Ask me why wool is better than synthetic or down for sleeping and I could give you the textbook answer—warm when wet—but that is the least of it. In my experience wool is the only common insulating fiber that works with the moisture your body makes every night instead of trapping it against you, and
Why Wool Is Better Than Synthetic and Down for Sleep Read More »
A camping pillow is the piece of the sleep system most people leave at home and then spend the night wishing they had not. On a firm pad the neck needs real support, and the three usual answers—an inflatable, a wool-filled camp pillow, or a stuff sack of clothes—behave very differently at 2 a.m. Here
Camping Pillow: Wool vs Inflatable vs a Sack of Clothes Read More »
Why does damp weather feel colder? Forty degrees and raining will chill you faster than twenty degrees and clear—anyone who has spent a November night in the Southern Appalachians knows it in their bones. The plain answer is that damp air and damp clothing take more of your body’s heat to warm than dry air
Why Damp Weather Feels Colder (and Why Wool Still Insulates Wet) Read More »
Down bags are light and pack really small. I have said that in print and I will say it again here: a 20°F down quilt weighs one to two pounds, and my Rewilder wool sleeping bag weighs four. If weight were the whole wool vs down sleeping bag question, this would be a very short
Wool vs Down Sleeping Bags: Weight, Wet, Loft and Cost Read More »
Who invented the sleeping bag? Nobody, and everybody who ever slept where it was cold. When were sleeping bags invented? Thousands of years before the first patent, in the Arctic, where the Inuit sleeping bag (what older books call an Eskimo sleeping bag) was a caribou hide sewn fur-side in. Ask when was the sleeping
Who Invented the Sleeping Bag? From Inuit Fur Bags to Modern Wool Read More »
A “20°F” bag is not a promise that you will be comfortable at 20°F. Depending on who printed it, that number may be a lab figure for a standard woman lying relaxed, a lab figure for a standard man curled up and coping, or a number the maker picked. This is sleeping bag temperature ratings
Sleeping Bag Temperature Ratings Explained (ISO 23537 and Wool) Read More »
