We will be reviewing the downhill top quilt from Featherstone outdoors, known as the Moondance.
Buy on Amazon: Featherstone Moondance Top Quilt
First off, I want to show the size of this thing, so right now, it is in the stuff sack that it comes with. It’s more of a relaxed fit because of how much it compresses. You can compress this down very small to fit inside a tiny backpack. So the first thing I want to do is take care of the specs.
The fill power of this top quilt is 850 fills. It is an RDS certified DOWNTEK Duck Down. So it is of outstanding quality down top, and it packs very small. The temperature comfort rating for this is 36 degrees Fahrenheit which is 2 degrees Celsius. The temperature limit is 26 degrees Fahrenheit, which is -3 degrees Celsius. And the extreme temperature is -4 Fahrenheit or -20 Celsius. Now I can tell you that this will not work at negative 20 degrees Celsius. So don’t even think about it. The packet is 13 by 4 inches, also known as 33 by 10 centimeters. The material of the inner is a 10d Nylon.
The outer is a 10d DWR Nylon. So, the exterior is DWR treated to be water repellant. The construction is a boxed raffle, so it is not a sewn-through construction, and the accessories are two pad straps included at the bottom of the pack in a stuff sack. Now I’m going to cover the sizes because there are two sizes of this top quilt; I will cover the large first and then the regular.
The large size length is 75.6 inches or 192 centimeters. The shoulder width so up at your shoulders. We’re at 59.3 inches, which is 137 centimeters. Foot circumference so down at the foot box area where 39.8 inches, which is 101 centimeters, and the recommended size for the individual’s height is between 5 foot two and five foot 10 now moving on to the long and wide size. The length is 90.2 inches or 229 centimeters.
The regular size is 57.9 inches which are 147 centimeters. The foot circumference down towards the foot box area is 41.7 inches or 106 centimeters, and the recommended user height is 5 foot 11 up to 6 foot 9 inches. So that is all the specs I’ve got for you guys. There is quite a detailed listing on Amazon and their website if you wish to have a look for yourself.
Opening up the stuff sack to the top quilt; It is a simple toggle and drawstring design. The colors of this top quilt are pretty interesting. Have a blaze orange on the inside, which I actually really like, and then we’ve got this black, almost dark Gray on the outside. You can invert this and turn it inside out if you want the orange on the outside and the Gray on the inside. But be mindful that the inside material is not DWR treated. The outer shell fabric is DWR treated, and if you don’t know what that means, it is water repellent. So, this will help with a little bit of spray from water and condensation.
We might as well talk about the pad straps, so we have another tiny little stuff sack inside at the bottom of the stuff sack. There are two identical pad straps now; personally, I do not use them, so I’m not going to be writing them as I only describe things that I use, but I will show you that they are two individual paths straps. They are pretty helpful. I have dabbled with them inside the house, but I haven’t taken them out on a trip. So what we’ve got is a little plastic latch system. This strap goes into the inside area, and then you can lock it down, and then there are two unique clasps. It’s quite a finicky system, to be honest, and these two plastic pieces correspond with the actual snaps on the back of the top quilt, and then you can adjust how wide your sleeping pad is and keep it on the pad. Now. My thoughts with this are if you need to bring pad straps to keep the top quilt tucked in around because you’re afraid of cold air coming in. it’s probably best to switch to a sleeping bag, to be honest, and that’s why I do not use pad straps. So now that I’ve got the top quilt lofted up, it only took about 60 seconds.
We can see the inside orange fabric. I will mention that this weight in the large size is 746 grams. I couldn’t find the weight for the regular size, so I’m not sure if I just skipped over and missed it. But that’s the size and the weight for the large version. You’re going to have to search for the weight of the regular size. At the top, we have one buckle up, one down there, and then another buckle down towards the foot end, followed by a 16 to 20 inch long zipper. Then the foot box area has a snap followed by two drawstring closures, which means this entire top quilt can open up into a blanket.
Featherstone Moondance Top Quilt opened up very simply. Undo the three snaps, undo the zipper followed by that safety snap at the bottom, so it doesn’t come undone in the middle of the sleep while you’re in your hammock or on the ground in your tent. Undo the drawstring closures, and you guys can see it is a very generous, boxed, baffled blanket out of down. So, this is how I typically use it inside of a tent. I love the interior color because this jumps out at night if you need to. To see what you’re doing in the middle of the night, and when you have a small headlamp on, this color helps reflect a lot of light, and it just works as a beautiful down fell blanket inside of a tent inside the hammock if you’re not in the cold seasons.
