Mountain Hardware Lamina 0 review

A quick review of the sleeping bag I used in Scotland: Knowing how damp Scotland can be, and the fact that weight wasn’t an absolute priority, I plumped after a bit of research for the Mountain Hardware lamina 0 – this has synthetic insulation not affected by damp.  I’ve used and fondled a couple of the other MH bags in the past, particularly the phantom 35, and found the quality of construction and the materials to be excellent.  Of course a down bag would have been smaller and lighter, but I’ve spent a wet week camping with a down bag and keeping it dry is tiresome.

The 0 refers to the comfort temperature.  This is really the only important temperature rating, something that all bag manufacturers manage to fart about with until you are baffled.  My understanding of their “comfort” measurement is: the temp that a fit adult male will be comfortable naked in the bag an hour after eating a meal.  Extreme ratings in particular should be laughed out of the room.  In practice, I was comfortable at around -4 with just a base layer on.  If it had really frozen hard then a hat and socks would add another few degrees, after that the mid layers go on etc.

The bag has a great shoulder baffle and hood, which make a big difference to the perceived warmth.  It packed into it’s stuff sack easily – something that can’t be said for some other bags, like the Marmot Waves.  Weight is about 1700g.  Comes like all MH bags with a mesh sack for storing the bag long term.  This is much kinder to all insulation, not just down.

The only downside I found was the zip snagged a big, despite an anti-snag tape sewn in.  Mind you, most sleeping bags zip snag a bit.