What is the Get Down?
The Get Down is a warm, packable, reliable sleeping bag that's ideally suited to trekking, backpacking and general camping. It features RDS-certified down insulation, ripstop fabrics and a relaxed fit for those who can't stay still in the night.
This particular bag is the women's model, meaning it's a little shorter and features a fit designed specifically for the female frame. This makes it more efficient, lighter and more packable as there's less excess fabric and dead space inside the bag for your body to warm up.
What is it made of?
Insulation: Keeping you warm is 550 fill-power, RDS-certified, PFC-free DriDown. That's a lot of marketing stuff, so let's break down what that actually means! RDS stands for Responsible Down Standard, an organisation that ensures birds have been treated humanely before the down is collected. PFC's are manmade chemicals that are harmful to the environment, so replacing them with a more sustainable alternative just makes sense. Finally, DriDown is a water-repellent coating given to the down during the manufacturing process — this ensures the down retains more warmth and lofts better than untreated down if it happens to get soggy.
Fabrics: Surrounding this is a 20D ripstop polyester on the outside and a 20D taffeta polyester on the inner. The outer fabric has been given a ripstop weave for added durability while the inner goes without it to offer a softer, more comfortable feel next to skin.
What are its features?
A hood cinch allows you to pull the hood of the bag in closer on cold nights to trap more warmth and a useful zipped opening on the top of the bag lets you pop your arms through. Included with the bag is a compression sack for packing the bag down as small as possible on your outdoor adventures, and a loft bag to store the bag when not in use.
- Women's-specific
- DriDown insulation
- PFC-free
- Responsible Down Standard
- 20D ripstop polyester shell
- Hood cinch
- Hand exit to use the bag like a blanket
- Compression and loft bag included
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.