A New Fangled Insulation From The North Face Company

Heatseeker™ Pro insulation. They are combining continuous filament fiber with chopped staple fiber. Maybe I should have titled this “the hair brained idea of people who have absolutely no knowledge of insulation for use in sleeping bags.”

In the late 1960’s, TNF started making shingle construction sleeping bags and they sold very well. The fiber that they used was a silicone finished chopped staple product sandwiched between two layers of scrim. When I saw what they were doing I told the genius who came up with this idea that the insulation would deteriorate when the bag was washed. What did I know was his attitude and he never changed. By the mid 1970’s TNF had so many returns in my opinion it was what put them in a financial hole. They now made a change to the first continuous filament fiber put on the market; POLAR GUARD! While I believed back then they should have been using the laminated Polar Guard that I was selling they pooh poohed me. But they did change to using the Polar Guard in the shingle construction and have stayed with it until now. That is until someone inside the product development department, I guess, who said we could make a cheaper bag if we replace some of the continuous filament fiber with chopped staple, as I believe. I can only assume they are using the lightest weight continuous filament and bulking it up with the much cheaper chopped staple fiberfill. So the bags look good to the consumer.

The bag I looked at on their web site is the Cat’s Meow which has been available since the early 70’s I guess. They rate the bag for 20 degrees as usual. A regular bag has a total weight of 2 pounds and 11 ounces. I find that very hard to believe.

Their trade name for their newfangled insulation is “Heatseeker™ Pro” will in my humble opinion make you want to seek heat from anywhere because you will not get it from the bag, that is to say the bag will not retain the heat that your body is giving off with in the bag.

Once again “buyer beware.”