down vs synthetic

My Macpac sleeping bags a down, Ive had no issues with it apart from a couple of loose feathers coming from somewhere. So long as you keep it dry you should be fine.

We tend to use down sleeping bags, even though our climate is probably damper. The new fabrics are designed to move moisture away from the down and this seems to work well. I take my good down sleeping bag with me whereever I go, summer or winter and just open up if it is too warm. Much better that than find yourself in a cold spell with an inadequate sleeping bag.

Is there anything worse than waking up cold? Well, probably plenty, but its pretty nasty.

Hello. Yeah, down's fine. Just keep it inside something waterproof so it'll stay dry if it rains, or if you slip in a river or something. It's usually a good idea to keep everything inside a $2 pack liner (my preference) or dry-sacks for the same reason.

I use a Mountain Safety Research Pack Liner as they are pretty much bulletproof and use white rubbish bin liners inside the stuff bags including my sleeping bag one. I use a 400 gram down bag I should probably get a warmer one for winter, next year maybe!

The only people I've heard of using synthetic bags in NZ are hunters where they are fly camping under that black plastic stuff.

I use a synthetic sleeping bag, would not go without it. Got caught in a storm a couple of years back, the bag got soaked, but remained warm. It's a bit heavy, but it's something I could not do without.

So, on the topic that Yarmoss raised about occasional feathers coming from Macpac down sleeping bags, I've noticed this myself over the last few months with a Macpac Sanctuary 700 XP bag that I bought October 2008. So it's about 11 months old and perhaps nearly out of warranty. ie. This is the *very* new Macpac/Black-Sheep which pulled all its products from independent outlets and consolidated them into a few stores in main centres for distribution efficiency, or something like that. I bought it because the specs matched what I wanted and the price seemed reasonable, along with Macpac's repeated assurances that their products were exactly the same and quality had never dropped. Looking more closely a week ago, I noticed that some of the seams have tiny holes through which tiny feathers are escaping, and I've found at least one tiny pin-hole near the top that has half a tiny feather escaping. (I could pull it further, but it's sitting there quite happily right now.) Is this at all normal for down sleeping bags? I'm quite positive I've been about as careful with it as could reasonably be expected. It spends lots of time fluffed out on top of the bed in a spare room at home, at a guess it's probably been stuffed 25 times and un-stuffed 25 times in the past year if I assume about 3 times in and out per overnight trip I've been on during that time. At the current rate of down-escape I don't think it's in danger of losing huge amounts of down in a short time and it'll certainly last a while longer, but I'm unsure if *any* down should really be escaping at the rate I can see. For all I know the whole thing may suddenly fall apart a year or two from now. It's the first sleeping bag I've owned for which I've actually felt an expectation that it should last for a while, though, and I really don't know what I should expect of it. I'm really not looking forward to going back to the Macpac shop and asking for them to deal with a warranty fix. Last time I tried this, I had to argue with someone that a broken tooth on a raincoat zipper was a safety hazard and should be covered under warranty. They really didn't get it, tried to suggest a workaround of lining it up carefully (try doing that wearing thick gloves in a blizzard!), then said they'd fix it for $70 if I wanted. I had to press them then wait a day for it to be posted to Christchurch before someone confirmed the warranty replacement. If I need to, though, I 'll go in and ask about the same for my sleeping bag, but it'd be good to know just how normal it is for a down bag.

In 1969? I bought a Fairy Down Explorer. It was too hot then and its still too hot despite losing down throughout that whole period. I now own A one planet down bag that on occaisions loses the odd feather im not worried because on many occaisions this is too hot but i am able to open the bag right up and use it as a cover only. Has a neat feature zip at the bottom of the bag so you can stick your feet out for climate control.