Montbell U.L. Super Spiral Down Hugger #0 Review

Likes
The Montbell Ultralight Super Spiral Down Hugger #0 is a ludicrously comfortable sleeping bag. It’s so big and so stretchy it can fit two people laying side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder inside. Stretchy seams and stretchy fabric provide a comfortable and efficient fit for just about anyone. Montbell was able to achieve this by orienting all major seams and baffles 45 degrees from vertical in a “super spiral” pattern that drapes more evenly over the body. Longer baffles allow for fewer seams, and fewer seams mean less hot air escapes.

Montbell uses a stretchy and strong ripstop nylon to contain high quality 800-fill down. Further, elasticized seams allow the entire bag to stretch up to 20 percent. Unlike most sleeping bags, the Down Hugger lets you move about in relative freedom. We were able to touch our fists together and point our elbows out and still have several inches to spare. Even better, we could sit up and cross our legs. When you’re done moving about and have settled into a blissful sleep, the Down Hugger’s elastic nature will draw insulation in closer to you. This eliminates drafty dead air space and makes the bag equally warm and comfortable for broad shouldered strapping lads as it does for finer boned ladies. The Down Hugger’s unparalleled versatile fit is by far its best feature.

While most sleeping bags have a single draft tube to prevent cold air from penetrating through the zipper, the Down Hugger has two. In theory this is advantageous in that if one tube folds open, only half of the zipper area is exposed. In practice, however, we didn’t observe a significant difference between this design and the more traditional single tube design.

Dislikes

First, the bag’s super stretch capabilities are unnecessary when camping on snow. Then, you want to take up as little space as possible and remain on your sleeping bag at all times. Stretchy fabric is also heavier and bulkier than its taut counterpart. The Down Hugger scores lowest in our packed size rating.

We were thoroughly unimpressed with the hood design on the Down Hugger. It is equipped with a neck baffle that keeps hot air in and cold air out (see the sleeping bag anatomy section of our Buying Advice article for more details on the neck baffle). The bad news is twofold: first, the draw cords on both the hood and neck baffle are not elasticized. Seeing that the main selling point of this bag is its fluid and flexible nature, we believe it’s rather ironic that the Down Hugger lacks elasticity in the one area that all other bags have it. So, inflexible draw cords mean that when you move about at night, or lift an arm out of the bag, you either break the neck baffle Velcro or loosen the hood draw cord. This forces you to re-attach the Velcro or retighten the pull cords, or both. Annoying!! The second round of bad news comes farther up in the hood area. We found the hood opening to be clumsily large. When you cinch it down part way, an awkward drafty opening exists on the sides. When cinched fully, the hood is uncomfortable and restricting. This is partly due to the lack of elastic drawcords, but primarily because the opening is very close to the neck area. Unless you’re a conehead, you’ll have three plus inches of extra down above your head. This wasted dead air space leaves your mouth part in the opening and part out. It’s either that, or jam your head all the way to the top, leaving the opening down by your neck. Our photos above illustrate the Down Hugger’s hood problems.

In sum, the Down Hugger is the most comfortable sleeping bag we’ve ever tested (except for in the head area). If you’re fussy about things poking at your face we might recommend a bag with a more comfortable hood (such as the Mountain Hardwear Phantom). Otherwise, this downside shouldn’t affect most consumers.
This is our top choice zero degree bag for people over 200 pounds. If you weigh less we recommend other bags because they’ll perform better and weigh less.

Best Application
Winter camping for larger people.

Value
The Down Hugger is a reasonable buy if you are on the larger side or want a very luxurious bag.