Bogong winter sleep system

[Bart458]

Hi all
I am going to do Bogong in the winter & have a question about sleep systems. I have a Blackwolf Vertical Limit 200 5 deg bag & was wondering if I used this in conjunction with a thermalite reactor extreme, SOL Escape Bivvy, Exped 7M & clothing will this be adequate?

[andrewa]

Possibly - I'd ensure that the "clothing" included a decent down jacket and some insulated or thicker fleece pants.

I normally camp up there in winter using a quilt with about 500g 750 loft fill, BUT I sleep in everything, including down jacket/pants and booties. How cold it gets depends a lot on the weather. If it's cloudy, it may not get much below zero, but on a clear night it will be a lot colder. A decent tent with nylon, rather than mesh, inner makes a big difference, and most importantly, ensure that your tent is fine in high winds - I've had many very windy nights up there, as it is very exposed above the tree line, and a flimsy tent will get blown down.

A

[neilmny]

Hi all
I am going to do Bogong in the winter & have a question about sleep systems. I have a Blackwolf Vertical Limit 200 5 deg bag & was wondering if I used this in conjunction with a thermalite reactor extreme, SOL Escape Bivvy, Exped 7M & clothing will this be adequate?

Welcome to the forum Bart458.

Based on my own experience with similar products I would say that the Blackwolf and reactor will not be sufficient at zero and below temperatures.
I had different Blackwolf with a claimed rating -8C (no mention of comfort rating in this rating) and a thermolite reactor (not extreme version).
It was around 2C and without the thermolite I couldn't sleep for cold. With the thermolite it was just warm enough and slept well but wouldn't have called it cosy.
I was in a tent and I was wearing poly thermals and socks as well.

There is lots of info posted by people far more experienced than me in winter on Bogong just use the search function to find it.

[icefest]

Considering that your sleeping bag has 200g of 600 loft down, the 5 degrees rating will not be very conservative.

Andrewa has about three times as much filling as your bag, and he sleeps with extra down clothing on. That's like putting three of your bags inside each other and still being cold enough to need to wear a down jacket.

The mat you have is adequate though and if you plan on staying near Michel or Bivouak hut you'd be fine - move to the hut if you get cold.

The other thing to remember about bivy bags is that they get extra cold in rain - and if the surface wets out (which is just a function of time) then you will get condensation on the inside and your bag will get wet.

tl;dr bag not adequate for summit, stay near northern huts or get warmer bag.

[Bart458]

Thanks so much for your help guys. I will be wearing all clothes including a north face 700 loft jacket but sounds like a bag upgrade might be in order. Just thought if I could get by with the BW200 with other gear incorporated I'd save weight & $
B

[andrewa]

Yeah, 200g of down sounds a bit thin!!

Also, ensure your jkt has enough down. I've got a lovely Montbell jkt with 900 loft down (Ex-light, I think) but it's no where near warm enough for winter, coz it's got bugger all down in it - as in <2oz of it. Great for summer use, but I'd have lumps in my throat if I used it in winter ( and I'd be cold). My winter weight down jkt has just under 300g of 800 loft down.

A

[icefest]

Thanks so much for your help guys. I will be wearing all clothes including a north face 700 loft jacket but sounds like a bag upgrade might be in order. Just thought if I could get by with the BW200 with other gear incorporated I'd save weight & $
B

Can you borrow a friends sleeping bag to double bag? It's probably the cheapest.

[Moondog55]

I can only say that I would be cold in that no matter what clothes I was wearing
A stitched through bag with only 200 grams of 600 fill power down isn't really a bag for the snow
Use it as a liner tho inside an extra large overbag and it would be OK, but XL overbags are not easy to find
An alternative is a quilt used over the top but I have no personal experience doing that

[Moondog55]

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