Perhaps a dumb question, but what's the harm in asking? I've a Salsa Anything Cradle and the ~14 litre dry bag that's made for it. This has happily fitted my sleeping kit to date, but having taken advice from you lot on better cold weather kit now have a chunkier mat and extra bag liner to accommodate than in the past. Capacity wise this all fits in the double-ended dry bag ok, but ends up being far from a nice cylindrical shape, looking somewhat like my torso squeezed into an Italian-sized large jersey. The longest/biggest items, the sleeping bag and mat, are too long to fit end to end, yet deform any cylinder when placed side by side.
Am I missing a packing trick? Should I do away with the individual sacks and aim to make a roll with bag(s) and mat or something? Leave it lopsided and just cinch it up into the cradle as-is?
What I do is just put sleeping bag and therm-a-rest inside my bivvy bag, then roll it all up. So when I want to deploy it I just unroll it, inflate the therm-a-rest and I'm ready to climb into bed.
Yup, do away with the individual stuff sacks and let stuff fill the space better, will make a big difference.
Put more rigid things in first, like a rolled up sleeping mat, then stuff softer things like sleeping bags in around them. If you need to separate things with dry bags, it can be helpful to stuff the empty dry bag in first, then stuff e.g. sleeping bag into the open end to allow it to fill the space.
Very rigid things like your pole could be pushed in last if necessary.
My double ended bag is not even as my winter sleeping r bag is too big so gets stuffed at one end and the rest goes in ( being soft and not fully compressed. This side will then squash when I pull the harness straps) It's more important the weight is even than it looks even
You could take the cape out and stuff that to make it even but this won't really work when it's wet same with the bag liner or get a bigger bag
Edit : my sleeping bag ( non down) has to be in a bag or it just huge)
I put the poles between straps and harness so outside as they don't need to be dry and I worry they will poke out a bag rendering it no longer a dry bag.
Thanks all. I was thinking I needed the compression sack for the sleeping bag at least to keep it compact, but even doing away with that and stuffing it around mat and poles/tyvek is filling the space better. With all the stuff pictured above in and squashed, there was still room for top-to-toe baselayer plus insulated jacket and oh so round! Job's a good un.
Hyppy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 3:36 pm
Thanks all. I was thinking I needed the compression sack for the sleeping bag at least to keep it compact, but even doing away with that and stuffing it around mat and poles/tyvek is filling the space better. With all the stuff pictured above in and squashed, there was still room for top-to-toe baselayer plus insulated jacket and oh so round! Job's a good un.
