Two Cold Nights in the Den and Why We Bought Emergency Sleeping Bags

The coldest I have ever been in my own house had nothing to do with the mail route.

It was the dark before dawn on the last night of the ice storm this past January, in the den, with a quilt over me and the wood stove down to a few red spots. Three days without power will teach you what your house is like once it stops working.

Here is how we got there. Freezing rain came in on a Tuesday evening and brought a limb down on the line. Hollis and I stayed home the whole time. The wood stove kept that one room at about 62 degrees, and Wednesday and Thursday nights we slept in there on the floor under quilts instead of going back to the bedroom.

The thing I bought afterward was a Go Time Gear Life Bivy emergency sleeping bag. I bought two, one for me and one for Hollis, in February. They pack down small, about the size of a soda can. I put them in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and did not think much about them again until I took mine out for a test.

I am not going to tell you a thin plastic bag replaces a real sleeping bag, or that owning one makes you ready for anything. It does not. What I will tell you is what it did on my sofa in February, and how I plan to use it, under the quilts, on the next cold night.

It warmed up fast. It also crinkled like a feed sack every time I moved, and after an hour the inside was damp from my own body.

The listing calls it a one person emergency sleeping bag. Polyethylene on the outside, a heat reflecting lining on the inside, and Go Time Gear says it holds up to 90 percent of your body heat. I cannot measure that, so I am giving you the label's number and not one of mine. The listing also says it works as a sleeping bag, as a blanket, or as a liner inside a regular sleeping bag.

The listing puts the bag at 4.1 ounces, and about 5.6 ounces with the stuff sack, the whistle and the 20 feet of paracord attached to it. The whistle is listed at 120 decibels. I have never blown it and I have never untied the cord. They are there, and that is all I know about them.

Late in February I took mine out of the cedar chest and got into it on the den sofa the way you get into a sleeping bag, with a quilt over the top, and lay there about an hour with the heat on. It warmed up fast. It also crinkles, loudly, every time you move, and after about an hour the inside was damp from my own body, because the material does not breathe. I got out, wiped it dry, let it air overnight, and rolled it back into the sack, which took a few tries. Hollis never opened his. It is still in its sack.

When the next cold night comes, I will get into it in the den, under the quilts, not instead of them. It is one more layer, and that is how I would use it. It is thin plastic, so keep it away from the wood stove, candles and any open flame, and keep your face out at the top. Never bring a camp stove, a grill or a generator indoors to stay warm. Follow what your local officials and your utility tell you, and if your county opens a warming center, go.

You might ask why not just keep more quilts in the den. We do keep quilts in the den. The trouble is that a quilt is only as good as the room around it, and when the stove goes down the quilt stops being enough. The bag does something a quilt cannot, which is hold your own heat against you instead of letting it drift off into a cold room. It is not warmer than a good quilt on a normal night. On a bad night it is the layer underneath the quilt that matters.

Both bags live in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, on top of the spare quilts. They are not in the hall closet with the power station, they are not in the backpack by the door, and they are not in the pickup. Neither has been used in an outage since February, because there has not been an outage since February. That is the honest report.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

What I would tell you if we were sitting at my kitchen table is this. What got me was not a disaster. It was being cold in a house I have lived in a long time, with the heat sitting right there in the den and no way to keep it going until morning. You do not need a wall of gear for that. You need a layer, and you need it small enough that you do not talk yourself out of buying it.

If you want a number, I would give the Go Time Gear Life Bivy 8 out of 10. It crinkles, it goes damp inside, and getting it back into the sack is a chore. But it did what the label said it would, it takes up no room, and both of ours are in the cedar chest where I can put a hand on them in the dark. Buy two. Then put them where you can reach them without a flashlight.