Sleeping bags – for those who wish to travel light, and yet to include in their programme some of the biggest expeditions in Alps, a sleeping-bag is all that is wanted, or blankets may be hired for the porters to carry up to the bivouac. The Tuckett sleeping-bag is lined with Jaeger wool, with mackintosh outside; it can be used as a knapsack, but is much less handy than a rucksack. It is as well to order one longer than the stock size.
Another sleeping-bag recommended is 6 ft. 6 in. long by 2 ft. 6in. wide and is made of thin Willesden canvas lined with down; it is fitted with straps to roll up. The warmest—but, unfortunately, the heaviest—sacks are made of sheepskin. A big one made with three skins will weigh 11 lb. Mr. Smythe, on his expedition to Kamet in 1932, obtained excellent results by using two eiderdown bags one inside the other, with a waterproof bag enclosing them. In any case, whatever bag is used, a waterproof covering is required, even if it is only a mackintosh sheet.
An article that is frequently used for bivouacs by the hardy mountaineers of the Eastern Alps is the Zdarsky tent-bag. Two men are supposed to crouch in it face to face, but the ventilation is defective and cold creeps in wherever the backs or shoulders of the inmates are not protected from contact with the waterpoof material. No kind of tent-pole is supplied with it, and the occupants are supposed to fend off the covering from themselves by means of their axes.
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| "Blankets may be hired for the porters to carry up ..." Illustration from Edward Whymper's Scrambles in the Alps |
Another sleeping-bag recommended is 6 ft. 6 in. long by 2 ft. 6in. wide and is made of thin Willesden canvas lined with down; it is fitted with straps to roll up. The warmest—but, unfortunately, the heaviest—sacks are made of sheepskin. A big one made with three skins will weigh 11 lb. Mr. Smythe, on his expedition to Kamet in 1932, obtained excellent results by using two eiderdown bags one inside the other, with a waterproof bag enclosing them. In any case, whatever bag is used, a waterproof covering is required, even if it is only a mackintosh sheet.
An article that is frequently used for bivouacs by the hardy mountaineers of the Eastern Alps is the Zdarsky tent-bag. Two men are supposed to crouch in it face to face, but the ventilation is defective and cold creeps in wherever the backs or shoulders of the inmates are not protected from contact with the waterpoof material. No kind of tent-pole is supplied with it, and the occupants are supposed to fend off the covering from themselves by means of their axes.
References
Chapter Three “Equipment” by C F Meade in The Lonsdale Library of Sports, Games and Pastimes, Volume XVIII, Mountaineering, London: Seeley Service & Co, 1934.
Chapter Three “Equipment” by C F Meade in The Lonsdale Library of Sports, Games and Pastimes, Volume XVIII, Mountaineering, London: Seeley Service & Co, 1934.
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