Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Sleeping pad question for the older guys

Two Track is now on my list to try. Thanks!

In my limited experience with air mattresses- which is limited to just Cyn's NeoLite, as far as backpacking stuff- if it's got enough pressure to relieve my hips and shoulders then it's as you say (and she says)- feels like a guy will roll off. For that reason I'm liking what others have suggested, with the Zpad AND an air pad. Just gonna have to go into REI at a slow time on a weekday and hopefully try some stuff out. Their stock was low last time I was in there.

The cot notion holds a lot of appeal too; I read into that last night and guys were raving about them. Guys who'd had to give up backpacking due to injury or age were saying it got them back in the woods. But I'd really need to try one first and REI doesn't have the new model yet, and the old ones are disco'd.

I slept so badly the night before the eclipse (we did the guerrilla quickie overnighter) that I had some of the weirdest dreams I've had in YEARS. Woke up all frazzled. I'll spare you the details <g> but it sucked and drove home that I need to fix this.

WTF are YOU talking about? You posted a joke and I posted a joke back! I'm still chuckling at yours; that was some good stuff. Did you not get mine? Don't make me explain it; they're never as funny then.

My wife popped hers on its first big trip; two holes in fact. Jeffrey Pine cone frags. She was quite worried about that and says she cleaned up the area really well but they still got through... So, it can happen.

With that said I've only punctured my old thermarest twice in 30 years. But every time I let my kids use them (we have several) they find a way to pop them. So I'd guess a little care goes a long ways.

My biggest concern about using ONLY an air mattress is that it just sucks to have to find a leak out in the mountains, and something like a NeoAir seems pretty useless popped. At least you still have SOMETHING there with an old thermarest.

As far as thermal insulation from the ground that's been a non-issue for me since my 70's closed-cell Pad From Hell. So I'm not ranking that high on my list.

It does. If you want luxury, you need to find an Exped Downmat 9. But the XThern isn't too far behind. A little noisier, but that doesn't bother me after a long day of hiking. Never notice it when I'm that tired, and I roll around in the night a fair bit.

Jordan, have you directly compared the Xtherm to the Lite?

Funny... I say cost doesn't matter and I'll eat a little extra weight but those Exped's are heavy! And they are proud of them. But, eyes on the prize here. Comfort is the goal.

FWIW, I did not do well with the ultralight cot. At the time it had a Cabela's store label but I believe it was the Thermarest rebranded. I wound up selling it here after 1-2 uses. I'm a stomach sleeper so maybe for a back or side sleeper it'd be ok.

Tom

Interesting. Makes sense. Side sleeper myself; I can get about one "portion" of stomach sleeping in in a night, but beyond that it messes with my lower back. Too bad-.it would solve the hip/shoulder pressure point issues. Cyn won't let me sleep on my back. Supposedly I snore. I call BS; I've never heard me snore! But she holds certain trump cards in bedly matters.

Beats me how the hell any one here can stoop low enough to reply to this liberal troll.

Jeffo acts like an immature ass in the campfire and then try's to act 'normal' on other threads.

One day he's the worlds political analyst, the next day he needs advice on which side to sleep on.

[bleep] off.

Kenneth needs a pad.



A Maxi-Pad.

Be sure to figure in the weight of a pad because it's necessary. Cots by themselves are like sleeping on a glacier. Also, a tight cot is hard. It has no give. It's not much softer than the ground although it's not lumpy. A cot along with an insulated 2 or 3" air mattress is the best of both worlds.

I use an Alps "lightweight" cot while llama packing but it's way too heavy for backpacking. It's still a cot, though. I tried it one night without a pad just too see and it was terrible, cold and hard. Adding an insulated air mattress makes it very comfortable.

Try a Tampax... it's the perfect pad for a, well, you know.

I use a Big Agnes Air Core pad. Super comfy. Just got to get the right amount of air. Mines uninsulated and I'm comfortable to the upper 20s. I've slept through nights colder than that, but not comfortably.

An uninsulated air mattress along with an ensolite pad of some kind will keep you warm when it gets way down there. The ensolite weighs very little but its bulky. An insulated air mattress along with the ensolite is really warm.

Did you say perfect pad ... period! ???

Tom

<mic drop>

I've played with the lite in the store, but I have not spent any time sleeping on it. For me, the major jump in R value makes the few extra ounces of the XTherm well worth it.

I'm a warm sleeper (a "furnace", as my wife puts it) and don't ever remember feeling like lack of insulation in my sleeping pad was a consideration in any way. So that's not high on the list, but the Xtherm certainly looks more comfortable in general, and that is high on the list.

Just had some work rescheduled into next week instead of being a crises this week. Yay. Might run in to REI and/or the Backcountry store today.

Jeff,
I just got the new Nemo Cosmo 30xl, it's super comfortable, integrated foot pump, insulated, built in pillow, don't slide around on grippy surface, 80"x30"....nice.

Went to REI and tried a bunch. The combo of the Thermarest Zpad and the Xtherm was indeed very nice, and I like the versatility of the Zpad as well as the redundancy the pair would have. On the downside, the XTherm was quite crinkly and noisy and it did have the feeling like a guy could roll off. Didn't have any Exped to try. My favorite, hands down, was the Big Agnes Q-Core; probably the SLX version, which is lighter but not as much R-value as the other Q-core models. They make a dinosized version (25x78 if memory serves) that I think would be awesome, but even the 20x72 version felt more secure in terms of rolling off and was much quieter than the Xtherm. Didn't buy anything yet, I'd like to get into Backcountry and see what they have to try out if I'm spending over $200.

Backcountry is a cool store.

If you're feeling like falling off, you're probably using too much air still in the inflatable. One plus to double pads is you can run the top one with even less air. If you bottom out, you're still on foam pad, not rocks.

Tom