Sweetie Pie sleeping bag expander

[Nameless]

Hello,

My boyfriend and I have been looking at how to economically hike the AT together. I already own all of my backpacking gear, with a very comfortable 12 lbs base weight. We are now looking for a lightweight way to buy the rest of the gear so we can try to thru hike the AT next summer. All of my gear is for a single person, I have attemted the AT myself before (made it through 200 miles of Maine, and cannot wait to do it again)

I was looking at the Sweetie Pie sleeping bag expander and was wondering if anyone else had experience with the product. I currently own an WM Ultralight. We are planning to make a quilt to share durring the warmer months, but need something warmer for the begining since we are starting the trail March 1 (in georgia). The full doubler seems as if it would be huge, I'm only 5 foot and 100 lbs, hes a little taller, and a little more than 150 lbs (but will be thinner by the time we hit the trail). Should just the expander be able to fit us both? We normally sleep on a twin bed with four cats, so we aren't concerned about having a lot of wiggle room. I am more concerned about staying close for warmth reasons, I'm a cold sleeper.

The bottom of the WM Ultralight has a lot less loft than the top, a great weight saver when you are using it as a sleeping bag, but will the thin spot become cold? Or will we be able to still use the bottom beneath us, and comfortably have the expander above us?

Any other recomendations from other couples who hike together?

Thankyou
Pink

[Bunny]

I have never used a sleeping bag extender, so I'm afraid I cannot comment about that (sorry!). My fiance and I both carry our own sleeping bags when we hike together. Since we only carry one tent and one stove, it seems safer for us each to have a sleeping bag. Our solution to the problem is that I have a left-handed sleeping bag and he has a right-handed sleeping bag. The zippers are on opposite sides so that we can simply zip our bags together. It creates two goofy little footwells in the bottom, but it doesn't bother us when we sleep. So far, the only real issue we've had with it is that one sleeping bag is warmer than the other, so if the bags aren't quite lined up, one person can be very cold when the other is very warm. If it's warm outside, we put the warmer bag on the bottom as padding and the cooler bag on top as covering (the reverse for cool nights) I imagine having similar sleeping bags would also alleviate that problem.

[Nameless]

Thanks for the reply,

we did think about mating two sleeping bags but would prefer to use the sweetie pie. A second sleeping bag would cost $300 dollars (WM isnt cheap) and we are still planning to use a quilt together durring the summer. So, it seams like a lot to spend $300 while $80 will do the trick. We mainly are concerned about the different sizes of the Sweetie Pies at this moment.

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