I did it all for the Nooksack! The Nooksack! So you can take that cookie, and shove it up your… wait; isn’t that pastry abuse? Why waste a perfectly good cookie is all I’m saying, when you could eat it in the comfort of your very own Limp Bizkit-approved sleeping bag.
REI’s Nooksack is an ultralight bag for women weighing in at just under two pounds (the bag, not the women). It uses Primaloft MXL, a variant developed exclusively for REI, with all the normal benefits of synthetic fill, most importantly the ability to maintain insulation value when wet. The Nooksack compresses well, although you’ll need to buy a separate compression sack. The differential layering varies the fill weight to concentrate more where it’s needed, less where it ain’t, and the hood, full-length zipper draft tube and dual drawstring for the face opening all add warmth. There’s even a much-appreciated internal zipper pocket that for some reason isn’t mentioned in the product description.
So how SheFlogger-friendly is the Nooksack? Like almost all sleeping bags the temperature rating is optimistic. If you’re a warm sleeper and/or you don’t mind sleeping with a layer or two on you might be comfortable at the +30F rating. If you’re used to sleeping au natural and/or you’re a normal to cold sleeper think more in the 40 to 50 degree range. Always remember to add the pad: it doesn’t matter what your bag is rated to if you’re sleeping on the heat-sucking ground. Two honorable mentions: REI makes the best zipper pulls out there, with a sticky little rubber nub, and the bag is velcro-free so your base layer won’t look like a rat’s nest after a couple nights.