It is sometime after 2am. You rolled onto your side an hour ago, pulled a knee up, and the quilt came with you. Now there is a draft of cold air running down your back from your shoulder blade to your hip. You tuck the quilt. It holds for twenty minutes. You roll again and it opens again.
The quilt is rated for tonight's low. The pad is fine. You are still lying there counting the hours until the sun clears the ridge.
Plenty of experienced backpackers have used a quilt and still gone back to a bag. That decision usually gets framed as going soft on weight. It is more specific than that, and it is worth understanding properly before you spend money in either direction.
Key Takeaways
- Quilts remove insulation under your body because compressed down does not loft, and loft is what insulates. This saves a lot of weight in your backpack.
- Drafts come from the open edge, and they show up when you move, not when you lie still. Some quilts alleviate those drafts better than others.
- The weight savings are real, and a quilt is still the lightest option. However there are some real reasons to consider other factors like overall comfort and sleep quality when choosing between a bag or a quilt.
- A quilt gives a side sleeper freedom but also more potential cold drafts.
- If the lowest possible weight is the goal, stay with the quilt. If you gave up sleep quality to get there, the tradeoff is worth revisiting.
In This Article
- Why do backpackers move to a quilt in the first place?
- What actually causes a draft in a quilt?
- Why does the same quilt feel different on different trips?
- Does a quilt really save that much weight?
- Are quilts bad for side sleepers?
- Who should stay with a quilt?
- What would a bag have to do to be worth the ounces?
- How do you decide which one you need?
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why do backpackers move to a quilt in the first place?
People switch for the weight. A quilt cuts the parts of a bag that don't do much.
Down insulates by trapping air in its loft. Down that is crushed flat has no loft, so it does very little. The down underneath you in a sleeping bag spends the night compressed between your body and your sleeping pad, which means you are carrying insulation that is not insulating.
A quilt gets rid of it. No bottom, no full length zipper, less fabric. Your pad handles the ground, which it was doing anyway.
That's one of the reasons quilts became so popular in the first place. They eliminate a significant amount of weight from your pack when compared to a sleeping bag.
What actually causes a draft in a quilt?
Maintaining a consistent seal around the edges of a quilt while you're asleep can be tough.
A quilt is not an enclosure. It is a seal you maintain, and you are maintaining it unconsciously all night long.
Roll onto a hip and the edge lifts off the pad for a second. That second does more damage than it should: warm air out, cold air in, and the exchange repeats every time you shift.
This is why a quilt can feel perfect if you sleep flat on your back or don't move around much. But if you shift around much or flip from one side to the other at night, many quilts can allow a lot of cold drafts in.
It's worth noting that some quilts manage this better than others with a shape that wraps more naturally around you and multiple pad straps that can help hold that seal.
Why does the same quilt feel different on different trips?
It's usually because of the pad, not the quilt itself.
The temperature rating on a sleeping bag comes from ISO 23537, the test standard that replaced EN 13537. The protocol puts a heated mannequin in the bag wearing a base layer, and it specifies a sleeping pad with an R-value of 5.38. That is the condition the number describes.
Sleep on meaningfully less pad than that and the number stops applying.
A quilt that was fine in July and failed you in late September may be performing identically in both cases. What changed is how much heat the ground was pulling out from under you, and whether the pad you carry was ever rated for it.
Before you buy anything, check two numbers: the R-value of the pad you actually carry, and the overnight low the last time you got cold.
Does a quilt really save that much weight?
Traditionally, quilts save weight. But there's more to it than that.
Removing the underside insulation and the full length zipper takes out both fill and fabric. A side by side comparison of a quilt and a mummy bag at the same rating will traditionally show a quilt to be significantly lighter.
However, our new Expanse Sleeping Bag narrows this gap.
At 15F Regular, bag only, our StormLoft TopQuilt is 1 lb 8.3 oz and our Expanse Sleeping Bag is 1 lb 13 oz. That is about a five ounce difference.
When weight isn't very different between options, the more useful question is not how much a bag weighs against a quilt, but what the extra weight gets you. Here is the same rating across three of our own sleep systems, so the tradeoff is visible rather than argued.
| 15F Regular | Weight, bag only | Fill power | Room to move |
|---|---|---|---|
| StormLoft TopQuilt | 1 lb 8.3 oz | 800 | Open design, no fixed interior width |
| Expanse Sleeping Bag | 1 lb 13 oz | 900 | 27.5 in at the knee, adjustable |
Which system is best for side sleepers?
How to maximize warmth for people that move in their sleep
Backpackers who feel trapped in a mummy cut often say a quilt was the first thing that let them sleep normally outside with more flexibility to move or kick a limb out to vent on warm nights. Quilts can offer significantly more comfort to side sleepers than a traditional mummy bag.
However on colder nights those same quilt users often find that it's tricky to keep out cold drafts as they shift. Movements like flipping from one side to the other often break the "seal" around the edges of your quilt. This allows heat to escape, and cold air to creep in.
The Expanse helps to eliminate this problem since it has symmetrical down distribution no matter which way you're facing or how you move with the sleeping bag. You can toss & turn without any cold drafts.
Since the expanse is spacious by design, you also don't feel trapped like you would inside a traditional mummy-shaped sleeping bag.
