We thought we had done our research well. Hence, we had fairly high expectations for our new Mountain Equippment down sleeping bags.
My climbing partner and I had bought two ME Snowline bags (rated at +10 to -20) for an iceclimbing trip to Norway last weekend. We had expected a fair amount of condensation in our 1.5 person tent, however, that is exactly what these down bags should be able to cope with thanks to the shell material 'Drilite'. Drilite supposedly is "superior to the competition for another reason ... eliminating wetting the down caused by condensation caused by sleeping in small alpine tents" - or so we were informed during our research.
We had paid a fair amount of money for these bags, only to find their insulating power substantially reduced already after the first night in the tent. By the third night my bag had soaked up about 150 grams of water, but lucky enough, we were on our way home. We were not cold as temperatures had only ranged between 0 and -5. However, I seriously doubt we could have coped anywhere nearer to the bags' lower temperature rating of -20.
Is Drilite not up to what it was developed for? Unfortunately, we missed a great opportunity to compare the Snowline to a different bag (i.e. the Rab Summit 800 with Pertex shell) as we had bought two Snowlines. I'd be interested to hear whether other campers have experienced similar issues with the ME Drilite down bags and whether somebody has been able to compare Drilite with Pertex first-hand.
