[at-l] Good light inexpensive sleeping bag for a FT thru-hike

[dajones at isp.com (David A Jones)]

David Jessop wrote:

>I am planning on hiking the FT starting on January 15th and need to
>purchase a new sleeping bag for my hike as the old one's insulation is
>worn out. I believe that one rates to 15 degrees F will be sufficient
>and I would like the bag to be light and inexpensive. I've faired well
>with mummy bags with down filling. Any specific suggestions would be
>helpful, especially on inexpensive, overstock, last year's models,
>etc. Thanks a lot!
>  
>
My opinions on gear are not worth reading.  But I do have some recent 
experience to share on purchasing gear on sale over the internet.  I am 
pleased with purchases from campmor.com and backcountry.com.  A decent 
Campmor order ships free and arrives quickly.  Campmor has a good 
selection and offers some genuine bargains.  I purchased a zero degree 
down bag from them recently which I am so far pleased with.  Backcountry 
operates responsibly too: it is especially nice that they show an in 
stock count on items.  That is more important than you might think.

Being in the market for EVERYTHING, I started by looking for gear 
bargains with froogle.com and mysimon.com.  I got my bag from Campmor, 
and pack from Backcountry, both on sale, just fine.  But the tent was a 
different story.  My first attempt to purchase a tent on sale was from 
approachgear.com.  They strung me along for a about a week before 
admitting that the tent was sold out, and couldn't I consider this other 
tent.  My second attempt to get the tent I wanted on sale was at 
outek.com aka thetentstore.com.  This also failed for the same 
out-of-stock reason.  I finally purchased the tent I wanted from 
backcountry.com full retail (campmor wasn't carrying it).  So, my advice 
is to proceed with caution, and if you are in a hurry to get your bag, 
but dealing on the internet with someplace you don't know, call them 
before you give them your credit card number to be sure they can fill 
your order.