Questar™ - The Best Down Sleeping Bag?
Zoe Huden
What makes the Questar the best down sleeping bag in its class? Frankly put, its combination of technical performance and remarkable comfort means you will be pulling it out of the gear stash nearly every time you head out. More often than not, this unisex quiver-killer is the right bag for the job.
Technical performance means the Questar is lightweight and compact for backcountry pursuits. It means it is thermally efficient in varying conditions. Comfort, on the other hand, means the Questar is spacious enough for easy side sleeping. It means the user experience is well thought out across a utility focused feature set.
Importantly, the Questar achieves all this with premium materials and craftmanship for a great price. In today’s sleeping bag market, the Questar stands out with incredible value. Allowing you to save your money for your next big trip and not worry about how you will sleep when you get there.
At this point you may be muttering something about “cold spots” to yourself. Perfectly valid observation. More space in the bag means more energy required to heat all that space. Which is why roomier bags tend to be less thermally efficient and can develop cold spots. W.A.R.M. Fit is all about providing extra room where it is needed while minimizing unused space that your body has to keep warm. A result of our fit and testing expertise, W.A.R.M. bags are roomy without cold spots. When compared to other roomy-fit bags on the market, the Questar is more backcountry capable.
Backcountry sleeping bags need to heat up and retain heat while weighing less. That is to say they need to be thermally efficient. Strategies for accomplishing this include more constricted fit profiles and using higher fill power down. But we wanted to put a bag out that was both comfortable and economical, so we utilized Zoned Insulation.
The Questar Sleeping Bag Models
The Questar comes in three, season-traversing models: the Questar 32F/0C, the Questar 20F/-6C , and the Questar 0F/-18C. While each Questar lives up to its objective of comfort + performance, there are slight variations needed to make the bags with specific temperature ranges. As you may have guessed, it mostly boils down to the amount of down insulation in the bag. More down = a warmer and heavier bag.Weight
The weight breakdown of the three models is as follows (reg size):- Questar 32F/0C: 1 lbs 14 oz (0.85 kg)
- Questar 20F/-6C: 2 lbs 3 oz (0.99 kg)
- Questar 0F/-18C: 2 lbs 11 oz (1.21 kg)
Price
The MSRP price breakdown of the three models is as follows (reg size, USD):- Questar 32F/0C: $239.95
- Questar 20F/-6C: $279.95
- Questar 0F/-18C: $349.95
Questar Design & Features
Very often sleeping bags (and really gear in general) sacrifice comfort to be lightweight, or vice versa. Specialized gear for specific applications can be a necessary gear strategy, but that’s not always the case. If you are anything like me, your trip calendar is planned out both ahead of time and on the fly. I need the wiggle room to accommodate the backcountry canoe trip that’s been on the books for months and an impromptu backpack overnighter to escape the city. And wiggle room is exactly what the Questar is all about.W.A.R.M. Fit
Side sleepers get in here! Full body dreamers and pose-striking snoozers line up! W.A.R.M. Fit is our way of letting you sleep in whatever position your subconscious comes up with. With Additional Room for Multiple Positions is a roomier cut mummy bag. A regular size Questar is 63 in (160 cm) through the shoulder, 61 in (155 cm) in the hip and 46 in (117 cm) in the foot box. If that really doesn’t mean much to you, let’s put it this way: you can comfortably change your underwear in the Questar.
At this point you may be muttering something about “cold spots” to yourself. Perfectly valid observation. More space in the bag means more energy required to heat all that space. Which is why roomier bags tend to be less thermally efficient and can develop cold spots. W.A.R.M. Fit is all about providing extra room where it is needed while minimizing unused space that your body has to keep warm. A result of our fit and testing expertise, W.A.R.M. bags are roomy without cold spots. When compared to other roomy-fit bags on the market, the Questar is more backcountry capable.
Backcountry sleeping bags need to heat up and retain heat while weighing less. That is to say they need to be thermally efficient. Strategies for accomplishing this include more constricted fit profiles and using higher fill power down. But we wanted to put a bag out that was both comfortable and economical, so we utilized Zoned Insulation.
