Western Mountaineering Apache Sleeping Bag (Long)

Warmer and 200 grams lighter than a Rab Neutrino Endurance 600 with enough room inside for a comfortable nights sleep and to layer up if required, the Western Mountaineering Apache MF is still a slim cut lightweight, ideal for high Alpine summer trekking, hut to hut, and all but the worst U.K winters conditions.

So how do they do it?
Western Mountaineering call upon over 30 years of design experience and use a combination of the latest technologies and the best quality materials.
Here are some of the features that make the difference between a good down bag and a great one:

Design Detail.
Different bags in the Western Mountaineering range have different design details according to their intended purpose and place in the range, but one or two ideas prevail overall.

Light weight through simplicity: The more panels of material there are on a sleeping bag the more seams there are and the folds of material add weight. Making a bag out of large single sheets means more material off-cuts and that adds cost to the final product, but it adds value as well and that’s why you will never see a Western bag with an array of different coloured patches.

Differential cuts: Some manufacturers use one template or ‘pattern’ for the inner and outer of their bags (lining and shell). This saves on production costs, but the bag will lose performance and you will feel the cold anywhere your body presses against the inside of the bag. This is because the down between the two fabrics is crushed and down that isn’t lofted isn’t fulfilling its potential of trapping air to keep you warm.

Western Mountaineering use a different pattern for the lining and shell, so the inner is smaller than the outer. Much like one tube being inside another tube with a gap in-between for the down to loft. This is called a differential cut and you will notice the benefit on your toes, knees, hips and shoulders.

Usable zips: A simple laminated plastic strip is all it takes to make a sleeping bag zip work well.
It adds just a few grams to the bag overall, but it is worth its weight in gold. How many times have you been desperate to get in, or out of a sleeping bag and the damn zip has jammed. Mostly ,that’s frustrating, but a badly jammed zip can damage your bag, or it could even be dangerous if you were really cold, with frozen fingers and needed to be in your bag quick.
We should always take care when zipping our sleeping bags, but the Western Mountaineering zips are a pleasure to use.

Baffles and hoods: All the winter sleeping bags on the EMS site have full length 3D zip and shoulder baffles. Take a close look at the photos, especially at the shoulder baffles. They are sewn into a delightfully fat tube which inflates with the down inside to make a very cosy and warm baffle around the neck. The hoods can be drawn up snug around the head to leave nothing more than a breath hole and covering the temple and eyes with warm soft material.
[I felt like my eyeballs were freezing solid in their sockets on the Klein Matterhorn in a snow bivi 2009 Adam]

Adjustable warmth and seasonal flexibility with continuous main baffles:
The Apache MF and the Antelope MF both have a continuous main baffles which encircle the bag from the zip , all the way under, up and over the top and back to the zip. This feature allows you to customise the performance of your sleeping bag, so one bag will get used in more seasons . [All U.K. seasons] In the warmer months the down in the upper part of the bag can be teased around the baffles to the underside thus making the bag cooler. As the seasons change the process can be reversed, so more of the down is on top where is can fully loft and trap the most heat. [ Great feature; use one bag all year round and adjust for personal preferences. Adam]

Finest Down Quality.
Down quality is measured by how much loft is achieved from a given weight of down, usually cubic inches (of space filled) with one ounce of down. The result is termed fill power and most down products have a fill-power of between 650 fp and 800 fp (or cubic inches per ounce).
All manufacturers wash and treat their down before putting it in their products, but to get the highest fill-power test results, they give laboratory test samples additional washes and warm air drying before the tests.
Western Mountaineering believe this is gives a false test result as the sample has had more treatments than the down in the products we buy. They have opted to test their down as it is in their products, clean and dry, but with no extra ‘special attention’. Despite the pragmatism all W.M. down has a fill power of 850+fp. The ‘+’ is to demonstrate the fp is always greater than 850 and that 850 is not an average.
(Other manufacturers that source their down from the same suppliers claim an fp of 900).

MicroLite XP™ Shell Material.
Microfiber is a specific type of fabric constructed of densely woven ultra-fine yarns in order to achieve an optimal balance of breathability and water resistance. Each microfiber yarn has many more filaments than a normal nylon or polyester yarn of equivalent area. Woven into jigh thread count material, it becomes a fabric that really keeps wind and water out. Although treated with a durable water repellent (DWR) finish, this fabric remains highly breathable because there is no coating or laminate to restrict vapour transfer. Since the fabric’s construction is responsible for weather resistance, it cannot wear off, wash out or delaminate. This is the most advanced technologically advanced non-laminated weather resistant fabric available. We have carefully sourced our MicroLite XP™ microfiber because of its very low weight(less than 1.3 ounces per square yard), its durability and ability to perform well in a wide variety of weather conditions.

 

 

Shape	Size (ft/in)	Rating EN13537	Loft (in)	Inside Girth shdr/hip/foot (in)	Fill Wt.	Total Wt.	Stuff size (in)
Mummy	5’6″	15° F	6″	59″/51″/38″	17 oz	1lb 14oz	8 x 15
full collar	6’0″	15° F	6″	59″/51″/38″	19 oz	2lb	8 x 15
	6’6″	15° F	6″	60″/51″/38″	21 oz	2lb 2oz	8 x 15
Shape	Size (cm)	Rating EN13537	Loft (cm)	Inside Girth shldr/hip/foot (cm)	Fill Wt. gram	Total Wt. gram	Stuff size (cm)
Mummy	165	-10°C	15	150/130/97	480	850	20 x 38
full collar	180	-10°C	15	150/130/97	535	905	20 x 38
	200	-10°C	15	152/132/97	595	965	20 x 38