Who should stay with a quilt?
If you're happy with your sleep quality, don't change it.
Stay with the quilt if the lowest weight in your sleep system is the priority, if you sleep mostly on your back, if you have your pad attachment dialed, or if you run warm and value being able to vent a leg out on a mild night. Quilts do those things better than any bag.
We build the StormLoft TopQuilt for exactly those people and we would rather point you there than sell you something heavier that you don't need.
What makes a sleeping bag worth the extra ounces?
Solve the confinement problem without handing back the draft problem.
The reason a quilt felt like freedom is that a traditional mummy bag is cut narrow to stay thermally efficient. Narrow is warm because there is less air inside for your body to heat. The cost is that you sleep in the position the bag chose.
So a bag that wants to compete has to be cut wide enough to move in, then give you a way to take the extra air back out when it gets cold. That is the design purpose behind the Expanse Sleeping Bag. It is 30 inches across the shoulders and 27.5 inches at the knee, with a 13.5 inch minimum inside width at the footbox, so you can roll onto your side and draw your knees up. Elastic cords run inside the bag in adjustment zones, and cinching one closes down the volume in that section. Because the cords sit inside the shell, they reduce the air you are heating without compressing the down.
A 23.5 inch cinchable draft collar seals at the shoulders and draft tubes run behind the half length side zipper. Down is distributed symmetrically, so the bag performs the same whichever way you turn it, and you can put the zipper on whichever side suits your pad and your tent door.
It is hoodless, because your jacket hood or a beanie already covers your head.
Deciding Which One You Need
Ask what actually went wrong on your worst night out.
If the answer is that you were carrying too much, a quilt is probably the right choice.
If the answer is that you were cold along one side every time you turned over, that is an edge sealing problem, and no amount of fill weight fixes it. Opting for an intuitive quilt design that wraps around you more naturally like our StormLoft Topquilt will likely improve your experience.
To completely eliminate the risk of cold drafts when you turn over, the Expanse Sleeping Bag is the best option without adding much weight to your pack.
Both the StormLoft quilt and the Expanse are highly reliable products that have been tested extensively in the Rockies. If you've got more scenario-specific questions you'd like help with, please message us at support@outdoorvitals.com. We'd be happy to point you in the right direction.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do backpacking quilts get drafty?
They can, and the draft comes from the open edge where the quilt seals against your body and your pad. The seal holds while you lie still and breaks when you roll over or shift position. A wider quilt and a well designed pad attachment system both reduce it, but managing the seal is part of using a quilt.
Q: Is a quilt warmer than a sleeping bag?
At the same comfort rating they should perform similarly. The difference is consistency. A bag encloses you regardless of position, while a quilt depends on the seal along its edges being maintained through the night.
Q: How much lighter is a quilt than a sleeping bag?
Less than most people expect. At the same comfort rating a quilt and a well built bag often land within a few ounces of each other. Our StormLoft TopQuilt is 1 lb 8.3 oz at 15F Regular and our Expanse Sleeping Bag is 1 lb 13 oz, a difference of about five ounces, bag only. The gap grows at colder ratings.
Q: Is a roomy sleeping bag heavier than a mummy bag?
Not necessarily. Extra interior volume usually costs weight, because there is more fabric and more air to heat, but higher fill power down can offset it. At 15F Regular our Expanse Sleeping Bag weighs 1 lb 13 oz, the same as our traditional mummy cut Summit Down Sleeping Bag at that rating, while measuring 27.5 inches at the knee against the Summit's 19.7 inches.
Q: Is a quilt or a sleeping bag better for a side sleeper?
Both help with something different. A quilt removes the fixed tube that keeps a mummy bag fighting you when you turn. A bag removes the open edge that lets in a draft when you turn. A side sleeper who likes the freedom of a quilt but wakes up cold along one side is running into the second problem, not the first.
Q: Why do quilts have no insulation underneath?
Because down insulates through loft, and the down beneath you is compressed flat between your body and your pad all night. Compressed down does very little, so quilts remove it and rely on the sleeping pad for insulation from the ground.
Q: Are backpacking quilt temperature ratings accurate?
They vary more than sleeping bag ratings do, because sleeping bags have an industry test standard, ISO 23537, and quilts do not. Some quilt makers voluntarily run the sleeping bag protocol and others set ratings in house, so two quilts carrying the same number may not have been evaluated the same way.
Q: What sleeping pad R-value do I need for my sleeping bag's rating to apply?
The ISO 23537 test that produces a sleeping bag's rating uses a pad with an R-value of 5.38. If your pad is below that, expect to sleep colder than the number suggests. How much colder depends on the bag and the conditions rather than on any published formula.
Shop the Expanse Sleeping Bag | Shop the StormLoft TopQuilt
About the Author
Derek Rasmussen, Marketing Director at Outdoor Vitals. Derek Rasmussen is a backpacker & mountain adventurer based in southern Utah. He has logged thousands of trail miles across the American West, from multi-day sections of the Colorado Trail to routes through the Tushar Mountains where Outdoor Vitals gear is field-tested. Every piece he writes is grounded in firsthand experience with the gear, not specs pulled from a box.
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