Zoned Insulation
Zoned Insulation is the technique of accurately mapping where the bag most needs insulation and where it doesn’t. Most significantly, it allowed us to decrease the amount of down in the bottom of the Questar. The ratio of down distribution in the Questar is about 65/35—65% of the down on top, 35% on bottom. Reducing the down in the bottom cuts the overall weight of the bag while allowing for more insulation on top to eliminate cold spots. The bottom of a sleeping bag compresses under your body weight and gives up a great deal of heat trapping performance. Just like using a quilt, that loss of warmth is made up for by your sleeping pad in your sleep system. The SynergyLink™ connectors attached to the bottom the Questar secure the bag to your pad. Meaning when you roll from your left side to your right, you will roll inside the bag rather than exposing the compressed bottom of your bag and losing heat. The Questar is a system bag. With Zoned Insulation and SynergyLink connectors it integrates with a sleeping pad, rather than just laying on top of it. In the spirit of the Questar, the NeoAir® Topo™ sleeping pad provides big comfort in a compact, backcountry ready package. Combining the two creates a super comfy, ready-for-anything sleep system that maximizes the performance of its components.Other Features
Efficient placement of down allowed us to thoroughly stuff the full-length zipper draft tube and heat trapping draft collar. Though luxuriously stuffed, the snag free zipper ensures they never feel like they are in the way. The collar and draft tube excel at trapping heat while adding a measure of downright luxury. On that note, it would be wrong if I didn’t mention the Toe-asis™ Foot Warmer Pocket. Perhaps no other feature is more bliss-inducing. I am a strong advocate for packing an extra pair of socks, but you could probably leave the sleeping socks at home. Your feet won’t want a sock in between them and the toasty baffled down pocket of insulation at the foot of the Questar. One of the first thing users notice about the Questar is the soft, lofty volume of the bag when its laid out. It’s remarkable how puffy and cloud-like the Questar becomes after seeing how small it packs down. Add in features like the external storage pocket and a smartly shaped and cinchable hood, the Questar offers incredible utility for a sleeping bag this comfortable. The Questar’s utility is predicated on its ability to perform in the backcountry and the front country. While Zoned Insulation helps it be lightweight and packable, it’s the insulation itself that makes it all possible.
Let’s Talk About Down Insulation in Sleeping Bags
Honestly, any discussion about down insulation could be its own blog. We have written about Down vs Synthetic sleeping bags and quilts to guide our customers. Still, there is much to know about down insulation in its own right. No discussion about the Questar is complete without talking about its 650 Fill Nikwax Hydrophobic Down™. So, let’s keep it simple and break it down to 3 important aspects.Defining Fill Power
People can be misled by fill power numbers. Many tend to look at a higher number and assume it’s automatically warmer. It’s not that simple. While fill power is essentially a measure of how well down does its job, having the highest fill power sleeping bag is not always necessary or economical. Down works by trapping pockets of warm air close to your body and thereby keeping the cold air out. Better lofted down creates more pockets of warm air. Which is why the compressed down on the bottom of your sleeping bag is less useful. The fill power number indicates the cubic inches of loft created by one ounce of down. Meaning there is more down in the 650 fill Questar 20F/-6C than the 800 Fill Parsec™ 20F/-6C to achieve the same temperature rating. This is one reason that the Questar is slightly heavier than the Parsec, but also less expensive. Higher fill power down is deemed higher quality because it is more thermally efficient; it accomplishes more with less. The Questar was built for comfort and to be economically accessible. 650 fill down will keep you just as warm while the extra down contributes to the plush, cloud-like feeling of the bag.
What is Hydrophobic Down?
It is common knowledge that down loses its insulation ability once it gets wet. Unfortunately, I have a few damp and shivering nights in the memory bank to verify this. I get it, “hydrophobic down” grinds against hard learned knowledge and sounds too good to be true. Well, it’s not. Being headquartered in the Pacific Northwest means that we have to get creative to stay warm and active in the rain. When Nikwax Hydrophobic Down (NHD) won the 2018 OutDoor Industry Award it was music to our wet ears. A PFC-free Durable Water Repellent (DWR) is applied to each individual down filament. This allows NHD to absorb 90% less water and dry out three times faster than untreated down. NHD greatly extends the performance window of a sleeping bag in the event of it becoming wet. It also significantly decreases the drying time, if you do manage to saturate it. Should you be any less careful about keeping your Questar dry on a trip? Absolutely not. Regardless of insulation, sleeping in a wet bag is no fun. But if the forecast is wet, the Questar allows you to confidently take advantage of the unmatched warmth-to-weight ratio of down insulation.Using the Responsible Down Standard
The outdoor industry needs to continue—at all costs—to make gear as environmentally friendly as possible. We only use Responsible Down Standard (RDS) certified down. Meaning our down is sourced from waterfowl that have been treated humanely. There is no legislation requiring us—or any other company—to do this. We choose to do so to promote humane and environmentally responsible supply chains. This list on the RDS website shows which brands they work with so you can make the same choice.
