Marmot sleeping bag reviews

A backpacker above the Cutthroat Lakes on the Doubletop Mountain Trail in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

The Best Backpacking Gear of 2025

by

By Michael Lanza

Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness, Montana’s Beartooths, and Colorado’s Weminuche. Glacier National Park and the Tetons. The Grand Canyon (repeatedly). The Canadian Rockies. Southern Utah’s Owl and Fish canyons. The Wind River Range. The John Muir Trail and Wonderland Trail. Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails. New Zealand’s Milford Track, Routeburn Track, and Tongariro Alpine Crossing. These are just some of the places where I’ve recently tested the backpacking gear and apparel that I’ve 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 the following picks for today’s best backpacking gear.

Read on

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

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 ultralight and lightweight backpacking gear and apparel for a JMT thru-hike.

Read on

The Marmot Hydrogen 30 ultralight sleeping bag.

Review: Marmot Hydrogen 30 Sleeping Bag

by

Ultralight Sleeping Bag
Marmot Hydrogen 30
$399, 1 lb. 9.4 oz./720g (regular)
Sizes: unisex regular and long ($419)
backcountry.com

For backpackers prioritizing low gear weight who don’t tend to get cold very easily, a sleeping bag rated 30 degrees Fahrenheit can function as their go-to for most three-season trips. And Marmot’s Hydrogen 30 remains one of the perhaps three highest-quality and warmest ultralight mummy bags at this temperature rating, as I affirmed sleeping in it for two nights on southern Utah’s Owl and Fish canyons loop in early May, four nights in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains in August, and five nights on the Grand Canyon’s Gems Route in mid-April.

Read on

Gear Review: Marmot Ion 20 Sleeping Bag

by

Marmot Ion 20 sleeping bag.
Marmot Ion 20 sleeping bag.

Sleeping Bag
Marmot Ion 20
$419, 1 lb. 13 oz. (regular)
Sizes: regular and long ($439)
moosejaw.com

Heading into Washington’s North Cascades National Park for an 80-mile backpacking trip in the last week of September, I didn’t want to take a chance on gear and clothing that might not stand up to cold, wet weather, maybe even sub-freezing nights and snow in that notoriously soggy mountain range. The hybrid-insulation Ion 20 fit the specs for that mission, thanks to its blend of high-quality down feathers and synthetic insulation and super warmth for such a lightweight bag.

Read on

Gear Review: Marmot Scandium Sleeping Bag

by

Marmot Scandium sleeping bag.
Marmot Scandium

Three-Season Sleeping Bag
Marmot Scandium (20° F)
$199, 2 lbs. 14 oz. (regular)
Sizes: regular and long ($219)
marmot.com

A backpacking truth: You can say what you want about the details of a bag’s construction, but the real measure of its value comes on nights when you need it to accomplish just one function—keep you warm. Beside Quiet Lake at over 9,200 feet in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains in early October, I awoke to find frost coating much of our gear that we’d left outside the tent; the overnight low had dropped nearly to freezing. And I had not even noticed the cold, snoozing comfortably all night in the Scandium.

Read on