Sleeping bag review: The women’s-specific Sierra Designs Diamond Spring 15

October 21, 12:12 PMMinneapolis Outdoor Recreation ExaminerMarie Malinowski

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The Sierra Designs Diamond Spring 15
Sierra Designs

Stuffed with 600-fill goose down, the Sierra Designs Diamond Spring 15 delivers a comfort rating to fifteen degrees, ensuring that the only cold you’ll feel on your cooler-weather camping trips will be when you emerge from the bag in the morning. At least that’s how I felt last weekend camping in northern Wisconsin when nighttime temperatures dipped to freezing, and I snuggled in the soft, cocoon-like, fluffy down.

The Sierra Designs Diamond Spring 15 uses Flex™ technology to eliminate constriction, allow the sleeping bag to move with you and improve the bag’s efficiency by eliminating dead space. A down-filled baffle along the zipper and the head opening keeps out the cold drafts. It even has a convenient little zipper pocket on the outside to store a pair of ear plugs!

Now, what I look for in a sleeping bag is the ability to crawl inside, curl into the fetal position, and close it up, as if it’s -20 degrees outside. I then flip over onto both sides and twist my torso to see if the bag allows it. I verify that there is enough space for my head, shoulders, chest, waist, and feet, and to accommodate multiple layers of clothes, but not too much extra room. Roomy bags are tempting but if the bag is too big, you’ll lose much of the heat that you generate in the excess air. The Diamond Spring 15 passed each criteria point with flying colors—especially the fetal position test because the bag is stretchy.

The zipper gave me a little bit of an attitude when I unzipped it from inside the bag due to the puffy down-filled draft tube, which wanted to wrestle with me. Not a big deal, though, as I just unzipped from the outside. Let me be clear: I’d rather have a puffy down-filled draft tube impede the zipper than have none at all. Once you reach the zipper, it slides easily anyway, guaranteeing a quick escape to tend to a full bladder.

The ergonomic hood and adjustable draw cord cradles your noggin and a mini-baffle of down lets you draw the bag close to your neck (ala snuggling under a blankie) to keep the warmth in and the cold out. The stitching passed muster, too. It’s solid and tight with no loose threads or escaping feathers. Straps on the bottom of the bag help secure you to your camp mattress should wild dreams take over.

For all the cynics out there who think that women’s-specific only means a product is smaller and comes in pink, lavender, and cornflower blue, listen up. Sierra Designs developed the first women’s-specific bag (to be narrower at the shoulders and wider at the hips to lessen the amount of dead space that your body has to heat, and added insulation in the torso and the foot box.

Does this not make perfect sense? At two pounds, thirteen ounces, and a stuff size of eight inches by eighteen inches, it’s also light enough to stow in your backpack.

All in all, this is an excellent bag for the money ($249). It’s warm, stretchy, and comfortable when nighttime temperatures drop to fifteen degrees. Pair this bag up with the Sierra Designs Zagori bivy and a fleece bag liner and you can probably stay comfortable down to zero degrees. Maybe even colder.