Sleeping Bags

Btw change in my view on Sleeping Bags, I always said sleep with lots of clothes on. Night 1 of GT I was really cold, TonyMarshall pointed out to me that a bag works of re-radiation of body heat and he suggested that I sleep wearing only my thermal inners. I tried that and it was far warmer than it was with lots of clothes on.

(My bag is a Mountain Hardware Pinole -7 bag, synthetic 1.4kg.)

Was it advertised? Wow I'll take 4!!!

My buddy used his FA Packlite +5 sleepingbag this past weekend ons the escarpment and survived! We slept in Crows nest cave on Friday night after ariving at 22:00 and in Ifidi cave ons Saturday night although we pitched a tent at Ifidi cave. He did not zip up his sleeping bag on Saturday because he complained that he felt cramped in the mummy bag. He used the FA thermal liner with the bag. The temp on Friday inside the cave was 0C. Acording to him it was cold but acceptable and he didn't loose sleep.

Ps: we also jumped into the tugela pool near the falls summit on Sunday. Great fun!

In December 2013, in perfect summer weather (no rain and nearly no wind) I tried sleeping in a First Ascent Adventure Light (rated positive 5 degrees). We spent one night on the escarpment and one night in Mnweni valley. I also used the Thermolite Ultra Travel Sheet , which is supposed to add some warmth. I can safely say that this system is totally inadequate for any Berg trip. I froze both nights, until I eventually moved into my husband's bag on the second night. The temperature at 2 o'clock in the morning on the first night on the escarpment was 10 degrees inside the tent, and I was still waaaay too cold to sleep.

Remember that experiential comfort of sleeping bags has a lot to do with individual metabolism. There are "cold sleepers" and "warm sleepers". Some people loose internal body heat very quickly and others seem to produce an excess. Typically woman tend to loose heat more quickly than guys. I happen to be a "cold sleeper" though, and usually wake up at 3-4am because the temperature dip. I have also struggled to keep warm in these very light sleeping bags during Berg summer nights on the escarpment.

This is all true, and unfortunately it is only possible to say for sure whether a bag will work or not once you have tried it out in the Berg. That being said, I would think twice about using this bag even if you are a "warm sleeper". At 2 am it was 10 degrees Celsius, which is 5 degrees warmer than the bag's rating, I was using a thermal liner and thermal underwear (and eventually added my fleece jacket in desperation) and I was still too cold to sleep. I have used various other borrowed bags on other hikes (both Kway and FA Icebreaker) in much colder conditions, and I have never been this frozen. Probably if you were couch-surfing or sleeping in backpacking huts this bag would be okay, but I would still be pretty cautious about using it in the mountains.