Exped Down Booties Review

The Exped Down Booties – sleeping bags for your feet!

Exped Down Booties Specifications

The Exped Down Booties consist of two parts, which are sold seperately:

Down Socks

• Fill weight 80g
• Fill power 700+ cuin
• Material: Duck down (RDS certified) and synthetic fabric
• Five individually down filled cross baffles
• Two elastic heel bands

Bivy Booty (waterproof shell)

• 15D ripstop nylon
• Waterproof up to 10’000mm
• Two adjustable elastic cords with glow in the dark pieces of plastic

The Exped Down Booties weigh 375 grams (socks 135g + booties 240g)

Performance of the Exped Down Booties

For a long time, I was looking for a feasible solution to keep warm feet when reaching a camp outdoors. Contemplating about various down shoes, I came across the newly released Exped Down Booties. In contrast to other solutions, they consist of two pieces: Actual down socks without any profile and a waterproof outer shell with additional ground insulation.

Use

Using the Exped Down booties with outer shell on various camping trips. They convinced with their immediate warmth and ability to be worn the entire evening – even in the sleeping bag. Once arriving at the camp, I can swiftly switch to the down socks with the waterproof bivy booty. When walking around, the outer shell provides waterproof protection and enough traction. However, they are not suitable for any extended walks. Moreover, the foam insole in the bivy booty provides additional insulation for the compressed down feather when standing on them. Going inside the tent or bivouac sack, one has to only take off the outer shell and still keeps warm feet.

The outer shell is tightened with two cords, which feature a light-emitting piece. This allows to easily find it in the dark. The socks neatly attach to your foot with the two rubber cords, one of them is inside. It is very comfy to slip into them. Wearing a European 43 or American 9/10 shoes, I went with a medium down sock. However, in retrospection I would opt for the larger one, because the more space the more insulating air.

Quality

A little troublesome was the fact that the Exped Down Booties lost some feathers at the seams. In contrast, my Sea to Summit Spark II sleeping bag did not lose a single feather over its lifetime. Therefore, I assume the feathers are of lower quality and the present quills pierce the fabric. However, what I really liked about them is the ease of use to put them on and off even with gloves.

Summary about the Exped Down Booties

Pro

• Warm
• Comfortable
• Two rubber band in down socks for great fit (one internal)
• Ease of use in camp
• Light emitting tighteners on outer shoe (bivy booty)
• Additional foam insulation at bottom of outer shell
• Certified duck down

Contra

• Expensive (Down Booties CHF 76.-; Bivy booty CHF 65.- = Total CHF 141.-)
• Sold seperately
• Losing some feathers

All in all, the combination of a waterproof shell and a high quality down liner make for an outstanding cold weather expedition booty. Yet, this product comes at a sensitive prize point, especially when sold separately, which makes not much sense to me.

The Exped Down Booties with the outer shell cost CHF 141.- (CHF 76.- and CHF 65.-).

What is your experience? Do you have any questions?