I am a 17 year old backpacker trying to go lite for this season. I am on a very limited budget and want to make the most of my purchases. I missed the recent REI sale but i found an new REI sub kilo 20 for $150 on eBay and am wondering if i should purchase it. It would be by far my most expensive piece of gear but i hear it is a good bag. I hear the temperature rating is more like 30 but i don't plan on hiking below freezing very often.What do you all think? This is a very large purchase for me? Any advice would be helpful! Thanks.

i just got my REI sub kilo when it was on sale about a week ago. I was in the same boat as you. 20 years old, not a lot of money, but needing a good sleeping bag. Even though i haven't tested my bag yet since it is still snowy up here in moscow, it looks and seems like a fantastic bag especially for the money. I would love to help you out with more of in depth, first hand review, but all i can give you is my first impressions. I would say go for it. Great bang for the buck.

The main difficulty with the Sub Kilo is that it has a fairly narrow cut and if you are broad shouldered or broad chested you may well find the space inside feels too constricted for you. If you are somewhat narrow shouldered, as I am, then it works pretty darned well and is a good buy at $150.

The chances are that another forum member will recommend that you save all your pennies until you can afford a Western Mountaineering or Feathered Friends bag. They are indeed high quality stuff that should last you for more than a decade of good use.

That is another way to go, but a darned hard way for a young person with extremely limited means. I bet $150 probably seems like a whole lot to you, and if that's so, it IS a lot. If you can stand the Sub Kilo, it will give you a couple hundred nights of warmth.

BTW, the only way to make that Sub Kilo bag a +20 is to pull your head in and cinch the top opening down to just your nose and mouth exposed, while also wearing some long underwear - just so you know.

Thanks. I have very narrow shoulders so the fit should be an attribute. All the mens REI sub kilos are long so i am thinking of getting the womens REI sub kilo 15 long. I don't need the long in mens and the extra warmth might be helpful; my concern is it will be to warm for summer. What do you think?

I would also recommend looking at the REI Zephyr 20 bag. It's a synthetic bag that isn't cut too narrow like some other bags do in order to cut down on weight (like...almost every North Face bag I got in at REI). It's very warm, in fact I was hot in it at 40F and had to remove the separate mummy liner I bought and stripped down to my boxers and a thin pair of socks (and I was STILL a bit toasty.) By morning the temp had dropped to 32F or so and I was comfortable.

I bought it at REI in late December for $75 on sale only to see it for $40 at the January sale. They wouldn't price match it for me...I'm tempted to use the return policy to get my money back out of spite. I can understand if it's >60 days later or so and not matching, but within a month getting burned by almost 50% kinda stings. It's no longer online and I doubt stores will still have it, but you might find it dirt cheap on ebay if someone bought a few at that $40 price.

Too warm? OK, I see you're in Oregon, so I may be able to help there. On balmier nights in July or August a Sub Kilo is going to be too warm to sleep inside of for much of the night, even at 6000 feet. What you do is unzip it and lay it partly over yourself, then readjust as the night cools.

By the same token, it is very possible to see hard frost at altitude any night in July or August in the High Cascades or Wallowas. All you need is a cool front followed by clearing skies and you can be sub-freezing before midnight.