Synthetic vs dridown

[bellboy]

So I had quite an experience last Sunday. I went for an overnight hunt in a spot I’ve been a lot for a late season black tail here in ca. I was pretty excited because there was some rain In the overnight forcast and I never get to hunt in the rain here at home. I packed my rain gear my jimmy tarp and woobie. It was fun, light rain until about midnight. The wind picked up considerably, knocked the tent over, I was able to restake it and all was all good. At 2am it was dumping and the wind started blowing gnarly! I work outdoors in storms and last year we had a stand down when winds reached 60mph+. The winds I experienced on the mountain seemed just as intense as the 60mph winds I was working in. My tent lost half the stakes, I tried like hell to get it staked back down but just couldn’t battle the wind. Me and all my gear was soaked!! I made the decision to tough it out so I could hunt the am. I was able to stake the tent down flat with out a pole and I crawled into it and climbed back into my soaking wet woobie. I had one hand holding down the tarp and one on the woobie and I shivered through the 4 hrs till sun up. It was quite an experience and I was just on the verge of Calling it quits all night and hiking back to the truck. With busy life this was the weekend I could hunt so I stuck it out. So all that leads to my question, the woobie gave me some insulation when it was soaked and kept me from going hypothermic. I also own an enlightened equipment quilt with dri down. Can I trust the dri down to keep me alive if I were to get in a similar situation in a colder climate. Here in ca it will most likely warm up considerably when the sun comes up, which it did. I battled the 40 degree rain because I knew it was suppose to quit raining in the am and at sun up I could start warming back up. So do I need to buy a synthetic bag for other climates. Second question is do any tents really stay staked in winds over 35mph!?




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[Kevin Dill]

If you can keep your tent securely staked and upright, the choice of sleeping bag fill becomes much less about survival. What I'm saying is your shelter is priority #1 and you must get that right. Tents DO stay staked at 60 mph and above with the right tent and right stakes in the ground. A tent with insufficient stakes is an accident waiting on an opportunity. In high wind regions I recommend using MSR Cyclone Stakes which have vastly more holding grip than any conventional stake. Keep in mind...most stakes are not designed to seriously resist being pulled out of soil. They are designed to maintain a tent's spread and prevent collapse or movement in low-wind conditions. Using a strong-grip stake like Cyclones will make a huge difference, as will having enough stake-out points (and guy-outs) when you get in big winds. Try to avoid exposed camps or locations which actually funnel and accelerate winds. If they exist, put good heavy stones on top of each stake to help prevent backing out. I routinely do this based on experience.

A very secure tent tops anything you do for a sleeping bag. After that it's your choice. I use 100% goose down bags and haven't yet owned a synthetic bag in the 40+ years I've been afield. I think the treated down fill(s) would be great but again...no advantage if your tent is secure and dry inside.

 

[mrbillbrown]

My question is....why take the risk? You know for a fact synthetic works when wet. Here’s my rationale and the $.02 it’s worth. I don’t take overnight hunting trips very often (3-4x during whitetail and 1-2x during CO elk) and when I do I definitely don’t want to worry about freezing if I get wet. Sure, my Slick Bag is a little heavier and bulkier in my pack but it’s nothing I have to think about during the trip. Too many other things for me to think about and knowing my synthetic bag will work regardless just makes my trip easier. Again, I’m no expert but just a regular dude that likes to backpack hunt.

 

[bellboy]

Thanks for the Info. I will look into the Msr cyclone stakes for the future. I agree that if my shelter is solid it shouldn’t matter what sleeping bag I have. My experience was more lack of experience as to why I got in that situation. Wind was not in the forecast and I packed some very lightweight stakes that were not holding in the saturated ground. That is somewhat my point tho is preparing for the unexpected. And whether that is having a more sufficient shelter/stake combo or a synthetic bag and Mylar blanket. Obviously if I’m on a hunt where the weather turns sour it would be way more comfortable to have a shelter to keep me dry and warm rather than have to use my gear in emergency mode. So that seem like what I should focus on is make sure my shelter can with stand the “emergency conditions “


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[Snowy]

Couple of things:
-Agree that shelter is job #1, sounds like you've got a gameplan there for the future.
-It is somewhat of a misnomer that wet down doesn't insulate. Yes it absolutely compresses far more than synthetics when wet, but having soaked a few down items they do still have some resistance to heat transfer. Lower fill power (i.e. 600) obviously loses less loft when wet than higher loft down, at the cost of heat value per oz. of course.
-mrbillbrown, I certainly don't disagree with your assessment and choice. To me the counterpoint is that I will usually take the risk because of how much more durable down is over time, and the efficiency is just so much greater.
-As for DriDown, my primary belay puffy is a Brooks Range Mountaineering Mojave with 800 DriDown. I'm on the fence as to whether the lost loft with the treated down is worth it compared to untouched down. In most cases the down treatment will last longer the lifetime of the face fabric of the jacket, though in theory it can be washed out over a number of washes. There is a lot of info at BackpackingLight about this.

