Sleeping bag liners for camping? My friend Dion made fun of my “poor excuse for a sleeping bag,” but it kept me warm as the temperature dropped to the low forties, and it weighed only five ounces. We were camping on the banks of the Manistee River in Michigan.
So, how did it a sleeping bag liner keep me warm? The real secret was the fifteen minutes we spent gathering dead, dry bracken ferns to build a two-foot thick mattress. We set the tent on that. Then, in my liner with all my clothes on, I was fine. Actually, I’ve rarely slept as well camping as I did that night.
Using Sleeping Bag Liners Instead Of Bags
You can buy light sleeping bag liners from Campmor and other suppliers, or do like I did. I sewed a simple one of bargain-bin nylon material ($1/yard) obtained at Walmart. Buy the lightest nylon or polyester material you can find. Depending on what you use and how big you make it, it should weigh between four and nine ounces.
I found I could stay warm with a light sleeping bag liner in autumn, at a few degrees above freezing, so this strategy should work well for summer nights in the sixties. Be careful, of course. It could be...