Mountain Hardwear Bishop Pass 30 Review

Mountain Hardwear offers a nice selection of quality sleeping bags. Although some of their premium models have struggled to stand out in our tests, the bargain Bishop Pass 30 certainly did not. It provides impressive all-around performance that easily surpassed all of its budget sleeping bag peers. Its performance also undercuts the attraction of many mid-tier models--you have to spend considerably more for a premium model to receive significant performance benefits.

Performance Comparison

Warmth

The Bishop Pass 30 is stuffed with 15 oz of 650-fill-power duck down. With this mid-tier insulation, it receives a 30F EN lower limit temperature rating. In our tests, this rating seemed accurate and we noticed that the Bishop Pass even felt warmer than a few more expensive bags with identical temp ratings.

The hood cinches down fine, but this bag lacks a neck baffle to really seal heat in on frigid nights. That means it's a sleeping bag that's best suited for warmer 3-season uses. Seek out something warmer for higher elevation excursions or frequent outings in the shoulder seasons.

Weight

On our independent scale, a size Long Bishop Pass weighed in at 1.98 lbs. That might not make it the lightest sleeping bag on the market, but it does present considerable weight savings compared to many other models in the same price range.

In fact, it's light enough that this bag should be on everyone's radar who's shopping for a bargain, or even a mid-range, sleeping bag. You will need to spend considerably more money, potentially twice as much, to acquire a bag that can provide substantial weight and performance benefits.

Comfort

This is a basic sleeping bag that offers similarly basic levels of comfort. Its dimensions are a little larger than average but not spacious enough to be considered luxurious. We think most people will be happy with the interior space, but larger folks or those who like to sprawl may be happier in a roomier model. We can report that the foot of the bag is wider than most ultralight bags. That made it feel more comfortable to some of our testers than several much more expensive, but slimmer, competitors.

The lining materials feel a notch or so below premium. We heard some complaints about a coarse texture to the 30-denier plain-weave nylon. This fabric, however, seems to be standard on most budget sleeping bags so you'll have to spend a bit more if you want to enjoy the plusher materials of an ultra-premium sleeping bag. After a long day on the trail though, most people will be able to sleep in just about anything that can keep them warm.

Packed Size

The Bishop Pass 30 comes with a simple drawstring stuff sack. This sack is pretty light at 1.6 oz but it's ineffective at compressing the bag fully. In a generic compression sack, we squeezed it down to a svelte 7.5 liters.

That's not the smallest we've seen, but it's much more compact than many other sleeping bags in its price bracket. This is a particularly noticeable advantage compared to synthetic sleeping bags that supply similar levels of warmth. However, you will need to get an aftermarket compression sack to enjoy this benefit.

Versatility

Versatility is another area where the Bishop Pass 30 offers decent but not exceptional performance. Its 3/4-length side zipper is adequate for venting heat on warm nights but too short for sharing the bag between two people during a dire situation. With its interrupted horizontal baffles, it's not possible to move insulation around and extend the usable temperature range.

The down insulation is light and packable, however, it should create concern in wet climates. If these feathers get wet, they will clump and quickly lose a huge portion of their insulative power. In wet conditions, it's extremely important to keep this or any other down bag dry. If that sounds like too much of a hassle, consider a bag filled with synthetic insulation which will maintain much more of its warmth even if it gets soaked.

Features & Design

This bag exemplifies a simple and functional design. Unfortunately, that leaves you with a pretty spartan feature set. It does include a small organizational pocket for keeping your headlamp or phone batteries warm. This minimalist pocket closes with a simple fold of fabric which reduces weight and eliminates a potentially scratchy zipper near your face.

The main zipper is large and sturdy with a Y-shaped slide that does a decent job at preventing snags. The hood drawcord is a basic non-elastic string and our testers noticed it occasionally dangling annoyingly towards their faces. However, the drawcord did prove to be effective at cinching the hood down tight. On the other hand, the lack of a neck baffle limits this bag's usefulness in colder conditions because heated air can still escape out of the cinched hood opening.

Value

Recently we've noticed that many down sleeping bags have steadily increased in price. The Bishop Pass 30 is a welcomed exception to this trend. It offers a respectable quantity of average quality down, along with the weight and packability advantages of this insulation type. Compared to similarly priced budget bags, the Bishop Pass presents an exceptional value. At the same time, it also performs well enough that it should tempt many shoppers away from sleeping bags with higher mid-range prices because those models seem to offer only modest performance advantages at a substantially higher cost.

Conclusion