Forget white-noise simulators or special pillows. For the best sleep of your life, find a campsite and a tent.

Then slip into a comfortable sleeping bag, like this week’s prize, the REI Zen sleeping bag, rated to 25 degrees. The Zen bag, which the company no longer sells, went for $159 when our gear expert reviewed it in late 2009.

Here’s what he wrote:

Made for spring, summer, and fall, this versatile Zen has a mummy hood and a face shell of rip-stop nylon for durability on the ground. A roomy foot box and full-length zipper with draft protection add comfort and warmth. Pad loops provide attachment points to keep you from rolling onto the tent floor. The entire package, which employs synthetic insulation rated for 25-degree nights, crams into a basketball-size stuff sack for transport on the trail.

Does that sound like something you could use? Then enter this week’s giveaway. Here are the rules:

• Many will enter; one will win.
• Giveaway ends at 2 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Thursday, March 17.
• One entry per person.
• Submit your entry below and include a working e-mail address. I’ll contact the winner by e-mail to arrange shipment of the prize.
• I’ll use a random-number generator to select the winner after the entry deadline. Good luck!

Sorry, the entry deadline has passed. The winner was Richard Margrave of the Blue Ridge Mountains Council.

Last week’s winner:

The Great Gear Giveaway goes miniature this week with four Leatherman keychain multitools.

They’re the latest prize in Scouting magazine’s weekly gear giveaway. As I’ve told you, I’m trying to clean out my office, and I’m passing along a bunch of outdoors gear to Scouting magazine readers. I’ve already given away two sleeping bags and a water-purification system.

So what’s next? This week’s winner will receive (clockwise from top left):

• Leatherman Squirt ES4, valued at $40
• Leatherman Squirt PS4, valued at $40
• Leatherman Style CS, valued at $27
• Leatherman Style, valued at $20

Check out the photo after the jump to see what these babies look like when open.

The total value of the prize pack is $127. Not bad, considering that all you have to do is type in your name, e-mail address, and council name in the entry form below.

Sorry, the entry deadline has passed! The winner was Sean Wheeler of the Chief Seattle Council.

Last week’s winner:

The winner of last Thursday’s giveaway was Jon Williamson of the Circle 10 Council. I’ll send him the SteriPEN Sidewinder water-purification unit. There were 651 entries in the contest.

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The generosity of Scout leaders never ceases to amaze me.

You selfless individuals already give up your precious free time to better the lives of the Scouts in your pack, troop, or crew.

But it rarely stops there. The latest example: Scoutmaster Keith Welch of the Trapper Trails Council in Utah, winner of the Mountain Hardwear Lamina sleeping bag I gave away earlier this month.

Nobody would blame Keith for keeping the bag for himself. But he didn’t.

I’ll let him tell you what he did with the prize instead:

Bryan,

Last Friday afternoon, I had just loaded the last bag into my vehicle, when the package arrived. I was 100 percent ready to spend the weekend with my Troop camping in snow caves at a nearby campground. The package was from you and it was the Mountain Hardwear Lamina minus-30 sleeping bag which I had won. WOW what a surprise and perfect timing too. I loaded it on top of the gear and we left.

We arrived and each pair of boys began to dig out their perfect snow bed. I and another adult leader observed one young man whose gear was looking a little worn and perhaps needing to be replaced. Later that evening we awarded the sleeping bag to this young man for his demostrating the “True Scouting Spirit.”

Yesterday at church, his mother came up with tears in her eyes, thanking us for this gift and the experience he had shared with her.

Bryan, I wished you could have been there. It was your gift to them and I was happy to have been able to be apart of it. Thank you for your kindness in sharing with us.

Sincerely,
Keith Welch

What a story! It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

Two sleeping bags are gone, but there’s plenty more to go in my weekly gear giveaway.

Just in time for the fast-approaching camping season, this week’s prize is the SteriPEN Sidewinder, a hand-powered UV water-purification system valued at $100. Using ultraviolet light, the Sidewinder purifies a liter of water in 90 seconds. And it’s battery-free, so you won’t have to lug bulky double-A’s with you on your next trip.

This giveaway is also perfectly timed with the release of Scouting magazine’s March-April issue. In our latest Great Gear piece, gear expert Stephen Regenold reviews the best water-purification products on the market.

Included in that review is the Sidewinder’s cousin, the SteriPEN Adventurer Opti, a smaller UV light system that’s great for backpacking.

Ready to enter? Here are the giveaway rules:

• Many will enter; one will win.
• Giveaway ends at 2 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Thursday, March 2.
• One entry per person.
• Submit your entry below and include a working e-mail address. I’ll contact the winner by e-mail to arrange shipment of the prize.
• I’ll use a random-number generator to select the winner after the entry deadline. Good luck!

Sorry, the entry deadline has passed. The winner of the SteriPEN Sidewinder was Jon Williamson of the Circle Ten Council.

Last week’s winner:

The quest to clear out my office has only just begun.

Last week, I told you that my cubicle has become the storage area for the outdoors stuff we feature in our “Great Gear” section. Manufacturers send us top-of-the-line gear, gear expert Stephen Regenold reviews the items, and then we take them in the studio to photograph for the magazine.

That’s when the question arises: What do we do with all this sweet gear now?

The answer was simple: After getting the manufacturers’ OK, we decided to give it away to you, our readers.

Scouting magazine’s weekly gear giveaway continues with the Big Agnes Skinny Fish sleeping bag that we reviewed in our September-October 2009 issue.

The sleeping bag, which is rated to 20 degrees, retails for $179. Here’s what Regenold wrote about the Skinny Fish:

Bags from Big Agnes have gained fame for a system that mates sleeping bag and pad via an underside bag-length sleeve. Inflate your pad and insert it into the sleeve. The result: a bed-like platform that you cannot roll off. The Skinny Fish, a three-season bag, is good down to 20 degrees. It’s also a feat of sustainable design, incorporating 100 percent recycled-content insulation with a 100 percent recycled rip-stop nylon shell. Comfortable and eco-conscious.

We’re also throwing in the Big Agnes Diversion Insulated Air Core Recycled sleeping pad, worth $95. The pad’s dimensions are 20 by 72 by 2.5.

Total value of this giveaway: $274. Submit your entry below.

Sorry, the entry deadline has passed. The winner of the Big Agnes gear was Bowman Ching of the Santa Clara County Council.

Last week’s winner:

The winner of last Thursday’s giveaway is: Keith Welch of the Trapper Trails Council. I’ll be sending him the Mountain Hardwear Lamina sleeping bag. Congrats!