Lessons Learned from our Test Run Camping Trip: Read Gear Instructions

Read all the instructions on your equipment. The two older boys were in the backpacking tent and the little one was in the big tent in the double sleeping bag with us. I hadn't measured the sleeping pads and gave the boys in the other tent the two smaller ones and kept the big ones for us. I couldn’t get the new sleeping bag to fit onto our ground pads, so we just laid it on top, figuring that would be fine. I wasn't worried about rolling of the pads or anything.

This was a big mistake. It only got down to 50 degrees that night, which is reasonably warm and should have been fine with a sleeping bag rated to 15 degrees, but my husband was cold the whole time. As we discovered, the Big Agnes system means that there is no insulation in the bottom of the sleeping bag, so if you don’t attach it to the ground pads and you roll around at all at night, someone will end up covered only by the thin bottom layer.

We almost returned the bag, figuring it wasn't going to work for us and we should just get two separate regular mummy bags to use instead, but I thought another test run with the bag would be a good idea, just in our backyard. I measured the pads and found that the long one was too long. If I'd given that one to the kids, we might have been okay. The air-inflated one and the regular-sized Ridge Rest sort of fit. The Ridge Rest slides underneath a bit, but I can get the bag attached--it works like a fitted sheet. We learned from our tests with the bag at home that when it's properly put together, we can sleep comfortably all the way down to at least 24 degrees outside. Had I followed the instructions from the beginning, we wouldn't have had such an uncomfortable start to our adventure.