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Sleeping bag

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2024 edition: The Brierley Camino Frances Guide
The first edition came out in 2003 and has become the go-to-guide for many pilgrims over the years. It is shipping with a Pilgrim Passport (Credential) from the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.
I used the North Face Lynx sleeping bag on the Camino this fall. It was perfect. It weighs similar to the LL Bean bag and has a similar temp range. REI has the North Face Lynx bag on sale right now for $100, which is a terrific value. I paid $149 for it. One of the reasons I went with this bag is that it has a bit more room. I'm a bigger guy. I never felt constricted in this bag. At this price, I'm ordering one for my wife.
 
Let us pick up your suitcase once you arrive in Europe....
...and ship it to Santiago for storage. You pick it up once in Santiago. Service offered by Casa Ivar (we use DHL for transportation).
The sleeping bag was the first thing I threw away...too bulky and really not worth the weight...I just slept in my clothes with a silk sleep sack for some personal comfort...but if you plan to only stay at albergues or camp along the trail it is a requirement...but my experience is that most sleeping bags are thrown away just after foam sleeping pads.
 
I started my camino with a silk liner and have to say that at the beginning this was ideal. After about 10 days I lost my liner, and unable to get another I purchased an Altus sleeping bag, bit pricey as you can imagine buying this on route. I was so glad that I'd bought the bag it really came into its own.
With the liner I did sleep in clothes but I wasn't really happy with this arrangement. There Altus added approximately 700 grams to my pack weight, this still made it below 9 Kg.
I'm not sure theres a right or wrong way to go about choosing a bag or liner, it will be and individual choice.

Buen Camino.
 
mpallen004 said:
Sorry obsessing, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this sleeping bags value.

http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/78008?feat=506849-GN3&page=ultralight-sleeping-bag-35&attrValue_0=Chili Pepper&productId=1290935

Thanks,

Mike
Click to expand...
Hi Mike - seems a little pricey for what you're getting. Weight is ok at 1 kg but they don't use the EN13537 rating system so suspect that 35 degree rating is not for the comfort rating but rather the lower limit rating which means comfort is likely closer to 40-45 degrees. For those temperatures you can find a number of cheaper bags that weigh less too. At $200 you can consider chipping in a bit more and getting a down sleeping quilt that will be warmer and weigh a little less (600-700gm). Last comment is that L.L. Bean is not company who specializes in sleeping bags which may mean nothing but on the other hand, if you go with a recognized name you may get a little more quality. Good luck choosing.
 
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Kurt, I seem to recall that you rode your camino in September, the start of autumn. Mike plans to begin his camino at the start of Apr - just after the end of winter, when I expect that it will generally be colder. I could debate whether a sleeping bag is necessary at all in September, but having to sleep in one's clothes is hardly ideal. Perhaps doing it for a couple of weeks might just be okay, but anyone walking might have to expect to do that for a month. That's a tough call to make.

The only person I saw doing that was having a pretty awful time of it, and it made me even more glad that I had both a change of clothes and a +5degC bag when I walked in late March / early Apr. At that time there wasn't anyone discarding their sleeping bags, but then I didn't see piles of blown out boots either, so perhaps I wasn't looking in the right places.
 
I had a light but bulky sleeping bag that did not work for me...I also had a silk sleep sack that did nothing for warmth...I just found a suggestion on another thread that I am going to try which appears to be an intermediate alternative to a sleeping bag and a silk sleep sack...a Sea to Summit Thermolite Reactor Extreme Mummy Sleeping Bag Liner (http://www.seatosummit.com/product/?item=Thermolite®+Reactor+Extreme+Liner&o1=0&o2=0&o3=149) that is suppose to provide 25 F of warmth.

PS - My Camino in September was the most extreme weather that I have every experienced in a month...starting with high temperature and humidity with no wind...then 50 KM headwind passing through the Pyrenees Mountains...then a 100 KM wind hurricane in Pamplona with two days of rain that caused mudslides 6" to 12" inches deep...then bone chilling cold with a constant 30 km headwind in the Meseta...and finally after Astorga all the types of rain you could image (it rained with every changing direction of the wind...and the wind changed direction every 15 to 60 minutes) and one day with heavy rain and hypothermia...every Pilgrim I know tells me that this is not normal on the Camino Frances but it was my experience...and I grew up in Florida and I thought I had experience with heat, humidity, tropical storms, and constant rain.
 
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Hi Doug,
I am looking April/May. Is a bag liner enough? Or, a light weight bag? Thanks.
 
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diggs said:
Hi Doug,
I am looking April/May. Is a bag liner enough? Or, a light weight bag? Thanks.
Click to expand...
I have walked the CF and CI in Apr, and both times I have taken a +5degC bag and silk liner. At the beginning of Apr, that made the difference between being able to stay at places like the overflow in the gym at the municipal albergue in Zubiri, the church hall in Granon and a few other places. There were others walking with only a liner, and they were being very selective about where they were going to stay. They didn't stay anywhere that wasn't heated and couldn't provide blankets.

When the night-time temperatures rose towards the end of the month, I was able to open out my bag and use it as a quilt. I was never tempted to post it forward or throw it away. It got used one way or the other except when I treated myself to the luxury of a night in a hotel or hostel.
 
Thanks, Doug.
 
Thank all for the feedback. It's starting to come together, except I have the chicken and the egg dilemma, should I buy the gear and get a pack that fits it or buy the pack first? In the end, it'll all work itself out I'm sure. I sometimes laugh when I think of all the planning and stressing that I'm doing. Imagine, I've got the wonderful resources of this forum and all of the technology available compared to what medieval pilgrims who walked both ways had at their disposal.

Perhaps a robe and some sandals are all I should take... thanks again!

Mike
 
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When I started to kit myself out I bought the pack first, I took the advice of the forum and got a 35 ltr pack. My theory was, that if I filled it I had too much gear. I managed everything I needed and still had some spare room.
Whatever you do don't go over the top with the pack size because all you'll want to do is fill it up. With a litre of water my pack was around 8.5 kg and the pack being a Lowe Alpine was just under 1.5 kg.
 
A simple rule of thumb that combines the thinking about having a weight target of 10% of your ideal walking weight, my own observations about reasonable packing density, and acknowledging that walking in early spring and autumn might require a little more than walking is summer is this:
  1. take your ideal walking body weight in kg, and divide it by two,
  2. use that number as the starting pack capacity (in litres) for a summer camino,
  3. add a minimum of 25% for late autumn and early spring.
This is more likely to get you into the right pack size range than the more simplistic advice one sees here where there are no indications about any of the essential context like the person's body weight, the season they walked in, how resilient they were, etc.

Alternatively, you could start by using a tool like the calculator here -->> http://www.backpacking-guide.com/hiking-backpacks.html#calculator, which is based on a formula from The Complete Walker by Colin Fletcher and Chip Rawlins. NB - this requires your weight in pounds, and gives a result in cubic inches.

In either case, if you should try and test pack your gear in the pack you are thinking of before committing to buying it, except, perhaps if you use the REI exchange approach.
 


Thanks Tom I took this advice.
 
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We are walking our Camino in March and April. We have lightweight sleeping bags that are warm up to 40 degrees. We've also purchased A silk sleeping bag liner which would warm it up by 10 degrees. The bag and liner together weighs less than 32 ounces. Cost of bag and liner was about $70 at a local sporting goods store.
 
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