Packing Away Your Sleeping Bag

To the uninitiated, getting sleeping bags into their stuff sacks can seem impossible. Plus, after childhoods spent being told to fold clothes properly, it's counter-intuitive. It's a recurring theme when considering lightweight sleeping bags. One huge bag and one small sack seem totally incompatible despite the fact that the former came out of the latter. New bags are usually rolled tightly by a machine to squeeze them into their sacks. By hand, it is next to impossible to do the same unless the stuff sack is generously sized and, anyway, not recommended. By stuffing it in (hence the name), you avoid the potential damage caused by compressing the filling the same way each time and, simply, it's easier. Compression straps help in reducing the bulk of the bag but do turn it into a rather solid brick; slacken them off as soon as you can. It's easy when you know how and actually do it.