But you can also close it up and use it in a little bit of the colder seasons as well. All right, so moving our way towards the head of the top quilt area, there is an additional snap at the very head end so you can snap that right behind your neck when you’re lying inside it. I want to say probably about 14 inches away from the last strap. That would be right behind your shoulder blades or your lower back area, and this will help keep it snugged up against the back of your neck and a shock cord drawstring. So you could draw this all the way in and snap that up right behind your back, and it does have quite a large draft tube that will snug right up against your neck to trap in a lot of warm air effectively. I often find myself doing that, and I love using this in a hammock, more so than on the ground. I’m just going to do the bottom snap-up by cranking the drawcords at the bottom nice and tight. This zipper is a YKK zipper.
As I said, if it gets cold, you can reach behind your head. This movement takes a little bit of practice marking the light. You want to get that hiked up right behind you and snap in the snap. Just like that, once you get it snapped in, kind of reposition yourself; I can really crank in on this drawstring. And be very lovely and warm, so there is quite a bit of loft on this. I am getting extremely warm already, even though I’m not even totally sealed up, and it just makes a perfect functional talk quilt or blanket at the same time.
We will look back down to the foot box area. There are some tags down here, and I’m just kind of going over them. I’ve never actually read them until right now. A lot of the information that I’ve already covered is here, but there are some additional pieces of information. It is filled with DOWNTEK, which confirms that the internal down part is also treated with DWR. So not only the outer shell but the inner down fill is DWR treated, and it weighs the down fill coming in 16 ounces or 450 grams worth of 850 fills.
Suppose you look at some of these snaps. These are plastic. There are three of these located on the top quilt, and this is how you secure it on your backside. OK, so coming down to the foot box area, we can have a detailed look at what’s happening there. We have some webbing with some plastic snaps to help hold the quilt’s zipper and bottom together. We then have two plastic toggles with some drawstrings and clothes so you can tighten or loosen the foot box.
We then have the zipper, which is approximately 14 inches long. It is a YKK zipper giving you a nice foot box area moving up to the head end of the top quote. You’ll notice a toggle there with some shock cord that is tight-knit up around your shoulders and neck area. We then have two of the same plastic snaps as the foot box area, and then we have some Featherstone branding very nicely sewn into the top of the quilt.
So now that we’ve had a pretty good look at the Moondance top quilt from Featherstone, what are my final thoughts on it now? I am a sleeping bag guy and more so than a top quilt guy as I generally don’t use this in cold weather. However, I have noticed lately that this is still a little bit too warm in the mornings in my area, about 8 to 9 degrees Celsius. It is very, very lofty. It’s got a lot of down inside of it, and it does keep me reasonably warm. I like using it inside a hammock, where I usually use top quilts or down blankets.
All in all, I think Featherstone Moondance Top Quilt is a great product. Featherstone Moondance Top Quilt is more of a budget top quilt, and I think they priced it pretty reasonably. So in the United States, it is coming in at the $200 and $300 range for Canadians, which is where I am at, which is pretty much half price because I’ve seen a lot of higher-end top quilts and under quilts. And you know all those products are coming in with this value at about $700.00, which is astronomical. So, I don’t feel that it’s too bad of a price for this coming in at about $300 Canadian. I love the interior color being bright orange and the option to flip it inside out. So, if you are out in hunting season or you want a signal and be bright, you have the option to do that. But like I mentioned above, keep in mind the inside shell is not DWR treated.
However, the down inside is so it’s kind of a choice that you would have to make the outside shell fabric, though I do enjoy the color of being very black. If you do want to be more of a muted color, the options of using it as a top quilt or a big blanket are also beneficial, and you could even rig this up to be an under-quilt with all those snaps underneath event we have the snaps on the bottom, some draw cordage at the top. You could rig this up to be an under-quilt effectively.
So, all in all, I think the Featherstone Moondance Top Quilt is definitely a good option and a budget option, in my opinion, so I’d be happy to hear what you guys think of it? Drop it down in the comment section and let me know what you think.
Buy on Amazon: Featherstone Moondance Top Quilt