Web City Travel

It has been a long day. Climbing up the mountain with the heavy backpack, as the sun slides down the mountain side, weariness sets in. The sight of the camping site sends you a new burst of energy. There is the hot dinner waiting for you and hopefully a hot water bath. The thought of finally laying your legs to rest, sliding into the sleeping bag and falling off to sleep in the comfortable warmth and confines of the sleeping bag is overwhelming. There are the countless stars to watch over you and the cool winds to nuzzle you into a dreamy night.

When you go camping or trekking or mountaineering or whatever, and far away from civilization, it is just not possible to think of carrying a bed howsoever attractive the idea seems to be. But then almost equally useful camping equipment that you can easily carry around is the sleeping bag. It almost serves the same purpose as the bed. It is actually a blanket with the sides closed with a zipper, and having soft cushioning or soft padding inside for giving the feel of a bed. The sleeping bag gives you warmth with its thermal insulations. Sleeping bags comes in two types. The normal ones are the ones that look like a blanket which can be folded and then rolled, tied with straps or cords and carried inside a backpack. Then there are the ones that remind us of the Egyptian mummies, and aptly these sleeping bags are called mummy bags. These have a larger opening at one end as compared to the leg side. It tapers down to the leg side. It cannot be easily folded or rolled. But it is better stuffed into a compression or stuff pack to be carried in the backpack.

There are different sleeping bags in the market which have different capacities to withstand water and come with different insulation capacities. The Marmot Hydrogen sleeping bag keeps you warm down to about 30 Fahrenheit.

The sleeping bags differ in its ability to retain heat, insulation capacity and water absorption. The synthetic fill sleeping bag provides faster insulation and warmth even when wet, and does not absorb water easily. But it cannot be easily compressed and takes up more space in the backpack. The down fill bag is lighter, has better heat retention capacity has lower insulation capacity.