ALPS Mountaineering Compression Sack
Oct 15th, 2010 by Admin 1
I have had an old REI Mummy Bag for years now and don’t, for the life of me, remember what happened to the original stuff sack it came with. Over the years, I have been using misc. methods of compressing my sleeping bag to suit how I have my backpack organized. Last June I broke down and bought one of the ALPS Mountaineering Compression Sacks (Small) from Backcountry.com to use for my sleeping bag.
All in all, its working out okay. A couple of things: (1) The straps
on all four sides are longer than I liked but work to allow you to compress whatever you have down to about 12 inches with the (sm). If there was one available at the time I probably would have bought an extra small to compress even further down to about 9in. I ended up trimming the straps while out on the A.T. and burnt the ends so they don’t fray. The other thing is the weight. Alps mountaineering doesn’t list the weight, at least anywhere I’ve looked but if your concerned about every ounce I’d say its a bit on the heavy side. It does have a compartment in front as you can see from the picture I’ve included which may be helpful to some. A small ultralight dry sac may be more useful since its waterproof but that depends on the room you have in your pack, you be the judge. Bottom line: This compression sack is very durable, well constructed, & does what it’s designed to do, but isn’t ideal for ultra light backpacking.
