My 15 degree down bag is perfect for California winters. But when I'm backpacking closer to home (like this coming weekend) and the nighttime lows are in the 40's, what should I do? I only own one sleeping bag, and there's no way I could find money in my budget right now to buy another bag. Currently I just zip up from the bottom, and leave a small part of the zipper connected near the top so that the bag covers me while I sleep but still has some ventilation along the size to cool off. But the bag is so warm I often still find myself waking up sweating in the middle of the night. Are there any tricks for getting around this?

Simple. Unzip the entire bag and just place it over you like a quilt. You can easily adjust you temperature by sticking out arms and legs as needed.

The difficulty with using it as a quilt is that my zipper does not go down all the way down, so I end up with sweaty feet. Or freezing feet if I just drape the outside of the bag over them, and I tend to adjust a lot in my sleep, so I'll undoubtedly wake up with my feet out from under the bag. But I suppose my wool socks could suffice in 45 degrees, unless someone knows of any other technique.

Thanks for the tip though, I'll experiment with the idea.

How far down does your zipper go? If it goes *most* of the way, then you should be fine just wearing socks and leaving them out of the footbox. If it only goes 3/4 or 2/3 of the way down, then you might consider Tim Marshall (www.enlightenedequipment.com) to add a full length zipper to your bag. much cheaper than buying a new bag!

Rent a bag from REI or borrow one from someone.