Sleeping bags for ski hut trips
Ask the hut how warm it gets before you pick a bag. For a heated hut, a 30°F bag is usually plenty, and every ounce you leave behind is an ounce you don't carry uphill.
What the hut guides say
- Sea to Summit says the upstairs bunk rooms in larger huts are heated by a wood stove and "quite warm overnight," so a lightweight summer bag may be fine. Small huts run cooler, but it is unlikely to fall to freezing inside. It calls a -20°C bag for a small hut extra weight to haul up the hill.
- Cripple Creek Backcountry tells you to ask three things: how warm the hut is, what the heat source is, and what the forecast lows are. It adds that some huts provide bedding, in which case a liner may be all you need.
Both are brand and shop blogs, not measurements, and they describe huts in places they don't name. Your hut may differ. Call.
Matching a bag to a hut
This is a reading of those two sources, not a rule.
- Heated hut, bunk room above the stove: a 30°F bag.
- Small hut where you sleep near the stove, or the stove goes out overnight: a 20°F bag.
- Unheated hut or a cold forecast: a 10°F bag.
One caution. Feathered Friends doesn't say which test standard its temperature ratings follow. That means you can't line its numbers up against another brand's by number alone.
Five bags
| Bag | Rated to | Weight (maker's average) | Price | Down |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hummingbird UL 30 | 30°F | 1 lb 5.2 oz (601 g) | $579 | 950+ goose |
| Swallow YF 30 | 30°F | 1 lb 10 oz (737 g) | $539 | 900+ goose or Muscovy |
| Hummingbird UL 20 | 20°F | 1 lb 7.9 oz (677 g) | $639 | 950+ goose |
| Swallow YF 20 | 20°F | 1 lb 13.2 oz (828 g) | $589 | 900+ goose or Muscovy |
| Lark 10 YF | 10°F | 2 lb 1.4 oz (946 g) | $639 | 900+ goose or Muscovy |
What the lighter bag costs
- At 30°F, the Hummingbird is 136 g (about 4.8 oz) lighter than the Swallow and costs $40 more. That's roughly $8.30 for every ounce saved.
- At 20°F, the Hummingbird is 151 g (about 5.3 oz) lighter and costs $50 more. About $9.40 an ounce.
Whether that's worth it depends on how often you carry it. For a hut trip you'll do twice a winter, the Swallow is the cheaper way to stay warm. For a week of hut-to-hut days, the saving starts to show.
Things to know
- All weights are Feathered Friends' own average figures. No independent weigh-in turned up, so treat them as the maker's claim.
- The Hummingbird UL 20 and 30 in graphite and undyed were sold out in Regular on Nov 4, 2026. Cerulean and flame were in stock.
- Long versions weigh 36 to 59 g more and cost $20 more.
- Feathered Friends says its UL series uses 950+ fill power goose down. The YF bags use 900+ goose or Muscovy down, and the pages don't say which any given bag gets.
Hummingbird UL Swallow YF Lark 10 YF
Sources
Every page below was read on Nov 4, 2026.