I have never met a true wilderness guide who was unhappy to have a good wool blanket with them. Some guides did find them itchy compared to their sleeping bags, but I never heard of a guide who, when using one, complained about being cold. In fact, most claimed them to be invaluable during the colder months.
The wool blanket is a staple in bushcraft/woodcraft/what-ever-you-want-to-call-it community. Though modern outdoor enthusiasts seem to roll their eyes at it, preferring instead to use their $500 ultra-loft sleeping bag that packs down to a small watermelon, many have the same complains. Some sight the ol' gal as being too itchy for comfort while others simply don't want the extra weight. And honestly, I can't argue with that. Modern sleeping bags are scary efficient. Their different materials allow more choices and you can now bring just the right bag for the season and be as light weight and as warm as you want to be.
With that said, the best guides I ever worked with in winter brought both! That's right, they had their fancy sleeping bag, but they still brought that heavy old wool blanket. It even became part of the culture with the new guides picking up on the older guides carrying those blankets. Kind of hard to ignore on a chilled morning when you're sitting around a small fire surrounded by people wrapped in cozy blankets and your left bouncing on your toes blowing furiously in your hands. Heck, even my dog Rip loved using it on those mornings!
In the wilderness therapy industry we weren't allowed the luxury of a fire to sleep by most nights, so the wool blanket by itself was reserved for 3 season use by itself (more like 2 and a half). However, in the late fall and winter when you're using that sleeping bag, it's still very cozy to wrap up inside that blanket and then snuggle down into your sleeping bag. Add a "hottie" or hot water bottle and you're suddenly in the Cadillac of cocoons.
Many of us learned different ways to wear our wool blankets to help keep us toasty and be able to shed some weight in the clothing department for a trip out. I even fashioned a capote or long coat made from a wool blanket. This thing was big enough for me to sleep in inside my sleeping bag and is still my main coat in the winter time!
We used our wool blankets for chairs, for ground pads, even for padding under shoulder straps. One guide even drew a chessboard with sharpies on his to be able to lay it out and play checkers with the clients
Sleeping with just a wool blanket is kind of tricky and requires practice. But once you get the hang of it, you just feel kind of awesome! The more you can figure out how to manipulate your blanket to your needs, the more confident you feel shedding weight in other parts of your outdoor equipment. As long as I have my trusty blanket I'll go almost anywhere.
I take my blanket out with me on all my simple day outings. It’s a fantastic mental comfort knowing the small roll on your back is your coat, sleeping gear, chair, cover, ect. just waiting to be used. The blanket roll makes a convenient place to slide my tomahawk in for carrying it off my hip and for stuffing in dry tinder to keep it out of my pockets. And I can always take a second, thicker wool blanket with me if I'm really worried about how the weather might turn on me.
A wool blanket makes a pretty good coat if you're in a pinch or trying to go for a more minimalistic approach since you can pin it around your neck and tie it around your waist to cover your body. This way of wearing the blanket is called a Matchcoat. There are tons of videos up online showing you how to wrap your blanket around you in this way. I used to wear my blanket this way quite often and there are plenty of historical accounts of trappers and frontiersmen using this method.
Some of the benefits of this trusty piece of cloth are that it's anti-microbial. This means it’s hard for the microbes that cause bad odor to form in the cloth itself, so it takes a good long time for the blanket to get smelly. And if it does you can just hang it out on a line in the sunlight for a day and that should kill the microbes and make it smell good again.
Another advantage is that its naturally flame retardant, so if a spark from the fire pops out and onto your blanket the material usually only singes in a spot for a second. never going all the way through or causing a large gaping hole in your blanket. This is why I've seen outdoors-men wrap their wool blankets around their sleeping bags if they are going to sleep in close proximity to a fire, so that way their synthetic sleeping bag is protected from popping embers in the night.
Also, it should be obvious, but I'll point it out, the blanket is made of WOOL! Meaning it can retain up to approx. 75% of its insulative heat when soaking wet. That means if you are using the blanket as a cloak or sleeping with it and the sky opens up on you soaking you, the moisture won’t rob all your heat away. Wool is made up of very curly animal hair and the water tends to collect on top of the hair layer, which compresses the hair a bit, but not totally flat, so the warm air in the dead space between the curl is still there. This just means that you don't lose all of that warmth your body already generated that went into the blanket. Pretty cool huh?
Yes we have fantastic new innovations in our modern outdoor market, but the old stand-by wool blanket still has value. It may not be as comfortable, or as cool, or as efficient as our fancy new sleeping bags of the day, however you cannot deny that the ol' gal deserves some respect. I encourage you to try one out. Wait until the warm time of the year and go out for an afternoon carrying a wool blanket. wrap up under a tree and take a nap and see how it feels. Or take one on your next over-night trip and see if you enjoy using the blanket in conjunction with your sleeping bag. You might just be surprised. The wool blanket was the sleeping system of choice for many cultures, besides straight furs, for much of human history and I believe shouldn't be tossed by the way side without some consideration first.
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