The Mountain Equipment Xero range of sleeping bags are designed to be the lightest and most compact packing bags in their entire range. Everything about these minimalist bags screams lightweight, from the Helium fabrics, the pure goose down to the sleek alpine fit. But despite their lightweight and tiny pack size they offer uncompromising performance across the range so you can find a high performance bag to suit your needs.
The Xero 300 is absolutely stuffed with M.E's finest Down 850 this is the very best Goose down sourced from Western Russia, with an actual cluster content of 93% and individually tested to ensure its fill power and meets the stringent requirements of M.E’s unique DOWN CODEX scheme. This scheme was developed to ensure that both animal welfare and down quality were put firmly at the heart of each and every one of M.E's down products. The Down Codex is a completely transparent and auditable system to ensure that:
-
The down used does not come from birds which have been live plucked or live harvested
-
The down used does not come from birds which have been force-fed
-
The down used should be from birds which have raised in good conditions and to high standards of animal welfare
-
The down used should be a by-product of the meat industry and come from birds which have been humanely slaughtered.
Each down product is marked with a 12 digit code that can be entered at the Down Codex website to gain access to the specific information relating to the down source of that product, go to http://www.thedownproject.me.uk/index.php to find out more about how M.E have become the only brand to go beyond accepting written guarantees from down suppliers and to make their audit results and independent quality reports publicly available.
All this high quality and ethically sourced goose down comes from Western Russia where the the birds are raised on small family farms or small-holdings with flock sizes of around 20 birds. The geese live a free-range life with plentiful access to fresh water, food and shelter. Free to roam around the farm-land during the day but returning to small farm-yards each evening. Down is collected from these farms and small-holdings by local suppliers and batched together for cleaning and processing, initially in Russia before being shipped to Germany for final processing.
The Xero 300 is constructed with Helium fabric which is an exceptionally light, compressible and durable fabric. The densely woven fibres ensure the highest levels of down proofing, wind resistance and heat loss to fully maximise the insulation. To further increase the Xero's performance M.E have used their EXL technology inside the sleeping bag, a technology that was first introduced by Mountain Equipment in 1989 and was designed to optimise warmth and maximise the loft of the down. This simple but ingenious technology uses elasticated stitching in the lining of a product that adds no discernible weight but minimises dead airspace around the body and pulls fabric away from the down allowing it to loft to full effect. This has a marked benefit on performance and extensive testing shows that sleeping bags with EXL will be around 2°C warmer than one without it. Whilst sounding like a marginal gain 2°C represents a significant benefit at the lower end of a bags performance range. This can be the difference between recovering and merely surviving whether on long expeditions or a fast moving alpine climb.
To stop the down moving around the bag and to maximise loft and insulation M.E have used internal slanted box wall baffles for stability and minimal weight and the superbly shaped foot section uses 4 trapezoid baffles to surround your feet with maximum warmth with minimal weight. A high percentage of your body heat is lost through your head so Mountain Equipment have developed the DC7 hood which uses 7 baffles to create a truly anatomical shape to surround your head with luxurious warmth. To further optimise insulation M.E have used their clever Solus collar and baffle which uses a single anti-snag draft tube and semi-floating neck collar and features a wider and deeper baffle chamber to improve stability and maximise loft making it the perfect combination of warmth versus weight. One other clever design feature worth mentioning is the use of Ground Level Seams, these maximise the thermal efficiency of the bag by allowing the top-layer of insulation to fully wrap around your body; this means that you get fewer cold spots and greater temperature control.
-
850+ fill power goose down
-
Helium fabrics
-
EXL technology
-
Ground level seams
-
Trapezuium 4 foot box construction
-
Slanted box wall internal baffles
-
DC7 hood
-
Solus collar
-
3/4 length left hand zip
How warm a sleeping bag do you really need? We’ve tried to help you by grouping our sleeping bags by their recognised comfort ratings. These are the ratings supplied by the brands that indicate the temperature at which you will remain comfortable whilst sleeping on an insulated sleep mat. After all, comfort is what you want when it’s cold and wet outside, and you’re all tucked up in your nice warm sleeping bag.
We always recommend that you choose your bag according to the coldest conditions you will experience; you can always unzip a bag if it is too warm, but trying to sleep when you’re too cold is just miserable. Bear in mind that we are all individuals, so we all feel the cold differently and that our own resistance will fluctuate depending on a whole load of factors, including how much we have eaten, whether we have consumed alcohol, whether we need a wee or what kind of mood we are in!
Sleeping bags do not generate heat; they only trap the heat we produce, so it is vital that you get into your bag when you are giving off warmth, don’t go to bed when you are cold, have a hot meal or a hot drink or do some brisk exercise to get you nicely warmed up.
Traditionally sleeping bag manufacturers provided their own temperature ratings based on their experience, the product's intended end-use and the perceived environment. However, each brand tested their bags in different ways, and it was hard to find a fair comparison between models. So, in 2005 a European standard for sleeping bag temperature ratings, EN 13537, was introduced to give consumers a comparable guide to sleeping bag performance across a range of brands and models. The ratings have four different temperature ratings to give you an indication of the bag's performance.
Comfort Rating: This is the temperature at which an average female should experience a comfortable night’s sleep. On average, women sleep colder than men, so this rating is some degrees above the "comfort lower limit" for a man.
Comfort Limit Rating: This is the lowest temperature at which an average male should experience a comfortable night’s sleep whilst laid down in a curled up position.
Extreme: This is a survival rating where the user is likely to suffer health damage such as Hypothermia. It should be treated with the utmost caution and not be relied on for general use.
However, the EN 13537 European Standard does not apply to down-filled sleeping bags with a fill weight of more than 800g; for those bags, you will have to rely on the manufacturer's experience and technical expertise, which is often more accurate!
Most reputable brands still use their own rating system alongside EN 13537, for instance, Mountain Equipment's “Good Night’s Sleep” and Rab’s “Sleep Limit”. These ratings are often the most accurate guide to the overall performance of a sleeping bag being used by an average outdoor enthusiast because they are based on years of expedition heritage, field trials, technological experience, and constant feedback.
But please bear in mind that all ratings are only a guide and, as mentioned earlier, there are a huge range of factors that can affect your comfort; if you are just not sure, it is always wise to go for a warmer model.
The biggest difference you can make to your overall comfort is to use an efficiently insulated sleeping mat. Once you get inside your sleeping bag, you instantly compress all the filling beneath you, greatly reducing its efficiency. Therefore using a quality sleep mat will ensure you are properly insulated from the cold ground, and you will be a lot more comfortable... Basically, there is no point in buying a top-quality sleeping bag if you are just going to lie down on the floor.