The Family Camping Trip: Sleeping Gear

Before you run out and spend $500 on the SuperDooperDeluxGizmoBag, used by the Bamboozel Expedition on their seven failed attempts to conquer Mt. Everest in January using the hard route, and ABSOLUTELY guaranteed to keep you warm and bone dry down to 100 degrees below zero in an eighty knot blizzard wind ask yourself one thing, is your family REALLY going to need this along the Blue Ridge Parkway, in North Carolina in July?

So, what are you going to sleep on in the tent on the family camping trip? No, you do not need the fancy folding cots or air beds. Don't get me wrong, simple cots can be comfortable, especially for those of us who might be growing older, but they are not a necessity. They take up too much room in your vehicle and cost way too much money. Air beds are much like most store bought tents anyway, they are really designed not to last. Supposedly you can patch them if something goes wrong. Good luck with that, especially if that something goes wrong in the middle of the night, in a campground, on the side of a mountain. You will be sleeping on the hard ground. Have fun!

No, a simple closed cell foam "poly" pad is the best, the kind which rolls up and costs about $7-$15. They are usually blue or OD green and you can buy them at any Wal-Mart or K-mart type store (blue) or army surplus store (OD green). The key is that you want closed cell foam not open cell. For those who do not know the difference, "closed cell" is the smooth, sealed type foam. "Open cell" is the fluffy porous type of foam. Closed cell will repel moisture while open cell will soak it up like a sponge and you do not want to sleep on a cold, wet sponge.

Though these small, thin pads do not look like much, but, when combined with a decent sleeping bag, they are plenty to insulate you from the ground and keep you warm and comfortable. The Army issues them to troops in the Arctic, so they will do for you. Plus they take up far less room in the vehicle than a cot and they are good to sit on around the campsite.

On top of your poly-pad you will need a decent sleeping bag. Sleeping bags are another place where many people really go overboard. It is not unusual to see someone, in an $80,000 heated camper, sleeping in a $500 bag suitable for expeditions to the summit of Mt. McKinley. Then again, people who can afford those sorts of campers probably do not think twice about blowing a mere $500 on a sleeping bag but, for the rest of us mere financial mortals, $500 is a lot of money. Let us look at sleeping bags for a moment.

The best traditional sleeping bag fill is down feathers. It is warm, very comfortable and relatively light weight. It is also expensive and, if it gets wet, utterly useless. Sleeping bags keep you warm by their thickness or "fill." Down is fluffy and therefore nice and thick so it keeps you warm and comfortable. Down filled bags tend not to be terribly heavy either but, if they get wet the down becomes compressed and loses its thickness. So you freeze both from the lack of insulation and from the wetness. Some manufacturers offset this by making the bags from water resistant materials to help keep the down filling from getting wet. The problem is, if it does get wet, this material makes it very difficult to dry the down filling and these bags are even more expensive than regular down filled bags. The bottom line is, down is good if you are going to be very careful about keeping it dry. Again, Arctic troops were issued down filled bags for years and used them quite safely, storing them in a waterproof bag in their rucksacks. (By the way, the author is a veteran of the 2/17^th INF and 1/501^st ABN INF in Alaska, My first wife was an Eskimo, I may have been stationed up there a bit too long).

Synthetic bags are cheaper than down filled and there are many different types of synthetics. Indeed a whole article could be written just on synthetic sleeping bags but the key points are their temperature rating and water resistance.

Sleeping bags are rated by the coldest temperature they can be comfortably used at for a certain number of hours of sleep. Usually the number of hours is four but some manufacturers may use a different standard. For example, a bag rated at "-40 degrees" should be good for the average person to comfortably sleep for four hours at forty degrees (Fahrenheit) below zero. The bag compresses down as you sleep in it, losing its "fill." After four hours you will need to stand up, out of the bag, and then shake the bag in order to loosen the fill material and restore the insulation thickness. Likewise a bag rated at "30 degrees" is only rated to thirty degrees above zero for four hours. Generally speaking, when you get into bags rated to above freezing the four-hour rule ceases to matter.

Water resistance should be self-explanatory. You need a bag that will shed water off its outer skin while keeping you dry inside. Even if you plan to sleep in a tent in a nice campground with your vehicle parked a few feet away a wet sleeping bag can lead to a cold night. Hypothermia (freezing to death) can and will set in before you know it.

Fortunately, a decent sleeping bag need not cost an arm and a leg. For most of the United States and for most of the year, barring winter camping in a cold climate), bags rated for zero and above will do quite nicely. You should select a bag with a sturdy exterior shell. If it is not water repellent that is ok, do not get too worked up about paying a lot of extra money for one that is. Get yourself a can of silicone sealant spray, pick a nice sunny day and spray the exterior of your bag down with a good coat. Let it dry in the sun and repeat at least two more times for three coats. Even a cheap bag can be rendered water repellent in this fashion. Redo this once a year.

Please note though, if you do happen to have a nice bag, which has a fancy shell made of Gore-tex or some similar hi-tech material, do not spray it with silicone seal. These materials are designed to "breath" moisture out, away from your body, while blocking water from coming in. Therefore they have special pores that you will gum up by spraying them with a sealant. These bags are extremely nice and extremely expensive, if you should be lucky enough to have one you do not want to ruin it. The manufacturers (Dupont for Gore-tex) offer special instructions for cleaning and upkeep.

If you add a army issue "poncho liner," which may be purchased for between $20 and $30 from a surplus store or website (ensure you are getting an authentic ARMY surplus one and not an imitation), to your bag as a liner then you may reasonably expect your bag to be comfortable to even colder temperatures. The author once slept, for two hours, with just a poncho liner at about twenty below but that was during a survival situation in Alaska and I do not recommend you just go out and try it on your own. These poncho liners also make a nice warm wrap while sitting around the campsite but be extremely careful near the campfire or any other source of open flame or heat as the synthetic material in the liner will melt rapidly.

A simple flannel throw or sleeping bag liner may also be found cheaply and added to your bag for additional warmth. Again, they also make a nice something to have around the campsite on a cool night prior to "turning in" for the evening.

The item I would like to mention is pillows. A lot of sporting good stores sell small pillows which are advertised as everything from "pack pillows" to "travel pillows." I have seen them range in price from $5-$45. Why spend you money on any of it for camping out of your car or truck in a campground? I have tried them for rucksack camping and, frankly, they are not comfortable at all (I prefer my laundry bag stuffed with a change of clothes). For the family camping trip save your money and bring along a pillow off your bed at home. It is cheaper, more comfortable and, let's face it, how much space or weight is there to a pillow?

That pretty much covers sleeping materials. The bottom line is, you do not have to spend a fortune, you just have to be selective in what you do get and then take care of your equipment. But then again, this should be true of all of your equipment.

I hope this information has been helpful. Always remember to use good common sense and look for my next article where I will go over lanterns and other general camp equipment.