Gear Review: Sierra Designs Rocks the "Backcountry Bed" Sleeping-Bag 3-Season

Sierra Design's sleeping bed - tucked away for the night (reenactment)

Imagine: you are in your tent at the campground at the base of Colorado's 14-er, Long's Peak, in Rocky Mountain National Park.

It’s the middle of the night, and the wind is coming down in giant gusts and making big wooshes through the skyscraper trees, like a locomotive headed your way.

You know you’re going to be up in just a few hours – your alarm is set for 2:00am so you can have a quick packet of oatmeal & get your gear re-checked and organized for the summit later that morning to beat the thunderstorms.

The problem is, you don’t want to get out of your sleeping bag, ever, even with the adrenaline of the mountain climb before you. 

Sierra Designs - hand pockets!

Because you’re not sleeping in a bag, you’re in a BED - one of Sierra Design’s new Backcountry Beds – the new idea bumping around in sleeping bags.

Unbelievably comfortable and (dare I say) cozy – but also functional and COOL. As in awesome.

Cool features:

No zippers

“Blanket” that tucks into the sides and up to your neck

Slot underneath to stick your feet out if they overheat

Slot for your sleeping pad underneath, so there’s no nighttime slippage 

2 hand-pockets in the blanket for extra warmth

DriDown - stays warmer, dries faster

Easy side sleeping w/out taking the whole bag with you

Tagline: “Sleep like you do at home with a comforter.”

My 600 Fill Dridown Women’s 3-Season got a test drive on a 40 degree weekend, it’s rated to 25. Like many of us oh so delicate ladies, I sleep colder, so I was wondering about the warmth of the bag-with-no-zipper. I was FINE. In fact, I found myself using all of the adjustable features at some point in the night as my body went through it’s own cooling down and warming up stages.

Mens, womens, tall – it comes in sizes for all of us – make sure to check the length, especially taller gals as the Women’s is x5’8” and I’m 5’7” and am just, just fitting perfectly.

Eager to continue to test this bag/bed this summer in colder & more extreme backcountry locales. I'll update. And, p.s. I have to FIGHT my family away from stealing this from me. Karate chop.

-Outdoorsy Mama

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." -Albert Einstein

UPDATE: 7/14/14 - my bro took this bag, men's version, into the California high sierras late June and got cold at night. didn't think it lived up to the temp rating. returned it. stay tuned for more info...

For more info:

Sierra Designs

Video - Backcountry Edge 

REI - check out all weights and sizes