Gear & Equipment

Sleeping Bag

Walking the Camino is partly about the preparation, and part of that is find out what other people are doing. There is many ways to do this, most of which we have employed, and one thing that is a golden thread in all discussion forums, is to get rid of “nice to haves” and pack lite.

Captain gadget that I am, I thought that I was pretty well prepared, and initially only though about replacing my hiking shoes, but when I realized my current sleeping bag weights 1.8kg already and had a -5°C, it was inevitable that I would need to relook that as well.

The reason why I originally bought this sleeping bag, was because, when I was still a child, and went camping, my mother always hand stitched a blanket into my bag, because the autumn and spring nights on the high veldt has a chilly bite to them, and I always slept cold. Well it was a nice idea (Dankie Ma), but I cannot remember that I have ever had a warm night in a sleeping bag, ever. The blanket would always follow the path of least resistance, and end up around my neck, as it was not sown to the bottom. This resulted in me waking up in the middle of the night, frozen below the neck line, and then wrestling with the blanket python around my neck to get it down to cover and warm the rest of my body, all within the confines of the sleeping while trying to make as little noise with the wrinkly sleeping bag, so as to not disturb the campers peacefully snoring around me. (Yes you get small children that snore – ask my daughter) All the moving around would only cause the python to tighten its grip around my neck, and cause the little body heat I have left to evaporate as I exposed more body surface area to the cold air coming into the bag

Thinking about it now, it must have been quite a sign. My SB was green and shriveling and turning probably made me look like a caterpillar that got a lethal dose of organophosphates, while feasting on the neighbors, rose garden… The only way to fix the problem was actually to get out of the bag, stand up, shake the blanket down, and get back in again.

Exhausted but still cold, I would fall asleep just before dawn, only to be awoken minutes later by the pre-mobile phone era’s  equivalent of the rooster ring tone, with the final notes that was strangled away as the vinyl ringtone source was scratched beyond repair.

So with these memories I went looking for a new sleeping bag, light enough that I can carry it for about a 114km on my back, jet warm enough so I can avoid reliving childhood hypothermic insomnia

Warm nights and buen camino