Sierra Designs Arrow Rock Sleeping Bag Review
Sierra Designs, a popular outdoor gear brand that has
been designing and manufacturing various products for both amateur and
professional adventurers since 1965, is renowned more for the utilitarian
focus of its merchandise than for the sleek sexiness of its product styles.
This brand philosophy is echoed by one of its signature bag designs,
the Arrow Rock 30, which is a men’s mummy bag designed to withstand
temperatures of up to 30 degrees F.
The Arrow Rock 30 is not particularly attractive to look at by
today’s bag standards, being rather plain and minimalist.
However, all a bag like this has to do anyway is perform optimally
against the elements and low temperatures of the great outdoors, and in this
area, the Arrow Rock 30 scores winning marks.
The down fill rating of the Arrow Rock 30 is a fine 600
for excellent loft, with both the shell and the liner being made of
polyester. The bag itself
weighs a satisfactory 2 to 3 pounds, and stows away compressed without too
much effort and grunting from its users.
Customers who have purchased the Arrow Rock 30 appreciate that it
comes shipped in a spacious cotton case, so the down fill of the bag does
not get pre-compressed before you actually get to use it.
In the field, the Arrow Rock 30 has shown itself to be
a sturdy construct that holds up well into the limits of its temperature
rating, keeping its user warm even as he becomes more keenly aware of the
coldness of the air outside. The
down fill appears to remain firmly packed in the bag’s baffles after
multiple uses, and the bag seems less susceptible to tearing than other
mummy bags. A welcome feature is
what Sierra Designs refers to as “snag free zipper tracks”, in which the
zipper, made of nylon webbing, is separated from the bag material by
overlying zipper tracks, which minimizes that chance of the zipper teeth
catching on the bag itself. Many
satisfied users are also pleased to report that this is one of the more
spacious mummy bags that are available on the market, with ample foot room
and a little space to shift about during the night.
The Arrow Rock 30 also compresses well into its storage sack,
shrinking into a space about the size of four medium-sized water bottles.
For those of you who like to combine their sleeping bags with a
durable pad, the Arrow Rock 30 comes with a Pad Lock system that allows the
bag to latch onto the pad seamlessly.
Customers do not have much to complain about with the
Arrow 30, but they do still raise a few minor gripes.
The first is that the zipper seems to have a bit of difficulty
getting past the shoulders, as if too much tension is created in the bag
once a person zips himself in.
This results in some narrowness around the shoulder region as well, which
can be constricting, though users with this problem do not report
significant discomfort. Lastly,
the bag lacks a draft collar, which allows a lot of body heat to escape
around the neck and chest area.
This may not be so much of an issue in warmer climate, but could be a factor
when testing the lower limits of the bag’s capacity.
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