HIGHLANDER KESTREL BIVI BIVVY BAG SURVIVAL MILITARY NEW

Unfortunately I have had a great deal of condensation using this bag. This is all very well for single nights (I have used it at minus five) but if you are on a trip without daily drying facilities I would recommend a more breathable Bag. Ralph

I liked the look of this bivvy bag but when I slept in it I woke up with a wet sleeping bag. This is not breathable! Very disapointed.

Bought for my husband.

I was umming and ahring about what bivvy bag to choose, in the under £50 department there sure isn't much choice, its very light to carry and takes up very little room in a ruck sack. I was walking to cornwall from doncaster in south yorkshire so the weight of the item and the space it took up was very important - we were sleeping out every day so the equipment had to be as good as possible, it also had to be as cheap as possible. I wanted to write a review because I believe this is an under rated product, people expect far too much for 25 pounds, alpine style breathable all enclosed bivvy bags cost hundreds of pounds, its not realistic to expect that quality for this price. The material used here is quite thin but pretty tough, you won't worry about punching a hole in it in your sleep, a nasty (old) holly leaf or a badly placed bramble would pierce it though. The thing is really very big, im 6'3 and had about a foot of space above my head. The draw cord is useful, otherwise it would just be a very well made bin bag, the reason this thing is allowed to be sold as breathable im sure could only be due to the hole at the top (the one you get in and out of) I mean this material is NOT breathable, you can only roll it up from one end because otherwise it balloons with the trapped air, thats why people give it bad reviews I think. Choose your sleeping bag very carefully, my friend who I went with got a 4 season sleeping bag, extreme temp -25 degrees, whilst mine was a much lighter (1.5kg vs 2.2kg) smaller, and cheaper sleeping bag, he got a lot of condensation in his sleeping bag, he had to hang it up in the trees in the morning, often having to drape it over his shoulders for hours when walking, etc... it caused him a lot of problems because the moisture cannot escape, it just rests between the inside of the bivvy and the outside of the sleeping bag, his sleeping bag was literally dripping wet on the outside - so choose an appropriate sleeping bag so you don't sweat too much in the bivvy bag. Also you cannot breathe into the bivvy bag, sometimes when its cold you want to keep yourself warm with your breath but you must keep your head outside of the bivvy bag, I did the draw cord around my neck, its good for stopping insects invading also, we went in the june gone, the rainiest one since records began...again, we didnt have tents but just tarps, so a couple of times we woke up in puddles on the tarps where we had sunk into the ground but the bivy was fine with this, a completely soaking sleeping bag would have been really very bad, this was a crazy trip on a bit of a whim so the assurance of having somewhere warm, dry and waterproof to sleep meant a lot, I wanted to give a fair review since I used this thing every day for a month - I was surprised by the lack of choice with bivy bags, get the £50 highlander one if your going to be using it without a ground sheet, that one is slightly thicker and heavier, but i havent used or even seen that one for real so take what I say about that one with a pinch of salt, I ripped this bivvy bag although that was kind of my fault. I was on a bench on a hill in the cottswolds - we decided to camp there, So my mate camped behind the bench so he had loads of room but I was very trapped under my tarp which was pulled tight over the bench, I got in ok, but then I trapped the bivy bag material in the zip of the sleeping bag, I was overheating and couldnt get the sleeping bag off and I get claustrophobic so I forced it out of the zip and ripped it, the rip stop material works - it rips to a point and then stops, also is only ripped up and right, nothing a bit of tape couldnt have fixed, but the material was thin enough to get trapped in the other zip so watch out for that (you don't need to use the sleeping bag zip much really in the bivvy bag, it was just because I was getting warm, Im ranting on bit... I couldnt have done without this bivvy bag, we never got to cornwall, we got to somerset, but we will try again next year, for charity next time - and Im buying another one of these, there should be more competition at this price range, these things should be £15 - I guess there isnt much demand, there are only two I could find at this price, 1 at £5 (a big plastic bag, literally) and 1 at £50 (that I almost bought) - Sorry for ranting, I hope this helps!