Backpacking Quilts - Are They Right For You?

hey guys it's Darwin and today we're bringing up a topic from the past backpacking quotes and if they're right for you so almost three years ago now I made a video called sleeping bags versus quilts where I talked about why I made the switch and some of the pros to using a quilt on the trail over a sleeping bag ever since then I've hiked over 5000 miles and used a bunch of different quilts on the trail and still to this day I get tons of questions and comments on the video into my email about quilts the benefits and the drawbacks and since I feel like there's a bunch of misleading information and a lot of concerns that people still have figured I would finally make a much requested update video refresher course if you will now real quick for all you folks out there that might be new to backpacking and have no clue what I'm talking about a backpacking quilt is essentially just like a sleeping bag so you're gonna use it at night as a cover to keep you warm in your tent the main differences are a quilt usually has no back to it so they're completely open allowing your pad to act as the back of the sleeping bag and create insulation quilts are usually much lighter and they pack down much smaller they have no hood like their mummy bag counterparts and a lot of backpacking quilts are convertible allowing you to open up the foot box and make it one big flat blanket so you can use it in multiple applications now why would someone like me use a quilt over a sleeping bag on the trail well number one it does pack down much smaller so it takes up less room in your pack they tend away a lot less because well there's obviously less material and the biggest reason for me is because I toss and turn a lot when I sleep and I feel like the quilt allows me much more room than being confined to a mummy bag alright now that we're all on the same page I want to tackle an issue right off the bat that I see all the time with new quilt users and something that people looking at getting a quilt need to keep in mind when deciding to make the switch and that is using a proper sleeping pad because a quilt has no back to it which means no insulation on the underside it requires a sleeping pad with a good r-value to create an insulation barrier between you and the ground now for an example if you're using a 10 degree quilt but your sleeping pad only has an r-value of 2.6 chances are you're probably still gonna be cold on a 20 degree night it's not the quilt that's making you cold it's the low r-value of the pad and allowing the ground to suck the heat right out of you one of the most common sleeping pads I see a lot of hikers using on the trail is the therm-a-rest Z light it's because you don't have to blow it up and put it right on the top of your pack and it's pretty easy to use however it only has an r-value of 2.6 so it's great for summer camping and maybe late spring but if you're in those colder temps it's probably not gonna be the best choice to use with a quilt now obviously this all depends on what type of hiker you are and how warm you sleep so I consider myself a pretty warm sleeper and most of the times I use the therm-a-rest neo air X light which has an r-value of 3.2 and I use it with my 20 degree enlightened equipment enigma now I've had this thing down to probably 12 degrees 13 degrees when I was in the High Sierra last year on the PCT but if you're a colder sleeper you might want to use something like the neo air X therm but has an r-value of 5.7 so I guess in conclusion if you are a foam pad user using a quilt might not be the best for you and just sticking with a traditional sleeping bag might be a better choice the next common concern and misinformation that I see all the time are comments like this does not work for a side sleeper or a tosser and Turner if you sleep like the dead a quilt is great if you're like me and move in your sleep a quilt is useless not true one of the main reasons I made the switch to the quilt is because I do toss and turn a ton when I'm sleeping at night on the trail and I'm a side sleeper most of the times I sleep on my right side but throughout the night I do turn over to my left side back to my right back to my left and when I was in a traditional mummy bag I always felt way too confined I would roll around and get tangled up and then in the middle of the night I'd get and have to unzip it and kind of correct myself and zip it back up but with a quilt I have much more room and the trick to that is getting a quilt that is properly sized for you so it took me three quilts to figure out that I need a quilt that is wide and long because I move so much wide because if I roll over onto my side I want to make sure I'm not pulling up the sides of the quilt and letting draft in and long because I'm 6:1 and I want to make sure that if I pull the quilt over my head on a chilly night that my feet aren't gonna touch the toe box breaking that insulation barrier and the heat that I have going on around my feet and one of the cool things about going with a quilt like enlightened equipment or a z-pack or a