A Timeless Classic: North Face's Blue Kazoo
Written: Jan 08 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Warm, light, compressible to the size of a large football
Cons: When wet, doesn't keep you warm, slightly confining.
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| pageclot's Full Review: The North Face Kazoo |
Summary: A warm sleeping bag, at a reasonable price.
Background
After my first few camping/canoeing trips in the early 1990's, I was getting tired of borrowing sleeping bags, or using my too-small Mountain Equipment Co-op synthetic bag. One of the bags I'd borrowed was a North Face down bag; I was astounded at how much it compressed when it was time to put it in my backpack.
When it came time to purchase my own sleeping bag, I knew that I wanted a down bag. At Hiker's Haven, my wife pointed out the North Face Blue Kazoo. After lying down on the floor inside it, I was sold. It was reasonably roomy, the hood fit over my head, and my feet had room to move around. The price was expensive, but it was the only major piece of camping gear that I was buying that year, so I bought it.
Features
Down, down, down.
The Blue Kazoo is a down bag. The Blue Kazoo has a nylon outer shell and inner bag, and in-between is the warmest part of the goose. Goose down, when dry, is extremely good at holds body heat in. Goose down, when wet, is not as good at keeping body heat in; it actively expels body heat.
You versus the mummy
The Blue Kazoo is a "mummy" style bag, which is tapered more or less the way your body is, so that the bag stays closer to your body, which saves on weight and more efficiently holds your body heat close. The bag has a hood which can be drawn very tightly over your face, leaving as much or as little exposed. In very cold weather, I've slept with only my nose exposed.
The zipper
The dual zipper (so named by me because there's a pull tab on the outside and the inside of the bag) is partially covered by a lip of nylon, to avoid losing heat through the zipper openings. At the top, the zipper can be covered by a velcro tab, to avoid having it come undone.
The foot box
The foot area is slightly enlarged, when compared to the amount of room you have for your legs. This allows you more room to thrash about, and get some momentum going when you want to turn over inside the bag.
The technical stuff
The Blue Kazoo is filled with 600 + fill down. I believe that this is a measure of how much the down "lofts". The higher the number, the more the loft, and the puffier your bag is going to be, and also the more extreme the temperatures the bag can keep you warm in. The most expensive down bags have 800+ fill down. The Blue Kazoo is rated to keep you warm down to +15 degrees fahrenheit, or -9 degrees centrigrade. Keep in mind that being in a tent and being on a mattress means you'll be comfortable at slightly colder temperatures than that.
Love is being warm in the outdoors
Love # 1: You're warm.
The Blue Kazoo is a superb sleeping bag. On every trip I've been on, I have been so warm in a Blue Kazoo that I have been able to partially unzip the bag to let cooler air inside. My trips have been to Algonquin Provincial Park and Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario, in early May and late September/early October. The nights go down to -5 celsius, and we had some snow on one of our mornings.
Being warm and inside a tent on such cold nights and mornings is absolutely amazing. When you're warm, you don't shiver, and you sleep better, and awake refreshed.
Love # 2: It's small.
Having a warm bed in which to sleep is not much fun if your sleeping bag weighs a ton and to transport it, you have to bring a separate canoe. The Blue Kazoo squashes easily into a 10 litre dry sack, with room to spare. I can fit my sleeping bag and my Therm-A-Rest mattress in the bottom section of my backpack, leaving me the main storage compartment for my clothes, the stove, the water bottles, etc, etc.
What I don't love
Hate # 1: Wet feet!
Campsites are rarely billiard-table flat. I have found that I usually get a better night's sleep when my feet are lower than my head, so that's the way I sleep. Unfortunately, this means that I occasionally slide down (over the course of the night) and my feet touch the side of the tent, which usually has condensation on it. The foot box area of the sleeping bag gets damp. Damp, not wet, but it holds the potential for wetness, over the course of longer trips.
Hate # 2: A hint of claustrophobia.
I am not the world's heaviest sleeper (especially when my tent-mates are elbowing me to stop snoring), and occasionally toss and turn. This is not the easiest task when you're in a sleeping bag, especially since the area of the sleeping bag around the legs is quite narrow. If I ever do replace the Blue Kazoo, I might look for a bag with more hip and leg room. I'm willing to pay the weight and heat penalty, especially since the weight of the bag is so negligable, and there's heat to burn in this bag.
Durability
After 5 years of abuse, The Blue Kazoo looks as good today as when I bought it. The occasional goose down feather works its way out of the bag, but no more than a few. I wash the bag every season, in our front load washer, and hang it up unstuffed, to prevent the down from compressing (at which point, you'd lose your heat retention).
Situations and seasons
I would recommend The Blue Kazoo for sleeping inside a tent. I would call this a 3.5 season bag, because it's warm enough for late fall or early spring, especially when used in conjunction with an air mattress.
You could combine The Blue Kazoo with a bivvy sack and extend your sleeping-outside season even further. A bivvy sack is another layer of warmth between you and the cold, and might even solve the wet feet problem noted above.
Summary
I'm very happy to own The Blue Kazoo, and look forward to getting many more seasons of use out of it. It makes sleeping outdoors sound almost enjoyable, doesn't it?
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Recommended:
Yes
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