I use down probably 90% of the time, and the times when I've owned just one bag it has always been down. It takes some thoughtful management to keep it dry sometimes but it's worth it to me.

 

[Owenst7]

If my shelter isn't working, I'm not sleeping until it is. I've yet to get my bag wet, and that includes over 20 years of living in coastal Alaska.

Treated down will probably prolong the inevitable. I don't see the point. I wouldn't give up on my shelter even if I had a synthetic bag.

Finding sheltered landscape to pitch your shelter in and predicting the direction of wind/rain gets you much farther than being content in falsely foolproof gear. The animals out there don't have any shelter and live through that stuff all the time. They learn how to find depressions, downed trees, benches, etc.

I can't count the number of times I've shivered all night in mountaineering brand synthetic bags because the insulation lost its loft since the last time I used it. I store my bags uncompressed, but they've got to be in a sack when I'm on a trip.

 

[Kevin Dill]

Keep in mind it's far better to keep water out of ANY insulation vs going with one which performs somewhat better when wet. Between an excellent tent or shelter and a bag which excludes water (say via a wp bivy or perhaps a bag made with a Gore fabric shell) your insulation will be kept dry even if the weather gets crazy.

 

[texag10]

Owenst7 and Kevin, have yall ever had issues with you down bags wetting out from humidity or perspiration?

Between my pack and my shelter I'm not terribly worried about getting wet from precipitation.

 

[oenanthe]

You know for a fact synthetic works when wet.

I know we all have different opinions on this, but what I know for a fact is that a synthetic bag doesn't work when it is wet; no bag does. A wet bag is a wet bag and sucks regardless of what it is made of. Sure, a synthetic bag will probably dry out more quickly than an equally wet down bag, but if you are in a situation that is life-threatening your answer is a big fire regardless of what your bag is made of.

 

[bellboy]

Ya the woobie wasn’t keeping me exactly warm it was kind of like the wetsuit effect where the thin layer of water was heated by my body heat then trapped what heat I had if I stayed still . If i didn’t move around too much I would feel warmer than me being out of the downed tent and in the rain and wind. I can see this issue being a tough call because I take a handful of things in my pack for the “what if” not all life threatening what ifs but some just comfort. I now understand how important it is to be dry and stay dry and the only way that happens is if I pack rain gear and a sufficient shelter. There was no making a fire During the storm. Let me also say I wasn’t in life or death I was very uncomfortable and cold. I could have hiked out at 2am when the wind picked up and been perfectly fine. I chose to stick it out to hunt the am. I see the solution being pack my lightweight down quilt and a good shelter for when the weather is forecasted to be bad. I can save weight on the bag and bulk up on the shelter


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[Where's Bruce?]

If you focus on your shelter needs the down-syn debate won't be a life and death issue. Often you can eliminate pulled stakes simply by placing big rocks on em. That and a bathtub style nest are sufficient even in the harshest condions.

 

[Owenst7]

Owenst7 and Kevin, have yall ever had issues with you down bags wetting out from humidity or perspiration?

Between my pack and my shelter I'm not terribly worried about getting wet from precipitation.

Nope. Had three adults in down bags in a 2man Mountainsmith tarp a couple months ago. Condensation was real bad and we got stuck in a storm for a day. The non-goretex bag had a bivy on and his shell was wet by the third day (he said he thinks he stuck his head under the bivy and breathed inside all night). The feathers were not clumped yet and his bag was dry after I hung it up for an hour in the breeze. I believe he would have been better off without the bivy or possibly just a sheet of plastic over him as a blanket, but he was stretching the temp rating of hsi bag and wanted the warmth. Regardless, the outside of his bag was wetted out when I hung it up and the feathers were fine.

If you ever handwash a down bag, you'll realize that wetting out the feathers inside isn't as easy as it sounds. It takes me about a half hour of wrestling an island in a full bathtub before they start to clump. The birds that grow them spend plenty of time in the water after all.

If you focus on your shelter needs the down-syn debate won't be a life and death issue. Often you can eliminate pulled stakes simply by placing big rocks on em. That and a bathtub style nest are sufficient even in the harshest condions.

This. In my experience synthetic bags are just a red herring argument to avoid backcountry skills/experience. Boats and/or wet dogs are exceptions, however.

