Big Agnes sleeping bag reviews

Backpackers hiking past a tarn off the Highline Trail (CDT) in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

The Best Backpacking Gear of 2024

By Michael Lanza

Glacier National Park. The Wind River Range. The Maze District of Canyonlands National Park. Iceland. The John Muir Trail, Wonderland Trail, and Teton Crest Trail. Yosemite. The Grand Canyon. Yellowstone. Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. Southern Utah’s Escalante canyons. The North Cascades and Pasayten Wilderness. The High Uintas Wilderness. The Tour du Mont Blanc. These are just some of the numerous places where I’ve tested the backpacking gear and apparel reviewed at The Big Outside—so that I can give you honest and thorough, field-tested opinions that help you find the best gear for your adventures.

And that’s exactly how I came up with these picks for today’s best backpacking gear.

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A backpacker at Evolution Lake on the John Muir Trail in Evolution Basin, Kings Canyon National Park.

The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail

By Michael Lanza

So you’re planning to thru-hike the John Muir Trail and making all of the necessary preparations, and now you’re wondering: What’s the best gear for a JMT hike? Having thru-hiked the JMT as well as taken numerous other backpacking trips all over the High Sierra—mostly between late August and late September, which I consider that the best time to walk the Sierra, to avoid snow and the voracious mosquitoes and blazing hot afternoons of mid-summer—I offer the following picks for the best lightweight backpacking gear and apparel for a JMT thru-hike.

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Big Agnes Picket SL 30 sleeping bag.

Gear Review: Big Agnes Picket SL 30 Sleeping Bag

Three-Season Sleeping Bag
Big Agnes Picket SL 30
$260, 2 lbs. 4 oz. (men’s regular)
Sizes: regular and long
moosejaw.com

I know I’m not the easiest person to share a tent with: I flop from side to side during the night. A side sleeper, I curl up with knees bent and extend my arms almost fully. I’ve always preferred mummy-style sleeping bags for their efficiency at trapping heat—but some feel a bit too much like a coffin. On numerous nights of backpacking and camping from the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop in May to Idaho’s City of Rocks in June and Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows area in July, I found that the stretch panels of the Big Agnes Picket SL 30 gave me an experience closer to sleeping in my bed at home.

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Big Agnes Storm King 0 sleeping bag.

Review: Big Agnes Storm King 0 Sleeping Bag

Winter Sleeping Bag
Big Agnes Storm King 0
$380, 3 lbs. 9 oz. (regular)
Sizes: regular and long ($400)
moosejaw.com

When is a mummy-style bag too constricting? I’ve used ultralight, three-season bags that felt a little too coffin-like. But in winter—or wintry conditions, such as you encounter when mountaineering in spring and summer—there are more practical reasons to use a bag with extra space, and you get it with the Storm King 0. Beyond its dimensions, the Storm King’s water-resistant down feathers, fairly unique “system” design that requires sliding an air mattress into a sleeve on the bag’s bottom side, and its relatively affordable price for this category of bags merits a close look.

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Gear Review: Big Agnes Boot Jack 25 Sleeping Bag

Big Agnes Boot Jack 25 sleeping bag.
Big Agnes Boot Jack 25 sleeping bag.

Three-Season Sleeping Bag
Big Agnes Boot Jack 25
$190, 2 lbs. 6 oz. (regular)
Sizes: regular and long ($200)
moosejaw.com

Backpackers and campers shopping for a sleeping bag often focus on just a few specs: temperature rating, length, insulation type, and of course, price. They might not give consideration to construction, design, or how the bag fits—as in how much space you have to move around. They might not even bother to crawl inside to try it on. Sleeping in the Boot Jack 25 from Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and City of Rocks National Reserve to the Panamint Range of Death Valley National Park, I found it nearly true to its 25-degree temp rating, very competitively priced for its quality—and, just as importantly, it has fairly spacious dimensions, so I slept like a baby.

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