Feathered Friends
Feathered Friends Swallow YF 20
No citable owner-review average published for this one, so no stars.
Feathered Friends sew every bag in Seattle and publish girth at four points — shoulder, elbow, hip and footbox — which tells you more about whether a bag will fit than any temperature rating can. The Swallow is their three-season workhorse: 900-fill-power Muscovy down, 16.8 ounces of it, in a 59-inch-shoulder mummy that weighs 29.2 ounces. Like Western Mountaineering they publish no ISO figure, and like Western Mountaineering they have a forty-year record that people buy on instead.
Label against lab
No ISO or EN rating is published for this one — the 20 °F is Feathered Friends’s own figure, with no lab test behind it. Where a maker publishes loft or fill weight instead, those are the numbers worth comparing. What the standards measure
At that temperature the pairing table wants at least an R 4 pad underneath it.
Size run
One product, 2 sizes. The headline numbers on this page describe the Regular.
| Size | Weight | Approx. price | Length | Shoulder girth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | 1 lb 13.2 oz | ~$529 | — | 59 in |
| Long | 1 lb 15 oz | ~$549 | — | 59 in |
Specifications
Highlights
Features
- RDS down
- Draft collar
- Full-length zipper
- Made in USA
What it does well
- Publishes shoulder, elbow, hip and footbox girth — the most detailed fit data of any bag in this catalogue.
- 900+ fill-power Muscovy down, a grade only two other items here use.
- 16.8 ounces of down inside a 29.2-ounce bag, with a NetPlus recycled-nylon lining.
- Sewn in Seattle, with the repair and re-loft service that implies.
- Available as a 20 or a 30 on the same pattern, so the fit carries across temperatures.
What it costs you
- No ISO or EN rating published.
- $529 for the Regular, and the ultralight Hummingbird above it is another $110.
- The down is not hydrophobic-treated.
- Two lengths and one girth; the Wide fit lives on a different model.
Those two lists are drawn from Feathered Friends’s published specifications and from reviews that measured them. They are not owner sentiment — anything owners said appears under its own heading below.
What owners say
No owner discussion has been collected for the Feathered Friends Swallow YF 20 yet. The pros and cons above come from Feathered Friends’s published specifications and from reviews that measured them — nothing on this page claims owners said anything. How that works.
Feathered Friends Swallow YF 20, head to head
Others in the same band
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Feathered Friends
Feathered Friends Hummingbird UL 20
Twenty-three point nine ounces for a hooded, full-zip 20-degree bag with 950-fill down — the lightest bag of its kind in this catalogue by about five ounces. Feathered Friends gets there with a 7-denier-by-30-denier Pertex Quantum Pro shell, which is a waterproof-breathable fabric rather than a simple ripstop, and by trimming the shoulder girth to 57 inches. That last number is the thing to check before buying: this is a close-fitting bag, and a broad sleeper will compress the down against the shell and be cold in it.
Best for: Long trails where a hood is wanted but ounces decide
Full spec sheet
A sleeping bag with no zipper at all: a sewn tube with a hood, which is the lightest way to build a closed bag and the reason the Standard/Medium comes in at 18.8 ounces for a 20-degree rating. Zpacks publishes target loft (2.5 inches for the 20 °F version) and exact shell and down weights for every one of the twenty-one size combinations, which is more transparency about construction than anyone else in this catalogue offers — and no lab rating at all, which is less transparency about temperature. Getting in and out means going through the top, and the bag cannot be vented on a warm night.
Best for: Thru-hikers who want a hood without a quilt's drafts
Full spec sheet
Sea to Summit
Sea to Summit Spark 15
Sea to Summit is one of the few brands that prints both ISO numbers next to each other, and the Spark 15 is the clearest illustration on this site of why that matters: the bag is sold as a 15, the lab limit is 16 °F, and the lab comfort figure is 28 °F. Twenty-eight is the number a cold sleeper should plan around, and it is thirteen degrees off the name. Everything else about the bag is excellent — 850-fill goose down, a 10-denier shell, a half-length zip to save weight, and 25.7 ounces total with nearly 17 ounces of that being down, which is one of the best fill-to-total ratios in the catalogue.
Best for: Backpackers who want the honest number before they buy
Full spec sheet