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850 Fill Power down / -6.6 Comfort rating / Regular Length / Wide / 683 grams

Fill Weight (Regular Wide) 479g

In the right conditions quilts are an amazing way of sleeping outdoors,  Enlightened Equipment specialise in quilts and are very good at it. When Summer camping you can sleep under a quilt and feel really comfortable compared to the restrictions of lying inside a conventional sleeping bag. Designs centre around what happens when it gets a little colder though, the last thing you want are draughts robbing you of precious warmth.

Footboxes are a good case in point, the Revelation quilts can be used as a flat quilt or the bottom section can be turned into a footbox by zipping the sides together and pulling a drawcord to close the foot end. Footboxes don’t feel restricting yet they stop your feet straying out from under the quilt.

Another feature of the Revelation is they include a pair of clips and straps that are placed around your sleeping mat and used to secure the sides of the quilt to the mat itself. These are effective and prevent the quilt from moving too much so you don’t create yawning gaps for the heat to escape. I found these tricky to fasten, there isn’t much ‘travel’ on the plastic clip and you have to press quite hard to unclip them, but when fixed in place they did keep the quilt in check.

The quilt I tested is rated down to -6C, and was the wide option. The rating is not the EN test rating that you see on sleeping bags, that test can’t be applied to quilts, it’s Enlightened Equipment’s own estimate. In order to achieve that rating you would need to team it up with a high R-Value sleeping mat as there’s obviously no insulation below the quilt other than your mat, however, there are a good number of ultralight mats with high R-Values available.

Looking at the amount of 850+ Fill Power down in the quilt (479 grams in the Wide version and 455 grams in the Regular) and considering this is all on the top and sides I’d say that a -6.6C Comfort rating sounds very reasonable. The construction is box walled so there should be no cold spots either.

With a total weight of just 683 grams, it’s an amazingly lightweight option for camping in the cold but you need to be a confident quilt user to use one in these conditions, the low weight however, means that you aren’t carrying excessive weight even for Spring and Autumn camping.

I tested the quilt on a backpacking trip in the Lakes in February but it wasn’t as cold as I expected, night-time temperatures only got to about three degrees, however, I sleep cold these days and I like a sleep system rated to at least 5C lower than the temperatures I’m expecting. The  Revelation quilt was ideal for me in these conditions. I was using a tarp and slept with a base layer top and leggings and a pair of socks as I usually do in the winter, I was warm enough and didn’t have a problem with draughts.

The thing I really missed was a hood and I added a fleece beanie to my bedroom line-up. In cold temperatures, there’s no way around this when using a quilt, when camping in warmer conditions I don’t mind my head being uncovered. Enlightened Equipment obviously knows this and they produce down hoods that can be used for sleeping.

Last Words

If you haven’t tried a quilt before I recommend it, Enlightened Equipment Comfort Ratings are a useful guide but personally, I wouldn’t buy a 0C quilt instead of a 0C sleeping bag, I’d buy a -5C quilt instead of a 0C sleeping bag, they will weigh about the same but you will have a luxurious quilt in comparison.

Regular width or extra wide? If you are a slim person who doesn’t move around much while sleeping then a Regular width quilt is probably the right option, however, if you are a big person anyway, then an extra wide will be more appropriate. If you are a big person and you move around a lot then buy a wide one.

Mark Richardson
Mark was the founder of Ultralight Outdoor Gear back in 2006 and has completed long distance backpacking routes in some of the remotest parts of the world. His favourite hikes have been Torres del Paine (full circuit), the John Muir trail and the Markha Valley trail (Ladakh, India). Although semi-retired Mark has not lost any enthusiasm for minimalist backpacking and is tackling Scotland’s Munros choosing multi-day backpacking routes over the more usual guide book excursions. Read more from Mark Richardson