratings that they're going for they're looking for a survival they're looking for a risk and they're looking for a comfort rating and they can pick any one of those numbers to put on the bag but there is a standard that's out there called an en rating and companies can use it if they want to and they don't have to if they don't want to many do the good ones and some don't so what you want to do is look for a company that's been en rating it's just a standard to keep these manufacturers honest and even though it's been en rated and this particular bag says 20 degrees fahrenheit or negative six degrees celsius on here that just means according to this manufacturer even though it's been ian rated that the comfort rating is 32 degrees fahrenheit the transition range so probably we're going to start to feel cold is 20 degrees fahrenheit and the risk range in other words the hey i'm not going to die or i'm about to die rating is negative nine degrees fahrenheit so you really don't know what you're buying until you dig into the website or you dig into the ratings what if i've never used google before how do i find the en rating what if you've never used google before okay well actually that's interesting because you can actually go over to backcountry.com who's the sponsor of this video by the way and talk to one of their gear heads by the way you can purchase everything that we're talking about at backcountry.com at backcountry they have what are called gearheads and the gearheads are former olympians former athletes former trail guides they know their stuff and they could probably tell you whether or not a sleeping bag sleeping pad has been en rated astm rated and how warm it's actually going to keep you out on trail they also gave me a coupon code it's becker15 so go ahead and try that out at your purchase some exclusions do apply but maybe it'll save you a couple bucks okay another big one is that uh people don't realize that sleeping pads actually have a new sort of well it's not really new it's a couple years old now uh sort of similar to the sleeping bags being en rated there's actually what's called an astm rating for sleeping pads and it's essentially the same thing as sleeping bags it's just kind of keeping sleeping pad companies honest so for instance these two sleeping pads are astm rated you've got a therm-a-rest pad here and you've got a big agnes pad here so both of these are insulated pads but one of these is extremely warm and one of these is more of like a almost down to like freezing temperatures warm that's this one here this is about a 3.2 r value i think and this is about a 6.9 r value and that just means that the higher the number our value means that it's going to be a warmer sleeping pad underneath you so just keep that in mind and in the summertime you can sleep on a really warm pad like this you'll probably be a little uncomfortable if you're a very warm sleeper you get kind of sweaty whereas this pad is going to be just fine through about three season use but then there are manufacturers that don't adhere to the astm rating and they're going to list pads like this one as a four season pad or even a three season pad and you're thinking that you're gonna be warm this is the climate insulated static v light sleeping pad now a couple of years ago this was listed as a four season pad as a matter of fact i still think they call it a four season pad but the astm rating is only 1.9 which by all standards mean that this is really only a summer sleeping pad you're not going to be wanting to take this in a situation like this at all you will more than likely freeze with that uh small amount of insulation on here and before it was astm rated this actually lists an r value of four on it so it's just sort of numbers that companies can kind of just pick out of the air or they've chosen some other rating system that kind of increases the r value to make it look like it's going to be a four season pad this is definitely not a four season pad so you're really wanting to make sure that you're buying sleeping pads that are astm rated and this one has finally been astm rated to where you now actually know what this one's really going to keep you warm down to another big one is that people buy sleeping bags that are actually the wrong size for them and it's really important that you determine what kind of a sleeping bag you're going to want because they're all going to sleep differently so this bag from therma rest it's an awesome sleeping bag but it is a very narrow sleeping bag so this is really constrictive and that does have a pro which is less dead air inside of the bag to heat up when you're in it this bag from western mountaineering is a much wider bag on the inside so you've got more room but there's more dead air inside of it to heat up so it's just going to take a little bit longer so this bag over here though from big agnes i really like it while it's a little bit heavier than the other ones does have the ability to sort of adjust to any person that's using it so if you're not really sure or maybe this is a bag that you use in your family or whatever and you've got other people using it in your different sizes or whatever but this bag will actually unzip down the edge here on both sides and expand to any width or whatever you want so that's a great bag as well but making sure that you buy the right size bag is also really important for your sleep system as well okay that leads me to the other big mistake that people make is that they actually don't realize that sleeping bags uh if they're a good sleeping bag are gonna have strategically placed insulation inside of the bag to where if you're rolling around inside of the sleeping bag in other words like the sleeping bag is staying flat but you're moving that's the way to do it because if you roll around and you roll with the sleeping but like the sleeping bag moves with you that insulation is going to be out of whack and it's going to potentially give you a really cold night so for instance this bag here from therm-a-rest 70 of the insulation is on the top of this bag and only 30 is on the bottom so if i'm inside of this bag and because it's so narrow if i roll over my back is going to be really cold at night so making sure that you actually roll inside of the bag which also kind of goes back to that other mistake of buying a bag big enough for you that you can actually do that so like if you're a back sleeper you'll be fine in this sleeping bag because you're always going to stay on your back but i roll around a lot so that's why i like this bag because there's more room in it and i can actually kind of move on the inside of it and still keep the bag in its upright position so making sure that you understand where the insulation is and rolling around and all that stuff really does make a big big difference and maybe you've noticed that in your sleeping bags another big one is uh people don't bring some type of a repair kit for their sleeping pad terrible idea i've been super fortunate to actually never ever have a sleeping pad uh have a hole in it to where it's leaked on me and i count that to the fact that i've got like a million sleeping pads and i use them all the time but that could literally ruin your entire trip so what i do is no matter what i always bring this with me this is just tenacious tape you can find this on amazon i'll put the link in the description below and it's just a regular piece of uh repair tape that will repair any type of nylon or dyneema and this is a really good job and it could be the one thing that saves your entire backpacking trip from total disaster because your sleeping pad deflated and you had a horrible night's sleep and had to bail okay another big mistake i see a lot of people make and this is a very common mistake especially if you are a new backpack or hiker camper is you buy a sleeping pad that is just too narrow this sleeping pad here is 23 inches wide this sleeping pad is 25 inches wide i would actually be okay on either of these pads but this is about as narrow as i would ever go most pad manufacturers their entry level pads they're you know pads that they sell probably the most of are going to be the narrower pads and they're only 20 inches wide so if you can imagine how narrow that is and if you're like a through hiker or you're somebody who really is weight conscious or you're you know hiking just tons of miles or you don't move at all when you sleep a sleeping pad that's really narrow isn't that big of a deal but having a wide sleeping pad gives you the ability to like be able to sleep where your arms aren't falling off onto the cold ground where you can maybe roll around at night and it makes it feel much more like a mattress that you'd have like in your house so that way when you're out in the backcountry you don't feel like you're gonna just have this horrible night's sleep on a narrow sleeping pad you guys like this video make sure you hit the like button subscribe for more and make sure you hit that bell notification so i can 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Channel: Dan Becker

Views: 1,774,852

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Id: wCTERZEsCwM

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 27 2022