As I get more experience backpacking, I'm trying to move more toward modular solutions that I can fine tune over a longer hike to suit the environment I'm passing through. I am considering down pants (probably the GooseFeet) as a means of supplementing my 30F EE Revelation quilt for an upcoming long PCT section this summer, hopefully finishing out the PCT.
My plan is to hike from Tuolumne northbound and make it to Canada, if I hike fast enough to do so within the time available. My planned start date is July 1 from Tuolumne. Normally in the Sierra Nevada, I use a warmer sleeping bag (my zPacks 10F) which weighs about 7 ounces more than my EE Revelation 30F. I'm thinking that if I couple the EE 30F with both down pants and the Montbell UL Down Parka (which I always carry) that I could push the serviceable temperature range for the EE down to at least the mid 20s which should be sufficient for the Sierra in July and August. My thinking is that I start with the down pants to supplement my system when leaving Tuolumne and then send them home somewhere north of Tahoe where the elevations get lower and it gets to be much warmer at night. Then, if needed, I can have them sent back to me when I make it to Washington state and encounter cooler weather. My Montbell parka would stay with me throughout.
I feel like this is a simpler way of doing things than the alternative - starting with the zPacks 10F, sending that home and having my EE 30F sent to me for the middle part of my hike, and then getting the zPacks 10F back toward the end. Although as I type this, maybe it isn't much simpler since I'm still having to have something send back and forth.
(My underlying assumption here is that the 30F EE Revelation may be inadequate for *parts* of a Tuolumne to Canada hike ranging from July 1 into early to mid September ... but maybe I'm wrong on that at it could work throughout, even without down pants. I do think it would be overkill and silly to take the 10F zPacks through NorCal and Oregon in mid summer).