[pct-l] Lightweight Quilt

[Tim Umstead]

Opening note: my wife and I share one quit between the two of us.  It cuts
down on the overall weight and we get the added warmth of two bodies close
to each other.

My wife and I started out using a 20° Feathered Friends sleeping bag with a
nylon coupler.  The coupler turned the sleeping bag into a quit and it
naturally pulled the sides in to minimize air flow.  We bought it for our
first PCT thru-hike 20 years ago.  As we used that bag over the next 18
years and nearly 5500 miles of hiking, we had very few problems.  Bags made
20 years ago are built like a rock; heavy nylon, very large zippers (that
is how the coupler attached), and a lot of down.  There were three things
that I did not like about that bag.  First was the weight, at 55.75oz (just
under 3.5 pounds) it was a very heavy bag.  True it was one bag for two
people so you could divide the weight in half (1.75 lb per a person) and it
did not look as bad, but still someone had to carry it.  Second it did not
pack down very much.  Once that bag was put into a pack there was very
little room for anything else.  A lastly, we would get a bad draft at the
top of the bag right between the two of us.  For 18 years we coped with it,
stuffing a coat between our heads.

I preparation for our second PCT thru-hike, we upgraded our Feathered
Friends bag and got a Z-Packs 900 Fill Power Down Twin Size Quilt (
http://www.zpacks.com/quilts/twinquilt.shtml).  This quit is open on the
bottom so you will be sleeping right on your pad.  We got an
overfilled 20° long
quit with DriDown.  I see they do not offer DriDown option right now.  One
feature of this quit I really like is the middle buttons that close off the
center air gap and the separate elastic neck cinches.  The quit is light at
30.75oz (just under 2 lbs) and it compresses down very nicely.  We also do
not stuff our quit and a stuff sack, we stuff it straight into the bottom
of my wifes Gossamer Gear Gorilla backpack.  We have had the down shift
around in the tubes but it has not been a big problem, in fact it can be an
asset.  While thru-hiking the PCT last summer, in the hot areas, the down
shifting to the sides allowed the quit to be comfortable on warm nights.
And in the cold locations just a few shakes on the edge of the quit moved
the down back to the middle.  Now we have used the Z-Packs quit on over
3500 miles of hiking and I can say that I'm very pleased with its
performance.

The Ravens
PCT 96 and 15