I know this looks crazy, but winter backpacking is a truly enjoyable and magical experience. There's
nothing like the peace and the quiet and the solitude that you can get from winter backpacking.
You don't have to go far to do it, and you don't have to be the most experienced outdoorsman on
the planet earth anyone can winter backpack, all you have to do is stay warm. Staying warm while
sleeping is a big key to enjoying this experience and continuing to do it. You're going to have to
take a look at your current backpacking sleep setup and know where you need to upgrade and what
kind of tools you're going to need to stay warm. I think of the winter sleep system in the same way
that i think of winter clothing and the layer system. There's layers to your winter sleep system.
You might need a couple of them, you might need all of them, you might have some gear that works as
some layers, and you might need some more gear just to push those layers a little bit farther. So let's
get into the layers of your winter sleep system starting from the bottom. The bottom is actually
the most important piece of your winter sleep system. It's not your sleeping bag. I would say
about 90 percent of the cold that you're gonna experience at night isn't gonna come from above you, it's not
gonna come from around you, it's gonna come from below you. The ground in the wintertime just
sucks all the heat out of your body from below and especially if you're using a down sleeping bag. We
know that once we compress down it stops working as well so if you're laying on your back, your
back is exposed, so you're gonna really need a good ground layer if you plan on sleeping on the snow.
So the first thing i like to start with is
a closed foam pad. Of course this is not going to be your only pad but this is a nice way to
get started. These things are very light, they're pretty bulky but you can just attach them to the
outside of your backpack and they're relatively cheap. This is the Nemo Switchback, it cost me
40 bucks, i got it from REI. You can really use any closed foam pad that's made to reflect heat back up.
It also keeps your air mattress from sliding around which i like and just adds a little bit of
extra cushion, a little extra support. You might not need this, especially if you have a great sleeping
pad which i think is the most important piece of gear for your winter sleep setup.
So this is the Sea to Summit Ether light extreme sleeping pad.
It has an r value of 6.2 and this version of it weighs a little bit over two pounds. This is the
most important piece of gear that you need. I slept on this thing last night, it worked great.
It's about 4 inches thick so it's actually even more padding than your traditional
sleeping pad. It kind of feels like you're sleeping on a mattress and i got a beautiful night's sleep
last night. I was very cozy, very warm. I'm a side sleeper too, this is great for side sleeping.
One thing that this has which is a little gimmicky but also nifty is you are not supposed to blow air
directly into your sleeping pad. There's moisture in your breath that goes into the pad. That lowers
the r value, it loses its effectiveness. So this bag actually turns into a pump that you can
use for this thing so you don't have to do that. Most people just carry a little battery powered
pump but but hey if you don't have one of those it's cool that Sea to Summit gave you
a workaround. So in my research for cold weather sleeping pads i came across two sleeping pads, this
Sea to Summit sleeping pad and also a Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad. I believe it was the Therm-a-Rest
Ex-therm. The reviews for the Therm-a-Rest were great. It has a slightly higher r value. My regular
sleeping pad doesn't fit ideally like sometimes i'll have my feet hanging off or one arm will be
touching the ground and you really want every part of your body on top of your sleeping pad in the
winter time because again if your arm is touching the ground it's going to be, you're going to have
a cold arm. Sea to Summit makes this sleeping pad in a large version that's the one i have.
I believe the regular version of this is $190 and this version was about $210 where the Therm-a-Rest
is about $250 so this one's a little cheaper and in my experience last night it worked pretty well.
Now i know you can't tell what this gelatinous mess is here but this is my sleeping bag.
This is a zero degree sleeping bag. I went with the Mountain Hardwear Bishop Pass Zero. It works
really well and i found for a zero degree bag this one to be very well priced coming in at around
300 bucks. They also make it in a long version which is what i have and it weighs under four
pounds. It's down. You can go a lot of different directions with your sleeping bag out here i mean
they obviously make sleeping bags that are much much warmer than this one. Even Mountain Hardwear
has their Phantom Zero which is about 900 bucks and is lighter than this. They make negative 20
degree bags again it just kind of depends on your budget. When these things get into the zero degree
lightweight range they just get super super expensive. Now here's the real question,
can you get away with your 15 or 20 degree bag that you use in the summertime out here?
This is the Sea to Summit Thermolite Reactor sleeping bag liner extreme.
I did a whole review on this thing, link to it is in the description card up top.
I've been liking this thing more and more, i have become a sleeping bag liner enthusiast. It's super
soft, it just gives you a better night's sleep. This thing claims to add 25 degrees to your sleeping
bag i don't know if that's true especially in the core area but where this really helps is
in your extremities. I like to think of the sleeping bag liner as super glue where it
just kind of sures up some of those cold points in your bag like for example your feet.
It really works well with your feet and your arms. If you have a really good sleeping bag like an
expensive solid sleeping bag that you know hey this thing really really works well or you think
it really really works well i might take a shot at winter backpacking or winter camping without
investing in a really expensive zero degree bag right away honestly. You know it looks cold out
here and it is but the low out here didn't drop below 20 last night. Like i said the sleeping pad
out here is really the big thing that you need and i suspect that most of you if you're doing winter
camping are not doing extreme winter camping. You're picking a nice spot on one of the warmer
winter days. You're probably looking at what 28, 25 for lows. So if you have a really good sleeping pad,
and you have a really good 15 or 20 degree bag, maybe invest in this thing for 80 bucks and see
if you can get away with it. Actually no matter what bag you have i do recommend the liner it's
super nice it's super soft and the added bonus is this is much easier to clean than your sleeping
bag. So you could just pull this out, throw it in the washing machine, keep your bag fresher longer.
So this is my pillow, this is obviously an inflatable pillow. So the thing about an
inflatable pillows is it is going to have the same issues so to speak as a sleeping pad. There
is no insulation to this, you blow into it which even lowers whatever r value if there was any to
this which there isn't. So in a lot of research i've done people make suggestions for upgrading
your pillow. There's a couple of different ways you can do this, you know you can go with a real pillow.
I know Dan Becker loves the Therm-a-Rest pillow i have one of those pillows. I just find it to be so
big and bulky. If you have room in your bag i guess it would be great. It would be more insulated, but
it's so big it's so bulky. Sea to Summit if you get a Sea to Summit sleeping pad they also make
pillows that lock into the sleeping pad. They make one with down on top of it that would be a little
bit more insulation, but that's a $70 pillow. The other thing you could do is get like a fleece
pillow case, they make fleece pillow cases that you zip. Honestly the way i use this is i shove it into
my mummy bag and then i sleep on top of it. I have not found any issues with just using my pillow
like this. I mean if you are really all about the warmest night's sleep possible you can definitely
upgrade your pillow in one of those manners i probably won't fix it. I mean i probably will,
but not right now. But honestly what do you think? I am truly curious i haven't been doing the winter
backpacking thing long. I'm sure there's tons of you on the internet that have found things
that work, things that don't. I would love to hear your thoughts, i would love to get better at this
backpacking thing. Sleep better, stay warmer. So if you have any tips or suggestions please leave them
in a comment below. If you actually want to see the gear in action here's a fun winter backpacking video for
you. More gear reviews in the playlist up top. Thanks for watching, see you next time.