Reviews > Sleep Gear > Sleeping Bags > Sierra Designs Big Dog > Andre Corterier > Field Report

Sierra Designs "Big Dog" Sleeping Bag

Personal Biographical Information:
Name: André Corterier
Gender: M
Age: 33
Height: 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight: 80 kg (175 lb)
Email: andreDOTcorterierATfreenetDOTde
Home: Bonn, Germany

Name: Renée Corterier
Gender: F
Age: 4
Height: 1,09 m (43 in)
Weight: 19 kg (42 lb)
Email: -
Home: Bonn, Germany

Backpacking Background:
I began backpacking in my late teens using Europe’s "InterRail"-System – weight hardly mattered, as we were on trains a lot. I recently rediscovered backpacking and have started out slowly – single-day 24 km (15 mi) jaunts by myself or even shorter hikes in the company of my little daughter. I am getting started on longer hikes, as a lightweight packer and hammock-camper. I’ve begun upgrading my old gear and am now shooting for a dry FSO weight (everything carried From the Skin Out except food, fuel and water) of about 10 kg (22 lb) for three-season camping. Not quite there yet.

Renée began "hiking" at the age of 1 1/2 years. This consisted of walking short distances between “stroller stops” to play in the snow or explore the banks of a creek with her dad pushing her in the stroller for most of the hike. Lately, she’s begun walking the entire stretch of shorter hikes (a few km/mi at most), though she insists on a break with a strung hammock and a hot meal on a camping stove (those, and the ability to drink from the water bladder’s drinking tube whenever her dad picks her up for a moment are what make hiking so cool). Her longest expedition so far was a 30 km (19 mi) overnighter on which she carried her own rain gear and insulation layer. She has spent nights in a tent and a hammock as well as underneath a tarp and the open sky.

Year of manufacture: 2005
Manufacturer: Sierra Designs
URL: http://www.sierradesigns.com
MSRP: 89.95 USD

Comparisons:
listed weight: 1162 g (2 lb 9 oz) ("Trail Weight")
measured weights: - scale accurate to 1 g (0.04 oz)
bag alone: 1110 g (2 lb 7.2 oz)
stuff sack: 46 g (1.6 oz)
bag in stuff sack: 1156 g (2 lb 8.8 oz)
pillow: 150 g (5.3 oz)(in the pillow stuff sack)
- Apparently the "Trail Weight" does not include the pillow -
listed dimensions:
inside length: 157 cm (62 in)
shoulder girth: 127 cm (50 in)
hip girth: 119 cm (47 in)
foot box girth: 84 cm (33 in)
stuff size: 18 by 43 cm (7 by 17 in)
measured dimensions:
inside length: 150 cm (59 in)
widest girth: 112 cm (44 in) (at the widest point of the bag when spread out on the ground)
stuff size: 16-17 by 41-42 cm (6.5-7 by 16.5-17 in) (a bit lumpy)

Introduction:
This is a blue, mummy-type sleeping bag of what I would call a "relaxed fit". Not a sarcophagus for disciplined sleepers (like mummies), which I immediately liked (my daughter uses up a lot of room in her sleep). It has a hood and a zipper which goes down almost the entire side of it. My daughter was quite happy to see it and immediately tried it out (on our living room floor). She liked the feel and did not mind being zipped up all the way, but quickly complained about getting too warm in it. You can find a more detailed description of it in my Initial Report.

Car Camping:
We have camped with this bag a few more times in the meantime, with the emphasis mostly on the "camping" part (as in car-camping) rather than backpacking. The first time saw us car camping in the lower Rhineland, elevations not far above sea level, with the night time temperature bottoming out at 7 C (45 F). Obviously not a test of the bag's temperature rating. However, it was a rather foggy night and thus, even though our tent has good ventilation, we had a lot of moisture in our tent. The Big Dog sleeping bag had no problems with that. While I did lay it out into a wee bit of sun we had the next day, I had the impression that it needed this far less than did my down bag, because it felt to the touch as though it had picked up less moisture.

As a pad, I used a 5 mm (0.2 in) thin Evazote (closed-cell foam) pad, folded double. At a width of 59 cm (23 1/4 in), this appeared to be a little on the wide side for the pad locks on the bag. While it was quite possible (and not even difficult) to slide the pad lock straps around the flexible, folded thing, tightening the straps resulted in the flexible pad being scrunched up somewhat. More of an aesthetic thing really, except that the result was a slight upturn to the side of the pad. This likely contributed to my daughter rolling off the pad entirely at one point during the night (the bag remained attached to the pad, so the pad was pulled up on the other side to stand vertically beside her). She does wriggle around a lot and it only happened once, so I do not consider this to be a defect. But it does suggest to me that flexible pads aren't what the pad locks are meant for.

This time, my daughter only stuck one arm out of the bag during the night. Whenever I felt that the arm in question was getting a little cool, I'd maneuver it back inside the bag. This was easy with the hood not cinched close, but made it just as easy for her to extend that or the other arm a little later. We played that game, on and off, all night. I note that my daughter is much less aware of the hardness of the ground than I am and slept through the entire night. I, on the other hand, tend to wake up at least half a dozen times when sleeping on the ground - which lets me check (and report!) on how she's doing at night. (I had not cinched the hood closed because it wasn't cold enough for that.)

