Best Overall Sleeping Bag

Price: $200

Weight: [regular] 2lb 14oz, (1.3kg) [long] 3lb 2oz (1.4kg)

Temperature Rating (Lower Limit): 22°F (-5°C)

Style: Semirectangular/Spoon

Shell: 30D polyester ripstop

Lining: 20D nylon taffeta w/ DWR

Insulation/Fill: Primaloft RISE (synthetic)

Compressed Volume: [regular] 9L, [long] 9.7L

What We Like: Excellent ventilation, Great for side sleepers

What We Don’t: Heavy, Large pack size

NEMO has illustrated their ingenuity with the Forte 20, a semirectangular backpacking sleeping bag designed to optimize comfort. This $200 bag uses NEMO’s Spoon shape to accommodate side sleepers—a feature not often found in backpacking sleeping bags. There’s a lot to love about the Forte 20. It’s soft and roomy with a large handful of features to increase its overall versatility. Whether it’s a warm June evening or a chilly November night, you can feel confident in getting a good night’s sleep no matter your preferred sleeping style. Unfortunately, these creature comforts compromise the weight, and as a backpacking sleeping bag, some will find that this is just a bit too heavy for lengthy expeditions. For more casual overnights or even car camping, though, the Forte 20 is a no-brainer. These factors earned the NEMO Forte 20 the title of Best Overall Sleeping Bag.

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Operating with a 25-person team out of a 200-year-old refurbished textile mill in Dover, NH, outdoor company NEMO (short for New England Mountain Equipment) has become a popular choice for ultralight as well as more casual hikers with a range of high-quality tents, pillows, sleeping bags, and sleeping pads with unique names like the Yurti, Heliopolis, Bugout, and Fillo pillow. NEMO has upped the ingenuity with the Forte 20, a semi-rectangular backpacking sleeping bag designed to optimize comfort. This $200 bag uses NEMO’s Spoon shape to accommodate side sleepers, a feature not often found in backpacking sleeping bags. These factors and more earned the NEMO Forte 20 the title of Best Overall Sleeping Bag.

Warmth

The Forte 20 uses Primaloft RISE synthetic insulation that’s 80% PCR (post-consumer recycled content), all wrapped up in 30D polyester ripstop and lined with 20D nylon taffeta, both of which sport a DWR coating. These elements combine to give the bag a temperature rating of 22°F (-7°C) and a comfort rating of 32°F (0°C), which are excellent numbers for a three-season bag. Further bolstering this warmth is a Blanket Fold™ external draft collar that serves as a neck baffle, along with a full-length draft tube.

Comfort

The comfort factor on the Forte 20 is significant. Not only can the 20D nylon taffeta liner be described as buttery smooth, but NEMO has reinvented the wheel with its proprietary Spoon design, which is meant to enable hikers to sleep both on their back as well as their side. As a member of the side-sleeper population, I can appreciate this innovation. This accommodation is made possible via additional room at the elbows and knees.

In terms of dimensions, the Spoon shape is exceptionally roomy. The regular-size bag fits up to 6’ in height with girths of 64” in the shoulders, 59” in the hips, and 62” in the knees. The long bag accommodates hikers up to 6’6” with 66” shoulder girth, 60” hip girth, and 64” knee girth.

Weight & Packed Size

We were quite pleased to find both a 12L compression sack (weighing in at 3.2oz) and mesh storage sack included with this bag. Packed down into the sturdy compression sack, the bag’s volume was 9L for the regular and 9.7L for the long, which isn’t terrible (it’s still smaller than the Trestles 30), but it’s far from ideal for backpackers looking to save on space.

Features

There’s more to love about the Forte 20 than just its unique shape; this bag is absolutely packed with features. There’s a double-slider zipper with a Y shape to avoid potential snags installed on opposite sides for the men’s and women’s models so that they can be zipped together to form a double sleeping bag. We liked the included pillow pocket and the zippered stash pocket near the hood to hold our cell phone but found that it was a tad small and potential for snags, unlike the main zipper. One of our favorite features of this bag was its Thermo Gills, a pair of zippers about two-thirds of the way up the bag that increase ventilation on those warmer nights.

The Bottom Line

There’s a lot to love about the Forte 20. It’s soft and roomy with a large handful of features to up the overall versatility. Whether it’s a warm June evening or a chilly November night, you can feel confident in getting a good night’s sleep no matter your preferred sleeping style. Unfortunately, these creature comforts compromise the weight, and as a backpacking sleeping bag, some may find that this is just a bit too heavy for lengthy expeditions. For more casual overnights or even car camping, though, the Forte 20 is a no-brainer.

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