katabatic or a ugq is most of these quotes are custom made to your order so you can decide if you want it long if you want it narrow how much fill you want so you can customize it to your body so it just comes down to doing your research and figuring out what company is gonna make the best size for you another comment I get all the time is quilts are expensive now that can be true sometimes some companies quotes are more expensive than others and if your custom building a quilt and you're doing a 950 fill and a special material and getting it printed and all these crazy customized things that you can do they can get quite expensive but some of the most popular quilt companies like ugq and enlightened equipment actually have pretty cheap quilts to start off with that you can't customize they're called on the shelf quotes and even some of the custom quotes that you can get from like enlightened equipment if you look at something from one of the bigger brands will say therm-a-rest it's actually cheaper to go with the enlightened equipment quote over something that's comparable that therm-a-rest makes so for an example the quote that I use most the times is a 20 degree long wide enigma and this guy cost me three hundred and fifty five dollars if I wanted to go with a bigger company say Big Agnes and go with one of their mummy bags that are pretty equivalent as far as warmth with length and weight I would be looking at something like the Hitchens UL 20 that call five hundred and seventy dollars so in the long run quilts really aren't any more expensive than some of the bigger brand mummy bags you can find on the market if you really wanted to go with a super budget option you could go with the outdoor vitals 30-degree quilt on Amazon for a hundred and ninety dollars just to try it out but really making the investment and spending three hundred fifty five bucks on this last year and then basically sleeping in it every night on the trail for over four thousand miles was a pretty good investment and the last concern that I see come up all the time and it's probably the most common concern is how do you keep from rolling off your pad and ending up with an exposed back I would like to see how you attach your quilt to your mat lots of worries about drafts coming into the call tonight so if it's a very chilly night and I know it's gonna be drafty and stuff I'll just simply use my pad straps most quilts on the market if not all from enlightened equipment to Z packs to ugq to even the outdoor vitals quote come with a pad strap so when you're using a thicker pad with a proper R value like the NeoAir x lighter anything that has a little girth to it they make pad straps that will actually go around your pad and then the sides of the quilt actually have little buckles like this that attach to that strap where it will come down and basically create a cocoon with the quilt and the sleeping bag trapping in all that warmth at night but honestly most nights I just take the two strap Inns and I clip them together and then it almost becomes kind of like a sleeping bag but still using the top of the sleeping pad to create the warmth so it's all about cinching down the pad properly and positioning those straps to make sure that when you're rolling and tossing and turning at night that the quilt is not gonna come up let drafts and and if it's cinched down properly you're not gonna roll off your pad in the 5000 miles that I've hiked now with quilts I've never come off my pad in the middle of the night and had an exposed back and slept cold it's all about making the quilt and the pad one complete system to trap that warmth in so it's 2019 do you still feel the same way Darwin yep after three years of using nothing but quilts on the trail like I said back in that curly video I can't imagine going back to a sleeping bag in the long run I just get better sleep with a quilt and over those 5,000 miles I've used it in various temperatures and conditions high elevation low elevation and most the time a 20 degree long wide quilt does me just fine and I'll hold to my previous statement the quilt is definitely won me over and to be honest I don't think that I'll ever buy a mummy bag again all that being said everyone is different and everyone's comfort levels are different so using a quote works for me but it doesn't mean that it's gonna work for you it all comes down to trying things out in the field and figuring out what's gonna be the best for you and promote the best sleep on the trail so what sleep system are you using on the trail are you a quote person are you still rocking a mummy bag leave me something down below and let us know your thoughts if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Darwin onthetrail

Views: 136,455

Rating: 4.9594355 out of 5

Keywords: UL Hiking, UL Backpacking, Backpacking Quilts, Down Quilts, UL Hiking Gear, PCT, Pacific Crest Trail, PCT Thru-Hike, Enlightened Equipment, Enigma, Zpacks, Katabatic Quilts, UGQ Quilts, Backpacking, Hiking, Adventure, Hiker Trash, Long Distance Hiking

Id: QfTE3_zoOx0

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019