Mont Brindabella XT 700 Sleeping Bag – Reviewed & Tested

In a bumper year for winter snows, Taylor took the Mont Brindabella up to the Victorian High Country for some cosy dugout camping and icy mornings.

The Mont Brindabella is one hell of a sleeping bag. It partners deluxe comfort with extreme warmth. It’s so insulated that you won’t realise you’re literally sleeping on ice.

It’s so versatile that you can go full cocoon well into spring and autumn mornings with your coffee. Plus it’s got these little toaster pockets in the footbox where you can put hand warmers and other various trinkets.

Keep reading for more trinket discussion

Why am I the right person to do this review?

To my mother’s unending chagrin, I spent my 20s doing a bunch of seasonal work instead of getting a career. This meant I got to hike nearly 10,000km of long-distance trails around America, Europe, and Australia in the downtime. And yes, I did my time as a full on ounce-counting ultralight bro, who hasn’t?!? But then I turned 30 and found out that camp chairs and warm meals can also be dope.

I’m also dumb enough to summit a peak with $9 lawn aerator sandals from Bunnings

I’ve been going full gear head in reviews for WAE and a couple of other sites in the states for the better part of a decade now. The Brindabella is now the fifth(!!!) sleeping bag I’ve owned – not counting three other sleeping quilts – and so I’ve got a good nose for what gives life and breadth to a bag.

Quick Specifications

Weight: 1330g (standard)
Fill weight: 700g standard, 800g XL
Temp rating: Mont uses slightly different temp ratings than the rest of the industry. They don’t use ‘extreme’ ratings, and instead recommend this as the average temperature at which a sleeper will be comfortable.

For the Brindabella:

• Women/Cold Sleepers:-6°C / 21°F
• Men/Warm Sleepers:-12°C / 10°F

Size: Small, Standard, or XL with side-zips on either side for all.
Colours: Ocean Blue/Lemongrass/Black

The Brindabella XT 850 is rated to -16°C and as it says on the tin, has an 850g down fill.

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Doesn’t pack down as small as a Sea to Summit Ascent AC1 or a One Planet Cocoon -3° but it IS at least 3° warmer (tomato can for scale)

Performance

For the sake of covering bases, and for our collective love of the limbo, I wanted to see how low this baby could go.

I started raw; by laying in just the bag with no sleeping pad on top of the snow. And I’ve got to say that I probably could have still slept intermittently through a 0° night even with only a tent and groundsheet separating us.

Then I levelled up to a NeoAir XTherm and was immediately cottagecore. THEN I decided to go deluxe and crack a hand warmer for the toaster (toe-ster?) pocket. And let me tell you, it was really cooking then. You wouldn’t be able to keep your socks on even if it was below freezing outside.

The softest grass is always the wettest, these are the sacrifices we must make

Durability

Usually I speak in terms of destruction only. I look at things and think about how to dismantle them. Cairns, Instagrammable foods, machines, systems, hierarchies, you name it. So when it comes to sleeping bags, the main question is: how can you keep it from being destroyed? The answer is threefold. You want: water resistance, abrasion resistance and loft…maintenance…? You know? Maintaining the loft.

In terms of water resistance, the Brindabella scores extremely high. Why, you ask? Well, naturally it’s due to the ‘Hydronaute XT advanced monolithic PU membrane technology’. And we all know what a Hydronaute XT’s advanced monolithic PU membrane technology looks like, right guys? GUYS?!?

This is essentially the shell material on the bag’s exterior, which acts like weatherproofing on a truck. It does add this ‘toughness’ to the bag’s exterior texture, which I’ve never really experienced in another one. With a 20,000mm+ waterhead and breathability of 48,000g m²/24h, the down is effectively encased in a high-performance rain jacket.

The Hydronaute XT also serves as excellent protection against abrasions on the exterior and being a serial cowboy and open-tent camper, I can attest that it also provides fantastic windproofing. You won’t get freezing cold drafts sneaking in at any point.

If I was a vampire I’d consider using this as my day-roost

As for internal abrasions, the 15d nylon which comprises the bag’s liner material is slightly above industry standard. There’s always the possibility of tearing open the footbox with sweaty/sticky feet, but even this risk is mitigated by the foot zippers.

Finally, there is loft/down maintenance. I don’t feel qualified to speak on this one – as I haven’t put this bag through enough trials to say how it holds up. But after multiple days of carrying it completely compressed in my pack then letting it re-loft at night, it seems to hold its temperature well. All I can say is that proper care goes a long way into increasing the longevity of any sleeping bag.

