The 280g Sleeping Bag

This is the new award-winning Yeti Fever Zero sleeping bag, which weighs just 280g and is, says the brand, the world’s lightest sleeping bag – the previous holder of that title was also made by Yeti and was a colossal 40g heavier at 320g…

So who? What? Where? Well, Yeti is a German brand based in Görlitz where it manufactures its sleeping bags, which are still hand filled by skilled workers. It’s been around for 30 years now making its first down bag back in 1983 and is well known on the continent for producing ultra-lightweight down sleeping bags.

Super-light Fabric, Lofty Down

The Fever Zero, which landed an award for innovation at the 2013 OutDoor trade show, has a pack size of just 11cmx18cm – the size of ‘a small sandwich says Yeti – to go along with the sub-300g weight. The heart of it is Yeti’s Next to Nothing 2.0 lightweight fabric, which is an ultra-light, tear-proof, micro-ripstop Nylon with a weight of just 20 g/m2, which is made from super-fine 7D yarn and woven in just one factory in the world in Japan. To put that in perspective, the lightest Pertex fabric, Quantum GL, weighs in at around 25 g/m2.

The other half of the equation is the brand’s 900+ fill power white Crystal Down, which is composed of a mix of carefully selected and traceable down from European geese with a 95/5 down to feather proportion.

Alternatives?

Other stuff? Er, it’s very light, it’s very small. And as far as we know, it’ll be available in the shops next spring. Which means for now, the existing Yeti Passion One at 320g is still the lightest bag in the world, probably… that said, the Passion One is stitch-through whereas the PHD Minum Ultra Down weighs just 25g more at 345g but uses more efficient box-wall construction. You pays your money etc…