We put the Rumpl Puffy Blanket through a 3 week road trip to see how it holds up

Modern Outdoorists everywhere have a tendency to resolutely cherish puffy things – be that their puffy jacket, puffy sleeping bag, vest, booties or whatever; puffys have become keystone to keeping warm while keeping light.   When we heard that a new high performance outdoor puffy thing had come out, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on one for a Basin & Range Field Test.

Enter the Rumpl Puffy Blanket

San Francisco based Rumpl – the original “Active Homewear” folks.  Active Homewear is a term that Rumpl uses to describe their products: home use goods that are adaptable to the outdoors.  They use the materials, technology and fabrics that are typically used for outdoor products and creatively pit them against traditional home stuff.  One of those end results of that creative process is their Puffy Blanket.

Rumpl Puffy Blanket - Passenger Collab

Rumpl Puffy Blanket – Passenger Collab. – ph: Rumpl

The Puffy Blanket is one of those things that is just at home inside the house as it is inside your #vanlife rig or the deep in the backcountry.  It comes in a variety of prints, fills, colors and sizes so that pretty much everyone gets a chance at something creative and unique.  Interested in Tech Specs? Here you go:

  • 20D Ripstop Nylon with DWR for repelling water, stains, pet hair and odors
  • 600 fill down or 3D Hollow Fiber Synthetic Insulation.  Both are comfortable down to about 40f
  • Sizes range from 50″ x 70″ (throw) to 88″ x 94″ (2 person)
  • Machine washable
  • Comes with a stuff sack
  • Weights range from 1lb. (down throw) to 4.8 lbs. (2 person synthetic)
  • Compressible

Basin & Range Magazine’s Field Test

We recently had the chance to take a Rumpl Down Blanket out for our 3 week road trip through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.  Rumpl kindly outfitted us with an Original 2 person synthetic for our extended adventure.  Parts of our trip would be spent staying in BnB gigs inside of cities, while other parts would be spent camping in some of the more remote stretches of each of the three western states.  As with all Basin & Range’s field tests, we took the opportunity to put the product through a practical – real world scenario “stress test” to see if it lived up to both its indoor and outdoor usability promises.

Rumpl Down Puffy Blanket Deepwater

Rumpl Down Puffy Blanket in Deepwater

Starting off – let me just say that i was a skeptic at first.  We were already outfitted with our own individual down sleeping bags and were staying in our canvas sided roof-top tent which tends to keep warm overnight.  I wasn’t convinced that the synthetic fill puffy blanket would be a.) warm enough to allow us to forgo the bags, and/or b.) cool enough to be used as an additional layer should it get legitimately cold overnight.  For me, the criteria for success would have it to be a “Goldilocks” middle – making it usable on both ends of the temperature spectrum.  Insulated… but not too much…

I guess you should now call me a converted skeptic.

Test #1 – Inside the Tent

Rumpl’s use of the 3D synthetic hollow-fill came out to be an ideal spec.  We first used it in the rugged mountains of northern Wyoming’s Big Horn National Forest.  The late August temperatures would turn out to make sleeping in comfort an exercise in unpredictability.  The daytime temps on the valley floor by Sheridan were hot – in the upper 80’s, but our drive into the Big Horn mountains took us up some big elevation very quickly.  Before we knew it we gained a solid thousand + feet and the temps began to drop the higher we went.  We settled out on a rocky outcrop overlooking Sheridan in the vast distance and it wasn’t long before the sun dipped below our western horizon.  Inside the tent, we immediately noticed that our down bags were overpowered for the still-warm evening temps.  So, out came the Rumpl blanket and our test began.

Roof Top Tent Camping

Roof Top Tent Camping with the Rumpl Puffy Blanket – ph: Charles Watkins

Sandwiched between the down bags underneath us and Rumpl’s blanket above us, we were cocooned in a perfect mix of just enough warmth and just enough breathable cooling.  The combination actually worked out so well, it turned out to be one of the best nights of outdoor camping/sleeping I’ve had in years.  The balance of warmth alongside the freedom of movement the came from being outside of the confines of the sleeping bag made for total comfort.  First test – overnight camping – pass.

Test #2 – Outside the Tent

Another usability test came down to how well the Rumpl blanket would do while outside the tent.  A week later we would travel through Montana and into Idaho’s remote mountains between Ketchum and Stanley.  We chose a campsite on Galena Peak – again at thousands of feet of elevation above the Sun Valley floor.

We broke the synthetic blanket to cozy up with outside as we made dinner.  The outdoor exposure, elevation and dry night air meant rapidly cooling temps as the sun slowly dropped below the peaks of the Sawtooth National Forest.  The Puffy Blanket would seemingly be at a disadvantage with its’ unclasp-able open construction – potentially allowing the cold to invade.  To our surprise and delight – that really didn’t happen.  The genuine warmth of the blanket worked – and worked well.  We were amply warm even as nightfall settled in and the dim light of the camp fire faded into the darkness.  But what about that durability?

Even though we were outside – traipsing around the scratchy, brushy mountain top of Galena Peak, we didn’t even scratch the 20D Ripstop Nylon outer construction.  Dirt wiped off with a quick slap, and snags were non-existent.   Second test – outdoor everyday use – pass.

Test #3 – Inside the Home

Well – let’s be honest with each other – Indoor use is an easy test to pass.  Or at least you would think. Yes – it’s perfectly warm indoors.  Yep, its easy to roll up into.  And, no, it doesn’t look out-of-place.  Rumpl’s quality build and the muted blue-grey tone seemingly fit right in our home.  So – you’d think that’s it… case closed…

This would be a dog friendly indoor testing environment… meaning our 11x time World Champion of Shedding would have an additional test for Rumpl to pass.  This would be a test of the blanket’s ability to shed hair that’s been aggressively dumped shed onto it.  Kashi’s winning technique could be described as, “overwhelm and overpower through volume of hair.”

Who came out ahead?  Once again – Rumpl wins the day.  The sleeping-bag type outer fabric handily repelled Kashi’s furriest moments.  Third test – indoor everyday use – pass. 

The Verdict

Rumpl has this puffy blanket thing nailed.  It works just as well indoors as it does out-of-doors.  It works well as a nightly cover, as a chilly day time tag-a-long, and as an indoor companion.  It’s Ripstop outer fabric is just rugged enough to stand up to outdoor use, but still be comfortable to sit with.  It’s warm 600 fill down or 3D Hollow Fill synthetic are perfectly comfortable in all but the worst conditions, and the array of colorways are all stylish and quality looking.  We approve.

Interested in Learning More?

Rumpl’s website has pretty much everything you need to make a size, spec and style selection.  Interested in some more style?  Be sure to check out their collaborations with Passenger Clothing, Hippy Tree, and others.  Our favorite would definitely have to be the Passenger version with its colorful Southwestern patterns.

https://www.rumpl.com/