I was skiing in Salt Lake City this season, one of my favorite places to enjoy the wild outdoors. I have many friends in Salt Lake since I was born there, and have been back from my home in Southern California almost every year since my sixteenth birthday. Well I'm fifty-five now and still going skiing and hiking with the same group of friends. 

This year, after several days of truly phenomenal skiing due to the incredible snow depth this year, we went snowshoeing and hiking for an overnighter. We all had great gear and were in excellent condition, although we were more tired from the days of skiing than we wanted to admit. After hiking in to our favorite spot, we made camp and got dinner on the fire. Soon we were swapping stories from past years and past trips, drinking coffee to stay awake for our turn to tell. At last we were talked out, our eyes drooping almost simultaneously as we headed to our tents to sleep. That's when we discovered that a raccoon, or a family of them most likely, had ripped into my buddy Jason's tent and sleeping bag as they looked for food. Jason's tent was repairable for the night, but his down bag was a mess. The coons had literally ripped the shell to shreds, mistaking the feathers for something they could eat. We were in trouble, or Jason and his wife were, as the temperature was dropping from the five degrees above zero Fahrenheit it was at that time of early evening. The weatherman was calling for clear weather for the next two days, which we all knew meant clear and cold, for it is always colder when its clear that when clouds are about, blanketing the earth as they do. Jason and Penny, Jason's wife, were in real trouble without a sleeping bag to get into tonight.

My wife and I had Sierra Design's sleeping bags, however. Not only would we be warm and dry no matter what the weather outside out tent, our gear was the best I had found in over thirty years of personal trial and expedition. My gear from SD just couldn't be beat and I knew it. I came to me that I could unzip the two halves of my bag, well Jo, my wife's bag really which we shared. I pitched it to Jo and she said "of course, honey. We have to do something". So, I split our bag into two and gave Jason and Penny one half of it to use for the night. We were able to zip the bottom and part way up the side, allowing Jason and Penny to spend a tight but warm and safe night despite the minus ten degrees temperature that the early morning hours brought to the mountain meadow we were set up in. Jo and I did the same thing, still liking to meet problems with new solutions just as when we were first married.

It was fun wrapping ourselves together like eels, then sleeping quietly so as not to wake the other. We were warm as toast, too, thanks to our Sierra Design's sleeping bag and other gear. Each piece of gear did its job perfectly, and Jo's bag did double duty - keeping Jason and Penny safe and warm in their patched up tent, as well as Jo and me warm and safe, too. We snuggled all night long, and in the morning none of us was any the worse for wear.

You know, I happen to know for a fact that after that trip Jason and Penny began to replace their gear with gear from Sierra Design. We still do all of the stuff we have been doing for a long time. We just have better gear all around, now. Sierra Design fits every need we can come up with. And Jason and Penny, too. I know we are a little bit safer, too. I just can't find any better gear, anywhere. And that is the safest a man can be.

Click here to see how Sierra Designs was used by Larrie Mann and other people in the know.