Comfort

Naturally, warmth is the most important factor in a good winter sleeping bag. But comfort is also something to strongly consider, and I can’t deny that the Brindabella is basically memory foam. You can chalk part of that up to the 700 fill, high loft down, but honestly that’s pretty much the industry standard for a 3-4 season bag.

Most bags on the market share a close variation of those specs these days. Instead, what sets this bag’s comfort level apart are two things:

1. Radial Arc Baffles – These are meant to increase the insulation retention, but I also loved the way they hugged me inside the bag. Not suffocating, just a light touch to let you know they’re there.
2. Cordless Draft Collar – This is a real thing that really does make a difference. I spent enough freezing nights sucking air out of a tiny hole in my sleeping bag to know what a pain it is to fiddle with with a cinch cord. Has your face ever been so cold that you can’t sleep, but you also can’t get out of your bag to free your face? Well the cordless collar solves that, and does a solid job with it. I love simplifications in design too.

Arms can go in or out with it as well!!!

Design

The Brindabella doesn’t take any huge risks with its design. The mummy shape is fairly standard and has the right amount of room for comfort/shifting in the night (keeping in mind that I’m a very average person with a very average build who was using the average size bag).

The cordless draft collar is the most innovative spec, and it was a bit counter-intuitive at first, but I found myself really liking it by the end of the hike. The way that it seamlessly wraps around the neck provides more flexibility when you’re sleeping, AND you can tuck it in the bag if you’re too hot or when you’re sitting around in the morning, procrastinating having to get out and pack up your frozen poles and stakes.

This storage bag could also be a great pack liner? Maybe?!

Apart from this, and maybe most importantly: the full-length zipper. This incurs another small weight penalty, but I find it to be a totally imperative feature if I’m using a sleeping bag over a quilt. The versatility of a full-length zipper is paramount. The zipper plus the versatility of the draft collar means you can make this an actual 4-season bag instead of just having it be a winter bag.

PLUS, you never know when you’ll meet that special someone, and full-length YKK zippers mean that you can couple and de-couple with other compatible bags until you finally break up over something trivial like whether you need to stop cold soaking and start carrying a stove because it’s freezing cold on this hike and you’d rather be miserable than just cop the weight of a gas canister.

Thinking about all the physio I’ll need after this extra 200g of fuel

Sustainability

Similar to design, Mont’s approach to sustainability is one that’s totally fine, albeit fairly risk-averse.

• An adherence to Responsible Down Standards parallels an industry-wide trend.
• Most of the nylons that comprise their gear, such as the Hydronaute XT are recycled but still imported (it is Australia after all). There are notes on their approach to ethical manufacturing, PFAS-free design andWorldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) standard.
• Mont does some interesting work with re-forestation both abroad and at home, which you can read about on the Mont website along with all the other regulations and bureaucratised environmental standards in the outdoors industry that are being dutifully adhered to.
• Carbon-neutral is on the agenda, but currently this doesn’t include concrete public goals.
• Echoing Jon’s experiences with Mont’s gear, I do think that durability should also factor into a product’s sustainability. Mont products are clearly built to last. Plus they’re covered by a repair warranty. This means they’ll ultimately create less waste on this mortal coil than fast outdoors fashion.

Not sure if abrasions due to sleeping in a tree are covered

Price

Retailing at $950 AUD, you’re buying this bag because you never want another winter and shoulder-season bag. And indeed the extra $300 you cop over something comparable like some of the Sea to Summit, One Planet, or Nemo bags may well be a decade’s worth of difference in the end.

$950 is a competitive price to other commercial, large-scale bag manufacturers. Western Mountaineering and The North Face bags with similar temperatures and weights even tend to retail a tick higher. So if it’s in your budget range, and you want to take a weight penalty for more versatility AND durability then this is your ticket.

Final Thoughts

The Mont Brindabella is undoubtedly a great pick for Aussie alpine camping and, let’s say… condensation-positive…cowboy camping. But it’s also got the right amount of versatility to make it handy on other shoulder-season backcountry excursions. I’m taking it on any trip where temperatures and comfort are more important than counting grams.

Which is almost every trip, because it’s always about having FUN!!

Thanks to Taylor’s friends Jerome and Ryan for snapping so many of these photos <3

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