L to R: The North Face Cat's Meow (W), Marmot Pinnacle (W), Marmot Pinnacle (M)
I’ve been using the North Face Cat’s Meow “20F” sleeping bag for around 6 years now. It is a synthetic sleeping bag, and has lost a lot of loft over the years, as synthetic insulation does not take repeated compression well. I also have never been able to take it anywhere near 20F. Except in the dead of summer (and not in the Sierras), I am generally always a bit cold, to very very cold in it unless I add a great deal of supplemental insulation. At it’s current reduced loft, it is probably a 50F degree bag for me. In order to take this bag down to freezing comfortably, I have to wear a long sleeve thermal top, down vest, puffy parka, synthetic tights and woolen tights, socks, use supplemental handwarmers by my feet, use a sleeping bag liner, and sleep on top of 2 sleeping pads (neoair pad + zlite eggcrate foam pad). Oh, and eat some food right before bed. Ridiculous! I might as well be carrying around a 6 lb sleeping bag. I have tried out Mike’s sleeping bag at freezing, and found it warm and comfortable. Mike’s sleeping bag is a Marmot Pinnacle 15F, and weighs the same as the Meow. Clearly, it was time for a new bag. The women’s version of Mike’s bag recently went on sale at REI, so I jumped at the opportunity.
An interesting side note- many sleeping bag companies are optimistic with their temperature ratings to different degrees, and it used to be quite hard to compare temperature ratings across brands. It has become standard for companies to call their bags “Name of Bag + Some Marketing Determined Temperature Rating“, even when their bags can’t realistically be used down to those temps. Both men and women specific bags are often branded with a temperature rating based on the comfort level for a man, even though women generally sleep colder than men. In recent years, the standardization of EN testing (a european testing protocol for estimating the temperature that one can get a comfortable night’s sleep in a given sleeping bag. They come up with specific ratings for the average man as well as the average woman, whatever that is) on sleeping bags has resulted in either 1) a dropping of the branded temp next to the name due to the EN temp rating being wildly off from what they marketed it as, or 2) an increase in the weight of the sleeping bags, as they needed to add more insulation to the bag to get it closer to the marketed temperature rating. Not a perfect system, with several flaws due to the method of testing, but much better than the system we had before, where there was no method to compare across bags from different companies and nothing to hold them accountable for their claims.
So anyways, I am pretty excited about this sleeping bag purchase. It has the same amount of down as the men’s version, but is 6 inches shorter and a few inches narrower at the shoulder. I was also considering a 15F Western Mountaineering Apache sleeping bag because it is locally made, superb quality, very lightweight for it’s warmth (2 lb, which includes the weight of custom overfill in the footbox to make it more equivalent to the Pinnacle in warmth. Warm feet = d(^_^)b) and has a slightly more efficient cut around the hips. However, several factors made the Pinnacle more attractive. The REI backed refund policy made me feel more comfortable than the restocking fee I would be assessed for returning the custom overfilled bag in case it didn’t work for me. The hood design on the Marmot is far superior to the WM hood design. Also, the 170$ premium in price for a bag that never goes on sale overruled my desire for an 8 oz weight savings in my backpack.
Mike’s down bag is also around 6 years old, but it still lofts up as well as it did the day it was purchased. Measured double layer loft at the hips is ~ 6+ inches, while the footbox area has a maximum double layer loft of 9 inches! Only the footbox area of the women’s bag appears substantially more filled than the men’s bag. Otherwise, loft is similar. The Cat’s Meow footbox is sadly flat and not particularly insulating these days.
Here are some stats that only geeks care about. I weighed them all on my handy dandy kitchen scale, accurate to 0.1 g:
North Face Cat’s Meow 20F bag- Women’s
Insulation: Climashield XP
Fill Weight: 25 oz
EN comfort (rating for women): 34F <== 14F ABOVE what a 20F bag for a woman should be. Sheesh
EN lower limit (rating for men): 23F
Manufacturer specified weight: 2 lb 10 oz
Actual Weight: 2 lb 10.2 oz (1197 g)
Marmot Pinnacle 15F bag- Men’s
Insulation: 800 FP goose down
Fill weight: 22.58 oz
EN comfort: 22.3F
EN lower limit: 10F <== lower than the 15F marketed claim by 5F!
Manufacturer specified weight: 2 lb 8 oz
Actual weight: 2 lb 10.6 oz (1208 g)
Marmot Pinnacle 15F bag- Women’s
Insulation: 800 FP goose down
Fill weight: 22.5 oz
EN comfort: 21.6F <== higher than marketed temp by 6.6F, though not as outrageous as the North Face.
EN lower limit: 9.3F
Manufacturer specified weight: 2 lb 7 oz
Actual weight: 2 lb 7.9 oz (1132 g)
I’d like to go backpacking somewhere to test out this new bag. I think this calls for another trip to Henry Coe.
Check out how puffy-puffy they are! d(^_^)b
Our Sleeping Bag Family, +1
In January we took our first trip to Ventana Wilderness. We camped at Pat Spring on a cold and windy ridge just past where I’m standing in the above photo. There was one other backpacker in the area that chatted with us for a while by our fire before the sun went down.
