Back in March I bought a new sleeping bag for backpacking trips. I wanted something lightweight (2 lb or less), and that packed down really small. As with all ultralight backpacking gear, you pay pretty heavily for every ounce you shave. The best deal, by far, was the REI SubKilo bag. I pail just under $220 for mine and that's after I used a 20% off coupon. Unfortunately, the women's bag doesn't come in a left zip version, only right zip. I tried and I tried to make it work, but to no avail. I'm a left side sleeper. When I'm in a right zip bag, the zipper is at my back and I can't adjust it without rolling over. I also couldn't get over the feeling that I was trapped. Getting out of the bag quickly was simply not possible. I'd struggle to roll over, find the zipper, and unzip myself. After waking up to a bear sniffing my feet and not being able to un-bag myself last Fall, I decided that my next bag simply had to be a left zip. (See my previous post, http://awaitingrevelation.blogspot.com/2006/11/does-chris-poo-in-woods.html, for the bear story.)

All the preface aside, after this weekend's backpacking trip I decided I simply couldn't put off getting a new bag any longer. Aside from being a right zip bag, my SubKilo also tends to leak down feathers much more than is acceptable. All down bags leak, but not this much. Ryan has the men's version of the SubKilo, and his doen't leak anywhere near as much. And on top of all of that, I simply don't think the bag is rated correctly. It claims to be a 15 degree bag, but I seriously doubt it would keep me warm at even 20 degrees. It's a good bag, but it simply won't suit me. Thus I returned the bag to REI, and the research began.

Like I said, these bags aren't cheap so I did a whole heck fo a lot of research. I'd look at a bag, read all about it, check out the specs, and read reviews. In the end I had a grouping of 7 bags that I was considering, but I was having a tough time making the plunge. I knew that after using my return credit, I'd still be dropping at least another $140 on the bag. Big decision. So I resorted to the only real decision making system I've ever used; making a spreadsheet. I listed all the bags and their relevent specs such as weight, stuff size, and inner diameters . I ranked the different spec categories accordning to their relative importance in my decision. Then I ranked each bag in each of the spec categories. As you can see from the graphic, I used the tried and tested (by me, of course) rating system of "woo hoo" for great, "eh" for acceptable, and "boo" for, well, boo. In numerical terms, a "woo hoo" earns a ranking of 3, "eh" scores a 2, and "boo" gets a 1.

In my system, the bags recieved scores for each category. The scores were calculated as the product of the relative importance of the category and it's ranking on the woo hoo-eh-boo scale. The scores for each category were added up to give each bag a total score. A perfect score is a 63. The worst score possible would be a 21. Sure, I could have normalised the scored to a more intuitive numbering scheme, metric perhaps, but that would just have been over the top. I'm a geek for sure, but ya got to draw the line somewhere.

Clearly there's one bag that stands out with a perfect score. That's the Marmot Helium. Just one problem...this bag isn't being produced anymore so it's pretty tough to find. I had to get my bag at an REI in order to be able use the credit from the old bag towards the new one. The Portland REI had none in stock and wasn't expecting to get any more but their display model was still up. The Tualitin store didn't even have a model on display any more. I asked customer service if they could call the Portland store and hold the display model for me, and they did. Then I checked at the Beaverton store, and they actually had one in stock. (Keep in mind the guy at the Tualitin store said the bag wasn't even in the system anymore so no store in the area would have it. Shows what he knew.)

I immediately snatched up the bag at the Beaverton store. New beats a display model any day. I had never actually tried the bag, I just knew my analysis said I should love it. I got right down on the floor of the store and tried it out. My spreadheet was right! It's far roomier than my old bag. The down is loftier. I love the left zip. It's as close as perfection as you can get for less than $400. Ryan took a couple of pics of me trying out the bag with my phone camera, but Sprint is being super slow tonight and I can't upload the pics to put here. Maybe I'll update this when they finally make it to my inbox. In the mean time, I just may sleep in my new bag tonight.