Every year, my family kicks off summer—aka camping season—with a weekend in the high desert, where it’s a blisteringly hot 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and drops to the 40s at night. Every year, my despairing husband tries to accommodate his dog, wife, and children by filling up our entire truck with every single variety of sleeping material we own, from lightweight liners to camping quilts to my 0-degree mummy bag.
How do you arrange sleeping materials when everyone in your family has different heat tolerances (my son and husband run hot, my daughter and I run very, very cold); when everyone goes to bed at different times; and when your tent is sometimes stifling and sometimes freezing? We resigned ourselves to constantly waking up and adjusting layers, shuffling under extra blankets, zipping up the mummy bag, or pressing against other bodies in the tent (this is my son’s strategy, and I don’t recommend it).
This year, we solved the issue with the Rumpl Wrap Sack ($250). This is the most amazing sleeping bag I’ve ever used. My son stole the tester that Rumpl sent, then we had to buy my daughter another one. I want it back!
Sleeping Burrito
The Rumpl is a synthetic sleeping bag. It’s rated for 20 degrees Fahrenheit and tested (by Rumpl) to temperatures down to 10 degrees. You can also order a camp pillow in matching colorways ($60) that fits neatly into the hood. This has solved the problem of my children just grabbing the pillows straight off their beds to sleep in the dirt for three days.
The temperature ratings are misleading, however, because the genius of the Wrap Sack is that you can choose exactly how much insulation you want. The sleeping bag is really a clipable, foldable sleeping blanket. You can open it entirely when you’re hot at 8 pm; wrap one layer on top of your kid when the temperature has dropped 10 degrees at 10 pm; then wrap another layer on at 1 or 2 am when it gets even colder, like a burrito in fun colors.
“But Adrienne,” you say, “could you not do this with a backpacking quilt?” Interesting that you ask. I have tried. It’s why my husband has gotten into the habit of packing nearly every type of sleeping bedding that we’ve ever owned for every trip. You have not known true, exhausted despair until it’s 1 am in the morning after a full day of swimming and hiking; you’re trapped in a tent with your entire family, far from civilization; and your children are sobbing loudly as they thrash around in the pitch-black darkness trying to find the exact right layers.
This one’s too hot! This one’s too cold! The zipper is stuck! The dog farted! We’ve endured this rigmarole for so many nights, only for us all to fall into an exhausted stupor at 4 am when the sun starts coming out, and waking up bathed in sweat at 9 am, right when the tent starts becoming baking hot.
This past weekend, everything changed. My kids slept in the Wrap Sacks. It was 95 degrees during the heat of the day, but they peacefully went to sleep at 9 pm. Then they stayed asleep. Waking up sweaty in a baking hot tent at 9 am is miserable. But waking up at 6 am in the chilly morning, cuddled in the warmth of your sleeping bag with everyone you love peacefully snoozing beside you, is sublime. It reminded me of why I liked camping to begin with.
Drafty Bottom
Rumpl is known for technical fabrics used in refreshingly nontechnical ways. This is not a backpacking sleeping system; both the pillow and the sack itself are really large when compressed into their stuff sacks (the website says that it weighs 4 pounds, but it feels heavier). This is a car camping, or portage camping, sleeping bag.
The clips are a little hard to use. My 10-year-old had to ask for my help to clip the top layer shut at night. There’s also a two-way zipper at the bottom. That’s nice if you’re one of those people that psychs themselves out when their feet are trapped in a mummy bag. In general, both I and my admittedly tiny offspring have found this to be a roomy, generous sleeping bag. But that opening at the bottom is much less nice if you, like me, sleep very, very cold and have ice-cold feet. (For reference, I use a 0-degree-rated bag when temperatures drop anywhere below 40.)
Still, being able to pack the two Wrap Sacks for my children has cut down considerably on my husband’s packing time. He no longer has to stare at a basement full of sleeping materials, trying to make executive decisions that could make his exhausted family yell at him and each other all weekend. And like every Rumpl blanket, it’s made from 100 percent postconsumer recycled fabric that has a durable water repellent that’s free from “forever chemicals.”
It’s expensive, but so far, it’s been worth every penny. The only thing better than me being able to sleep is my family being able to sleep.