Home "Camping":
My daughter recently managed to weasle out of us the permission to sleep in the "big" (our) bed. As we sleep in an unheated room, directly underneath a wide open window, my wife suggested that our daughter use "her" sleeping bag, to which my daughter happily consented. However, while the outside temperatures dropped to just above freezing, the inside temperatures must have been a good bit higher. My daughter managed to wriggle her way entirely out of the sleeping bag (which, again, did not have the hood cinched at all) as well as her pajama pants and under my wife's blanket. Apparently, the Big Dog sleeping bag is overkill for sleeping indoors in this environment.

Field Use:
My daughter and I decided to give the bag a real "backpacking" workout over Halloween. We hiked from our place in Bonn to my parent's place in the Eiffel region, which is a distance of about 30 km (19 mi) with a few uphill sections, though not much total elevation difference (maybe 500 m / 1600 ft counting both up and down).

The first issue was pack size. At its packed size, it exceeded the size of even the largest backpack my daughter owns. She owns several, but at 4 1/2 years of age, they're all admittedly quite small. This meant that it had to go into my pack, which led me to heavily compress my down bag in order to conserve space, something I am loathe to do as the down doesn't get any better that way. I was happy for the compression sack that came with the Big Dog - without it, I might have had to resort to my big 75 L (4500 cu in) pack.

I had bought for this trip a self-inflating 3/4-length pad in order to try the bag's pad locks with that. The bag was easily fitted to this. Getting into the bag thus fitted to its pad in a hammock proved somewhat more difficult, however. And once my daughter was in it (and had fallen asleep) I realized that the two of us would not be able to sleep in the same hammock like that. The reason is the hammock's propensity to have things roll towards the center of gravity (in this case, me). This caused my daughter to roll (inside the bag) towards me, which resulted in her ending up partially on top of me, with the inflated pad standing up vertically next to us.

The Big Dog's attachment to the pad proved useful in my setup of an alternate campsite. I was able to remove my daughter from the hammock in much the same way that one slides a pizza from an oven, and could carry her as though on a tray to the spot of ground I had chosen. Having placed my own pad next to her and set up the hammock's rain fly as a tarp, I was then able to oberve her sleep in the new bag/pad combination. The attachment of bag to pad worked exactly as I assume it was meant to - when my daughter turned in her sleep, she turned inside the bag, which remained on the pad. This remained true through the entire night and was very welcome. Less welcome was the rain which started around midnight and persisted until morning. I am not an experienced tarp camper and found that my tarp-pitching skills leave something to be desired. The foot ends of our bags were exposed to some rain. The Big Dog sleeping bag does not appear to have an effective DWR coating - the water did not bead up on the bag, which resulted in the foot end of the bag being soaked by morning. However, the bag also did not appear to wick the water up towards the remainder of the bag. As my daughter does not occupy the bottom third of the bag, this means she remained dry.

We have spent two more nights outside with her in the Big Dog Sleeping Bag, in progressively colder nights. The temperature did not, however, drop below freezing. On the last night we spent out (under the open sky), the lowest outside temperature I was able to witness on my thermometer was 2 C (35.6 F), according to the local weather report the lowest temp for our area that night was 1 C (34 F). My daughter was dressed in nothing but a wicking baselayer (long-sleeved top and bottoms) and did not appear cold at any time during the night and reported having slept warm the next morning. I kept her hood closed much of the way (with a hole just large enough for her face). The hood can be closed further, so I am certain we can get below freezing with this bag without problems. I am also certain that we will verify this during the Long Term reporting phase.

Drying:
The one time the bag got wet, I wrung it out, repacked it and dried it at home (along with my down bag). While I feel that its ability to keep the occupant warm was compromised, my down bag fared even worse. In the end, both of these statements are conjecture, however - we did not try to sleep in them again. They air dried, hung from a line, at home without problems. I feel unable to guesstimate how much (or how little) of a challenge it would have presented to get the bag back into a working shape in the constraints of an extended backpacking trip. As it is, as long as my daughter does not occupy the wet area, I believe very little is lost.

Test Plan:
Testing Location and Probable Conditions:
In this region, the remaining test period (January through 7 March) will typically see temps between -5, maybe -10 C (25, maybe 14 F) and 20 C (70 F). For precipitation we'll have fog and drizzle as well as some snow.
We will continue to hike in hilly, forested terrain which starts a 15 minute walk from where we live and extends for about 30 km (20 mi) in most directions. This includes hikes in the Kottenforst State Park, the Siebengebirge Nature Preserve (Seven Mountains – bit of a misnomer there, they top out at 461 m / 1512 ft), the River Rhine and the Ahr Valley. Elevations range from 60 m / 200 ft to the above-mentioned 461 m / 1512 ft, paths tend to be well-maintained though we do not always stick to them.

Questions I intend to answer, and answers so far:
Does it provide enough wriggle room? Yes, it does. Will the Pad Locks keep her on her pad? Yes, they do an excellent job at this. Will the Chest Pockets be useful? Not so far. Will there be issues with moisture from outside or inside the bag? It could use a DWR coating, but as neither surface material nor insulation seem to be wicking (much), it wasn't a problem so far. Will it be and remain comfortable for my daughter? Yes, Will it show any wear during the testing period? Not so far. And most importantly: Will it keep my daughter warm at night? So far, (down to about freezing,) it has.

Pros/Cons:
Pros: Appears warm enough for my daughter. Pad locks keep her on her pad, making *me* sleep a bit better. I'm really happy with it so far.
Cons: So far, none of the pockets have seen use (and I still don't know how I might make use of them). Glow-in-the-dark zipper pulls don't (glow in the dark, that is).

Reviews > Sleep Gear > Sleeping Bags > Sierra Designs Big Dog > Andre Corterier > Field Report