Sweet Dreams With The Exped Comfort -5C Down Sleeping Bag
For the past three years, I’ve been fitting four seasons’ worth of camping and canoeing into two sleeping bags: one rated for summer only and the other -40C. As you might guess, I was usually comfortable for two of those seasons, but decidedly uncomfortable for the other two! When I had the chance to select some new gear from The Canadian Outdoor Equipment Co., I jumped at the opportunity. My top priority was a new sleeping bag, especially with a long trip into Wabakimi Provincial Park on my horizon. I’m now back from that trip, and boy was I happy to have that new bag with me!
The bag I selected was the EXPED COMFORT -5C 20F bag. A versatile, feature-rich down bag, mummy style, that proved itself absolutely ideal for my needs. EXPED’s line of Comfort bags are more roomy than typical mummy bags, with a very generous cut for people that like or need extra room (i.e. me; I find typical mummy bags almost claustrophobic).
It’s filled with 700+ cubic inches of ethically sourced European down, and a QR code inside the bag can tell you exactly the composition of your down and how much is in your bag (mine was tested at 731 cubic inches).
I’m generally a stomach sleeper, occasionally on my side, and only on my back when I’m exhausted. It was because of my sleeping style that I “toughed it out” using my summer bag in colder conditions than I should have for so long: it’s rectangular-shaped and gives me lots of room to move around. What I quickly discovered that I loved with the EXPED Comfort bag was that it completely unzips from top to bottom, even including the lofty foot area!
This meant that on warm nights, of which I experienced more than a week’s worth in Wabakimi, I could open up the bag and use it like a quilt. That made sleeping on my stomach about as close to my home bed as you can get in the woods (especially with my existing wide sleeping pad).
As always, the weather on trips up north can surprise you. After eight days of July-like weather, a cold front moved in and the highs for the day went down to only 4C, with lows hovering around zero. Throw in five days of rain at the same time, and suddenly zipping that sleeping bag up all the way to your neck is the only way you feel warm! This was when I was very happy to have a mummy bag, and the soft “draft collar” at the top really helped me feel warm.
During the coldest nights I even cinched up the bag’s puffy hood to keep my head warm. Even when I was in the bag in full “mummy mode”, I never felt that tight constriction that I get from other mummy bags; the extra roominess the designers built in really works!
It seems that as I get older, keeping my feet warm is harder than it used to be. One attribute of the EXPED Comfort -5C that really helped in this area was the lofty “footbox” at the bottom of the bag. Rather than just being a flat tapered section of the bag, the footbox is taller and plush, almost like the equivalent of a large “hood” for your feet. It worked well for me and my feet were always comfortable.
Earlier I described the bag as “feature rich”, and that was primarily due to two capabilities of the bag that I think are unique. I don’t know about you, but it seems whenever I’m all zipped up for the night in a mummy bag, I realize I forgot something that I wanted to do or needed, e.g. bring a water filter cartridge into the bag for the night to protect it from freezing, or store my glasses safely, or hang up my headlamp. That usually means un-cinching drawstrings, trying to turn from one side to the other, or generally unzipping yourself to get your arms free.
The EXPED Comfort bag has a well-placed zippered arm slot on the side of the bag opposite the main zipper! You can easily open this zipper from inside the bag and stick your arm out to grab whatever you need. If you need both your arms, you can stick one out the main zipper, and the other out this secondary arm slot, giving you full access to move around without making any other adjustments; that’s pretty cool and a feature I used often!
The second feature is that the bag’s footbox has its own zipper that lets you unzip the footbox completely, allowing your feet to stick out the bottom of the bag. I believe the main idea here is that by using both the arm slot feature and footbox unzipping capability, you can stand up and move around, transforming your bag into a long, insulated puffy jacket! Personally, I didn’t use that feature since the cold weather coincided with heavy rain, so there was no way I was taking my bag out of my tent! That said, I did use the footbox zipper another way: after many days of rain, all my socks were wet (very uncomfortable). The only way to dry out my socks was to wring them out, then wear them uncovered for a while until they were dry enough from body heat for me to bring into my bag to warm further. Since I didn’t want to get my sleeping bag damp, I put on my socks, unzipped the foot box of the sleeping bag and stuck them out the bottom while the rest of me was cozy, zipped up in my bag! I’d read like this for a while, letting my socks slowly dry, and with zero concern of getting my sleeping bag wet. I was very happy to have this capability!
A couple of other minor features include an inside zippered pocket around the chest area of the bag (which I used to store ear plus), and glow in the dark zipper pulls; a surprisingly helpful feature when you need to get out of your bag in the middle of the night for “nature calls”.
Of course, all these features and the bag’s versatility would be of questionable value if the bag didn’t keep me warm when I really needed it to. Well, no worries there: even on the coldest of nights, I was very comfortable and was able to easily manage my warmth. In fact, probably due to habits using my old summer bag, I started out the trip wearing an unnecessary extra layer while going to bed on cold nights. I quickly discarded the extra layers, and reverted to simply sleeping in my underwear, opening or tightening the neck collar and hood as needed. One other note regarding the hood: when you don’t want to use it, it can fully open up lying flat; it’s not permanently in “hood mode” like some other bags I’ve used.
The bottom line here is that this EXPED Comfort -5C bag has filled a huge hole in my gear collection! “Shoulder Seasons” were previously difficult ones with the gear I had, but this bag gives me huge flexibility now. If you’re looking for a great bag in this temperature range, I seriously recommend you give it a try. If you’re looking at a competing brand, weigh it against the features, versatility and attention to detail of this bag before making your decision.
Lastly, I should note that the EXPED Comfort -5C bag comes with a waterproof bag (fully seam sealed/taped!) for packing, AND an airy mesh storage bag to safely keep the bag in a way that doesn’t compress the down when it’s not being used. Just two more examples of the thought that EXPED puts into its products. Sweet dreams!
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Ron Breault
Ron spent most of his life in the Montreal-Toronto-Ottawa corridor, providing him with great access to some of Canada's finest paddling destinations. A lifelong photographer, Ron's favourite subjects are landscapes, wildlife, and anything involving paddling, camping, or backpacking. He recently purchased his second Swift Canoe, which resulted in his nickname, Swifty Paddler. In 2021, Ron stepped away from a senior management position in the software industry to pursue photography full time. He's now working at growing his practice. Ron is married to the love of his life, has two adult daughters, and resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
