Gear Reviews

The Sierra Designs Nitro 800 20-degree sleeping bag.

Review: Sierra Designs Nitro 20-Degree Sleeping Bag

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Three-Season Sleeping Bag
Sierra Designs Nitro 20-Degree
$320, 1 lb. 15 oz. (regular)
Sizes: men’s regular and long, women’s regular
sierradesigns.com

Choosing between sleeping bags can sometimes feel like getting the names of identical twins right—they look an awful lot alike. With bags, you can compare certain key specs: temperature rating, type and amount of insulation (or fill), total weight, and, of course, the price. Using those metrics, the new Sierra Designs Nitro bags look like a pretty good value, so I slept in the 20-degree Nitro 800 while camping on some cool and windy May nights at Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve, and on a three-night, 39-mile backpacking trip in Wyoming’s Wind River Range in mid-September, to see if its performance matches its impressive numbers.

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Patagonia Nine Trails 20 daypack.

Review: Patagonia Nine Trails 20L Daypack

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Daypack
Patagonia Nine Trails 20L
$129, 20L/1,220 c.i., 1 lb. 11 oz. (S/M)
Sizes: S/M and L/XL
backcountry.com

What’s an ideal daypack for three-season hikes? When you’re only carrying food, water, extra clothing, and perhaps some incidentals like camera gear (as I do), a daypack of 15 to 20 liters is ideal for most dayhikers in three-season conditions: They’re light on your back but offer all the space and features you need. Sometimes the story behind a piece of gear will appear sparse, precisely because it dispenses with the superfluous in service to functionality. On various dayhikes from Zion National Park to a 27-mile, 16-hour traverse of western Maine’s Mahoosuc Range, I found the Nine Trails 20L hits a sweet spot for supremely easy access, low weight, capacity, and comfort.

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The Gregory Optic 58 ultralight backpack in the Grand Canyon.

Review: Gregory Optic 58 and Octal 55 Ultralight Backpacks

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Ultralight Backpack
Gregory Optic 58 (men’s) and Octal 55 (women’s)
$210, 58L/3,539 c.i. (men’s medium), 2 lbs. 7 oz. (men’s small, without the included rain cover, 3 oz.)
Sizes: men’s S-L, women’s XS-M
moosejaw.com

No one loves loading extra water into their pack—especially upwards of 13 pounds of it, as I did as we left our last water source on our final evening backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop. We needed to haul enough liquid sustenance to get us through the 2,600-foot climb we were embarking on at 5:30 p.m., plus another 2,000 feet uphill early the next morning. That pushed my total pack weight up toward the limit of the ultralight Optic 58—as good a test as any. And Gregory’s first foray into ultralight packs not only handled that assignment well, it shines for many other reasons, too.

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Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL 2 ultralight backpacking tent.

Review: Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2 Ultralight Backpacking Tent

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Ultralight Backpacking Tent
Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2
$400, 2 lbs. 4 oz.
backcountry.com

I got a little worried when the wind in the Grand Canyon started gusting to about 30 mph one evening—which I assumed would test the limits of the ultralight Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2 tent’s structural strength. When the gusts continued to increase—at times exceeding 40 mph—I seriously thought we might lose one or more of our shelters roughly halfway through our May backpacking trip on the 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. But the Tiger Wall stood up to those gusts, giving me yet another reason to like this supremely featherweight backpacking tent.

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Gear Review: Klymit Insulated V Ultralite SL Air Mattress

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Klymit Insulated V Ultralite SL air mattress.
Klymit Insulated V Ultralite SL air mattress.

Insulated Air Mattress
Klymit Insulated V Ultralite SL
$120, 1 lb.
One size
klymit.com

Air mattresses for backpacking vary significantly in a few ways: comfort, price, weight, and packed bulk—and you often pay more for better comfort or low weight and bulk. But the Klymit Insulated V Ultralite SL bends that rule. So I took this relatively affordable air mat on a three-night, 39-mile backpacking trip in Wyoming’s Wind River Range in mid-September, and camping in Idaho’s City of Rocks in spring, to see whether sleeping on it proves as sweet as its price.

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