My favorite sleeping bag!
If I could only choose one sleeping bag for all my adventures for the rest of my life it would be the Western Mountaineering Versalite. I will break it to you early - this will hurt when you buy it, but it is a purchase I would easily make again. I think I paid around $450 when I bought it 5 years ago or so. I just checked and it is currently going for closer to $600. So, why on earth is a sleeping bag worth that much?
20 oz of 850+ down - Let's make a little more sense out of those numbers. First - I'm talking about a down sleeping bag, not synthetic. See this post for a little more on the differences between down and synthetic. When evaluating sleeping bags, there are three primary numbers to consider. First - how much does the sleeping bag weigh? In this case, 2 pounds. For the warmth rating on this bag, that is very impressive. The second is the weight of the down that the bag is stuffed with. For the Versalite, there is 20 oz of down (so 20 of it's 32 oz are down, or 62.5% of the bag's weight is pure insulation). All other things being equal, the more down there is, the warmer the sleeping bag will be. It is no different that insulating your house with thicker insulation. The third number to consider is the fill power of the down. Fill power is a measurement of how poofy the down is - the poofier/fluffier the better. The test basically takes 1 oz of down, preps it, and then measures how many cubic inches 1 oz of down occupies. The more space it occupies, the warmer it will be. So better quality down will have a higher number. In general, 750 or 800 fill power is where the really good stuff starts. Western Mountaineering (who is very highly regarded) uses 850+ and says anything above that is just gaming the system. Don't get too hung up on the number once it is above 750 or 800. Something in the 600+/- range is going to be OK, but not awesome. If the manufacturer doesn't tell you what the fill power is, that is because it isn't worth bragging about. So, 20 oz of 850+ down is great. Western Mountaineering gives this a temperature rating of 10 F. I sleep cold so I like to be more like 15 or 20 F in this bag, but warmer sleepers can easily go to 10 F. That is a lot cooler than you need for summertime, but again - I said if I could only use one bag the rest of my life. I use this bag in the winter, am toasty in the spring and fall, and have used it in the summer, but just keep it unzipped.
Continuous Baffles - Baffles are the little tubes where the down is placed so it doesn't all end up in one spot. This bag is sewn such that the baffles run horizontally (if you were standing up in the bag). So what? Continuous baffles allow you to gently massage the down to where you want it. So, if it is summertime, I gently massage the down into the bottom part of the bag. When you lay on insulation you compress it and make it essentially worthless (which is why you need a sleeping pad to stay warm). Doing this let's me make the bag sleep cooler. I do the opposite in the winter and push as much down as I can to the top part of the bag (doesn't keep me warm on the underside). This feature lets you tune the temperature rating of the bag to meet the conditions.
Fabric - Check out Western Mountaineering's site for more info. In essence this is a durable, water resistant fabric. It has a great feel, drys quickly when wet, and is durable. I'm going to lump the zipper guard in with this. Their bags have a stiff piece of fabric the runs parallel to the zipper and which almost always prevents zipper snags. Minor feature, but an example of the attention to detail the entire construction of the bag gets.
Full Draft Collar - This is a down-filled tube at your neck that is closed with velcro and can be cinched snuggly with a cord. This really makes a difference in staying warm. Less awesome bags sometimes just have a flap. The collar really makes a difference if you tend to toss and turn. It keeps the warm air sealed in.
Warranty - Western Mountaineering "products are guaranteed against manufacturer’s defects for an unlimited time." Enough said. I've never had to take them up on this and have only read about a few people who did and all of those had positive reviews of how they were treated.
The HighLite
All that said, I don't use one sleeping bag all year long because I'm a gear geek. A more recent addition (last year or so) to my set up is Western Mountaineering's HighLite. This has the same fabric and fill power (850+) as the Versalite, but has a few key differences:
An Obnoxious Color - Not a fan, but it only comes in this lovely plum color.
Fill Weight - 8 oz of down fill vs the 20 oz in the Versalite. Big difference.
Total Weight - 16 oz even/1 pound. Packs down to the size of a cantaloupe.
Temperature Rating - They say 35 F, which means about the low 40s for me.
Sewn Through Baffles - Makes for lighter construction, but is less warm than box baffles and the down can't be intentionally shifted around like the Versalite.
Zipper and Draft Collar - The zipper is only about 1/2 length to save weight and there is no draft collar.
I love how small this sleeping bag compresses. For reference, the smartwater bottle shown in the photos is 1 liter. Using HighLite allows me to use my lightest backpack, which saves me almost 1.5 lbs in backpack weight (empty) alone. This is definitely just a summer bag and I always carefully check the weather before packing it for a trip. That said, I can always (and have often) slept in my coat to supplement the insulation of this bag. I used this bag in the spring of 2017 as well as the Mount Naomi Wilderness and loved it.
