safety in a bag.

GROUND PAD AND ZIPPER STORY

Jerry,

Read your recent post on waterbeds and your mats... Having slept on waterbeds since the 1970s when they were only bags of water that sloshed when you go on them, the batting that they put in them is for wave suppression. One can roll over now without waking up or washing your bed mate overboard....

As for your sleeping mats...I bought a mated set from you back in 1999 and have used nothing but those mats since...well up until two years that is... Then the bones started getting a little old so I added an ultra-light air mattress.

During the winter the mat goes on top for warmth...during the summer the air mattress goes on top as it is a little cooler.

What is nice about this combination is even if the air mattress springs a leak, I still have a warm and comfortable bed to sleep on. Can't tell you how many friends whose self-inflating air mattresses self-deflated during a camping trip...

Have slept many times using just the mat under one of your bags with just a ground cloth between the mat and snow, frozen ground or ice...never been even cool...

Everyone who has one of your bags should have one of the mats to bring out the best in your bags...and one day I'll get one of your new Lux pads...

Bob

I completely agree with Bob’s last statement that “everyone who has one of my bags should have one of my ground pads”. His earlier comment about friends using the self- deflating ground pads refers to thermarest or thermarest knock-offs. This is a situation I have heard about form years with respect to ALL of the hermetically sealed open cell foam filled ground pads. One would think they the manufacturers would make some effort to improve their products, but no they make them worse by reducing the weight which means they reduce the quality of the materials used to make them. Maybe their profit margin is so high they can afford to continually replace them.

Thank you Jerry for getting back with me so quickly. The zipper frequently grabs the fabric and gets caught but this time was worse than ever before and in the process of freeing the fabric the zipper pull broke in half.

I am sending him a new pull today.

I remember you told me years ago to run my fingers along in a manner to hold the fabric back from the zipper but it's not an easy thing to do when you’re cold and shaking. Years ago I had an incident of falling into snowmelt water and immediately went into hypothermia shaking so badly that I nearly ruined my tent trying to get inside. My bag was mostly unzipped already. I got out of the wet clothing crawled into the bag and the zipper jammed. I was able to roll over and pull the bag around me and lay face down to close up the bag. In about an hour I was toasty warm and able to unjam the zipper and had a good night sleep. I have always felt the Wiggy bag saved my life even though I jammed the zipper.

I outfitted all of my family with Wiggy bags after that experience.

Thanks for making the best outdoor products I have ever used.

Dean

Experience is always the best teacher, and when it comes to my sleeping bags I am happy to say they have possibly saved more lives that I will ever know.

For those who do not know I make more Hypothermia bags that all the other companies in the world combined that claim to make a Hypothermia bag. I ship them all over the world because they have gained a justifiable reputation of saving lives. It is as always due to the proper use of the insulation Lamilite/Climashield, there is nothing even close to being as good, and their never will be. Thank you Dean!!!

Did you ever watch Coast Guard Alaska, if so all the choppers carry my Hypothermia bag; they have been doing that since 1993. If you chose to climb Denali and get into trouble and have to be brought off of the mountain in a sled the SAR people put you in a Wiggy’s Hypothermia bag.

The point is that my products perform as they do which is far better than ALL similar products made in the world because of the Lamilite/Climashield insulation.

My sleeping bags I have learned through these past 32 years are under rated by me. it was not done on purpose but field use has shown that my bags and here I’ll mention the Ultima Thule rated at -20 degrees F has been used very successfully at -40 degrees F. I had a letter from one guy who was an army reservist training for 2 two weeks in Alaska and he wrote to me that he sleep in an unheated wall tent in his Ultima Thule at -60 degrees F. With all of this positive feedback should I update the temperature capability, the answer is a resounding NO!!! I sleep better knowing that my bags perform below their assigned temperature rating.

There are NO sleeping bags made in the world that out perform their temperature rating as assigned by the company selling them. As a matter of fact from all that is heard and has been for years these supposed sleeping bags do not ever perform close to those ratings. People realize that when they buy one of them and attempt to use it and that is why they are referred to as “NO SLEEP SLEEPING BAGS”.

So if you want to be protected whenever you chose to go into the bush choosing to have a Wiggy’s bag is the natural choice for safety.