REASONS TO BUY
Very warm
Thoughtful design of features
REASONS TO AVOID
Expensive
Low quality down
Heavy
Mountain Equipment Glacier 700 - Women's Review
We love the clever design features focused on warmth, but think this bag is too expensive for what it is
Credit: REI Co-op
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Our Verdict
The Mountain Equipment Glacier 700 - Women's is a new product for us this year and we were pleasantly surprised in a few ways. It has very well thought out construction and design, which seems intended to keep you warm while spending time on a glacier. We're not super fans of the very pink color, considering it seems to be the only thing about this bag that Mountain Equipment changed from its men's version, and we wish it was a little lighter for carrying around with us on backpacking trips, especially considering its warmth-to-weight ratio and its price tag. All that said, it's a decent choice for overnight or multi-day backpacking trips, but we can recommend several other models that offer better value.
Our Analysis and Test Results
This super warm and comfortable bag has a lot of bells and whistles to keep you cozy during chilly nights in the backcountry.
Performance Comparison
The Mountain Equipment Glacier 700 is a well thought out design, focused on warmth and comfort.
Credit: Ian McEleney
Warmth
Warmth seems to be the Glacier 700's main area of focus (we guess we could have guessed that by its name). Although it's EN rated to 21 degrees, we think it is actually much warmer than a few of the other products that have this temperature rating, mostly because of it's thoughtful baffle design and features to store warmth. The Glacier's hood punches well above its weight class with huge amounts of down to insulate your head from the cold, which is important to feel warm. It also has a whopping 23 ounces of down fill, much more than other bags with the same EN temperature rating, which makes us wonder what all does the EN testing actually take into consideration?
Weight
Weighing in at 2.6 pounds, the Glacier is a bit on the heavy side for our liking. It's shell materials seem pretty hefty, and if it had a higher fill power there could be a lot less down weight for the same amount of warmth.
Comfort
The Glacier 700 is a very comfortable bag. Its mummy shape fits just right on our 5'5 tester and doesn't leave too much space for cold air to get in. We like its lofty baffles and cozy hood, as well as its soft liner materials.
Packed Size
The stuff sack that that comes with the glacier is on the large side and is not a compression sack, so its packed size is rather large. We think you could get the Glacier slightly smaller when using a different compression sack.
The Glacier 700 in its included stuff sack. We think it could compress down smaller inside a compression sack.
Credit: Ian McEleney
Features
As far as any women's specific features go, it seems like Mountain Equipment literally used the philosophy “shrink it and pink it” as the only difference we can find from the men's' version is it's smaller and pink.
The Glacier 700 has lots of clever features including a great hood and drawstrings to help adjust it how you want.
Credit: Ian McEleney
Mountain Equipment seems to have designed this bag with care. Its baffles are carefully thought out, and the foot baffle design is especially interesting in a “peace sign” structure to keep the down in place where it counts.
We weren't sure about the “Lode Lock” closure that closes the neck baffle and it took us a bit of time to fumble around with it until we discovered the handy pull tab that easily opens it up. It's fun to hear it find itself (there are magnets) and close when you're in the bag.
The Glacier's Lode Lock magnetic closure for the neck baffle.
Credit: Ian McEleney
We prefer the anti-snag style of zipper many manufacturers are using these days to the Glacier's traditional-looking zipper with burly materials along either side of it to keep it from snagging. The extra material seems to add unnecessary bulk and weight and could be easily solved with a different zipper.
One of the last bags in this review to have a traditional zipper. We prefer the standard anti-snag zippers over the Glacier 700's “classic” style one
Credit: Ian McEleney
Value
The price point of this bag seems a little off. It is one of the more expensive bags in this review, but when its weight and materials are compared to the high-end bags we tested, it falls very short. The middle of the road 700 fill down and its 2.6 pound weight puts it in a category with much lower-priced products. Although it could be argued that there is a higher level of engineering in some of the features, we don't think the Glacier 700 is a great value for what it is.
Conclusion
This well thought out sleeping bag will keep you warm on cool nights in spring through fall. We thing some tweaks need to be made to its materials (upping the fill power, reducing weight) or its price point for it to be the right value.
—
Jessica Haist
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