Sleeping Bags

Mountain Equipment Helium 600 Sleeping Bag | Review

Warm, lightweight, and as hard as nails, the Helium 600 sleeping bag is a real head-turner

When you’re out camping, nothing, as far as we’re concerned, beats the soothing zen-like calm of settling down in a sleeping bag for a night’s sleep somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Although, obviously, if the sleeping bag you’ve taken with you is poorly made, or offers about as much insulation as a sheet of toilet paper, then your idyllic slice of outdoor escapism can quickly turn sour. The good news is that with the Mountain Equipment Helium 600 in your pack, you’ll have no worries on that front.

By being warm and also lightweight for a four-season option, this excellent sleeping bag brings a perfect sense of balance to proceedings. The cosy 582g of pure duck down with a minimum fill power of 700, for example, gets a big thumbs up from us.

“One nifty way that the Helium 600 maximises thermal efficiency is through its implementation of an Alpine fit.”

Of course, it doesn’t matter how good your down is if your sleeping bag’s fabrics are ineffective and lack durability. Fortunately, the shell fabric used here has 20 denier yarns; resulting in a construction that ensures the highest levels of down-proofing, heat retention, plus wind resistance as well. What this means for you, the person sleeping in it, is that this bag is as great on the outside as it is on the inside.

One nifty way that the Helium 600 maximises thermal efficiency is through its implementation of an Alpine fit. The Alpine fit works by tapering down towards the user’s lower legs. This mummification of sorts ensures optimal use of heat and warmth, while also minimising the sleeping bag’s overall weight (something you’re bound to appreciate on multi-day treks).

That pure duck down with a minimum fill power of 700 is going to keep you toasty when the stars are out. Photo: Chris Johnson.

In its stuff sack, the Mountain Equipment Helium 600 packs down to a really small size . Photo: Chris Johnson.

Mountain Equipment have a well-established reputation as purveyors of fine kit. Photo: Chris Johnson.

The shell of the Mountain Equipment Helium 600 used 20 denier yarns, resulting in a high levels of down-proofing, heat retention, and wind resistance. Photo: Chris Johnson.

And finally, a standing ovation for the use of slanted box-wall baffles throughout the main body of the Helium sleeping bags. To the untrained ear, slanted box-wall baffles might sound like something you’d find on the Hogwarts Express sweet trolley. However, their use in this sleeping bag means a considerable weight has been removed from the product’s structure and that the down inside is able to achieve its maximum loft.

With a comfort limit of -8°C and an extreme limit of -26°C, we think the Mountain Equipment Helium 600 is an ideal sleeping bag for wild excursions at the end of 2017 and the start of 2018.