The North Face Snowshoe Sleeping Bag: 0 Degree Climashield Prism

After obsessively researching 0 degree bags for the upcoming winter backpacking season this past fall, I finally settled on the TNF Snowshoe for 3 reasons: warmth, weight, price. There are plenty of light and warm bags out there, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $400 on a sleeping bag. This is a great winter backpacking bag, 3.5 lbs, packs small, and is toasty into the teens. It is the best value out there. I came across a lot of minor complaints in my scouring of user reviews and I will address them here. "Zipper dangles in face". Saw this one a bunch, but I did not find it to be an issue. While it was in the area of my face, i did not notice it during the night. "Hood is shaped weird, hangs over eyes". In my experience, covering some of your face when it is friggin cold out is a good thing. "Hood draw cords difficult to adjust". My Kelty 25 is like a nailed coffin in this area so the Snowshoe cords seem like a breeze to open. "Not warm enough". Have only tested it down into the teens, but was plenty warm. "Synthetic not as good as down". I disagree, while down is very light and packs small, it loses some of its warmth when wet, where synthetic doesn't. A couple nice additional features are the glow in the dark zipper and the draft shield. Overall, a very nice buy. I recommend completely.

This bag does great up to 12k feet, after that it- does begin to lose its rating of 0 degrees. This bag is tough, durable, and intelligently designed. I also like the glow in the dark zippers, and the adjsutable hood draw cords. I placed a black crater gear light on mine on the draw cord. Not constricting at all, for the warmth, weight(3.5lbs), and price, you can't beat this bag! Also sythetic doesn't lose its ability to keep you warm if it gets wet, unlike down. I like how this bag defends against the moisture. Also, permanent water-gaurd form atsko.com really improves its waterproof-ness.

I purchased this bag for my trip up Mt. Kilimanjaro. While is worked pretty well for most of the trek, we spent our seventh night in the crater (19k'+) and I gotta say, this bag didn't quite cut it at that alt/temp. I supplemented it with a liner that was supposed to add another -15 degrees and wore two sets of long capliene 3 underwear and fleece pants on top of that along with two pairs of socks. I was still shivering.
Something else to consider about this bag is that the draw cords around the head and neck are hard to loosen when you need to cool off. The little plastic guy gets lost in the bunched up fabric and you can't squeeze it easily with one hand. Two hands is not really an option because the bag fits so close around your shoulders, it is impossible to have your arms up like that.
On the positive side though, the bag repells moisture very effectively. Also, it is extremely light ad packs down small.
My girlfriend got the Mountain Hardwear -15 degrees Lamina and she was much warmer than I even though she is a cold sleeper and had no liner or extra clothing. Her bag always had more moisture on it than mine in the mornings though.

I bought my snowshoe bag at an end-of-season sale and got to try it out in Glacier Park this summer. There was still snow on the ground 4th of July weekend and I was toasty and comfy the whole trip. The zipper guard is very nice, but it would be nice to have a little velcro-close case to tuck the zipper head into - it's big and dangled in my face all night. I got a neck cramp from trying to keep my head turned or had to sleep on my side - other than that, this the warmest, lightest weight sleeping bag I have ever owned, and well worth it.