 

[Kevin Dill]

My experiences are well summarized by Owenst7's comment above. I've had down bags in some of the MOST humid and damp situations imaginable. I've slept in them days and nights in terrible weather. I can tell they are accumulating some weight via moisture but they don't collapse... don't get soggy... and they do remain warm and effective. I don't try to convince people to go one way or the other. I do definitely know from a lifetime of use that good down bags don't give up anything to synthetics, and my first choice will always be down. I'm talking 800+ fill-power stuff which is vastly different than the cheaper 80/20 down/feathers junk found in cheap bags. Feathers WILL get wet and have no lofting ability. 800-950 fp down is super fluffy and very difficult to get wetted out unless you take it swimming or shake it in a beaker of water.

 

[Beendare]

You can pretty much tell by the design and comments on a tent whether it can sustain strong winds. Not many will take 60 mph full on in an exposed area. The right Tipi can...and some of the Hilleberg style tents.

I have both down and Syn bags. I have had down bags in the past build up moisture to the point where they lost some of their effectiveness. FWIW, Thats never happened to me with a Syn bag. I had one trip where mice chewed through my bivy and snow melt leaked in...fully 1/4 of my synthetic bag and pad were frozen solid when I got into it....took a few minutes but it kept me warm all night.

I think if you are careful down works for even the toughest conditions. Syn just works a little better in damp/wet.

 

[Southtexasboy]

What shelter did you have?

 

[Where's Bruce?]

You can pretty much tell by the design and comments on a tent whether it can sustain strong winds. Not many will take 60 mph full on in an exposed area. The right Tipi can...and some of the Hilleberg style tents.

I have both down and Syn bags. I have had down bags in the past build up moisture to the point where they lost some of their effectiveness. FWIW, Thats never happened to me with a Syn bag. I had one trip where mice chewed through my bivy and snow melt leaked in...fully 1/4 of my bag and pad were frozen solid when I got into it....took a few minutes but it kept me warm all night.

I think if you are careful down works for even the toughest conditions. Syn just works a little better in damp/wet.

Just a little trick I learned, take a chlorine tablet (like those used in pools) and crush it. Sprinkle a little on the ground where the perimeter of your tent is. This keeps rodents away and if you put bigger chunks around your campsite, keeps bears and other critters away too. I use em whenever I park my truck on a trailhead for any period of time. A buddy started doing this after rats ate all the copper wiring in his boat one summer. Bleach and ammonia work too but aren't as practical as the pool tabs.

 

[mtwarden]

"dridown" is a misnomer, more like very slightly resistant to moisture- not as catchy, but the truth

while synthetics can certainly get wet and lose their insulating abilities, they fare much better than any treated (or untreated) down

Climashield Apex has been my go to syn insulating material- quilts, jackets, mittens, booties, etc

if it going to be dry- dead of winter, I use down- nothing beats down for warmth to weight, it also last substantially longer than syn

but in the situation you describe- most definitely syn

 

[Middleofnowhere]

Just a little trick I learned, take a chlorine tablet (like those used in pools) and crush it. Sprinkle a little on the ground where the perimeter of your tent is. This keeps rodents away and if you put bigger chunks around your campsite, keeps bears and other critters away too. I use em whenever I park my truck on a trailhead for any period of time. A buddy started doing this after rats ate all the copper wiring in his boat one summer. Bleach and ammonia work too but aren't as practical as the pool tabs.

Be carefull with chlorine. The gas is extremely poisonous and will oxidize metal and electrical components.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Offgassing risks from chlorine powder around your tent (even if wet) are not a health hazard. When placed in a boat for long periods of time they should be placed in locations where they will not get wet and doors/hatches should be opened for several minutes to allow enclosed areas to air out before occupying.

 

[JP100]

As others have said you dont want to have a wet bag.
But it happens.
Not many tents will handle real 60+mph winds, and thats alot of wind. Ive seen videos of guys with tents/tipis claiming its 60mph, but most are no way near it, if your standing up and talking it aint 60mph! I have twice been in winds I cannot walk in, once we had a wind meter and sustained was around 55-60mph, some gusts to 80mph. We could not hunt and luckily had a cabin to hide in.

I have slept a few nights in wet(sopping) down bags and have found them to be not that bad,was not super cold conditions. but very wet and a Kea(mountain parrot) made a few skylights in my tent. Have had similar wet bags from condensation in a single wall tipi.

Synthetic is/should be better, but always has trade offs. I am slowly tyring to go synthetic with insualtion but it seems very bulky and heavy compared to down and not as warm. Cant have it all!

As others have said the best cure is to try and prevent getting wet at all costs, buy a real tent and set it up properly if you know the weather is going to be bad. All those extra guy lines make a huge difference in shitty conditions.