Help Choosing a Comfortable Mat

[DanShell]

Ok thanks tho Probably will still get one I suppose

Next weekend I am hoping to get out somewhere

[Suz]

Excellent! Care to report back here afterwards? Ha ha! ;P

[norts]

I have to give Thermarest a plug. I have been using aNeoair for about 7 years. It has done alot of work including the AT. some of the baffles broke about a week ago. I now have a brand new one under warranty.
By the way it is very comfortable. Norts( hiding from the snow storm in Southern Cal at Wrightwood)

[DanShell]

I have to give Thermarest a plug. I have been using aNeoair for about 7 years. It has done alot of work including the AT. some of the baffles broke about a week ago. I now have a brand new one under warranty.
By the way it is very comfortable. Norts( hiding from the snow storm in Southern Cal at Wrightwood)

About 500 kays into your trip then Norts? I am envious

[Suz]

norts, the SoCal drought hasn't stopped you then? good stuff. i have a pct fantasy tucked away in the depths of my 2017 imagination.

[Oncall]

Would be really keen to hear any feedback on that Synmat Winterlite Simonm spoke of. Specs looked great. Did you buy it and try it or has anyone else.

[DanShell]

Excellent! Care to report back here afterwards? Ha ha! ;P

Ok Suz I can report the mat is quite comfortable. As I have already suggested I didn't have a lot to compare it too except thinner self inflating style mats and my most recent being a thermarest prolite 4.

I ran it with as little air as I could, because I like that sunken in feeling and the temperature was below zero for the majority of the night. The mat is warm, very warm, its R value is 6. My old mats R value was 3.2. I was able to side sleep, lay on my back, lay on my front and lay in the busting to do a wee position quite comfortably.
So all up its a thumbs up, my only gripe is it takes a fair bit to blow it up but Ill rectify that by buying a dry bag type pump.

Did I mention it was a cold night? The mat performed perfectly in the cold but my minus 6c (20f) Enlightened Equipment quilt was again stretched past its comfort level. I had to wear a 300 weight fleece over my thermals to help the quilt along and even then it was stretched.

weather.tiff (195.53 KiB) Viewed 6642 times

$3home delivered cord freezes well

For some reason the pics are sideways

[Moondog55]

OK so you have the mattress comfort question covered and solved. Next question will be how to get a warmer sleeping solution without breaking the bank or the back.

[DanShell]

OK so you have the mattress comfort question covered and solved. Next question will be how to get a warmer sleeping solution without breaking the bank or the back.

I think the only solution is to get a quilt or sleeping bag that works at its rated temperature. I am a hot sleeper as a rule so I was expecting a -6 quilt to be enough. Fair enough I do spend quite a bit of time close it to its supposed limit so perhaps I should have bought a 10f instead of the 20f, you live and learn.

[Moondog55]

My usual answer is to get a liner bag or half bag and a decent down parka/jacket.
The down parka being warmer and lighter than a 300 weight fleece quite often.
But if you can afford another quilt I'd try and persuade you to get an even warmer one if you intend to do much snow camping; -18C/ 0F is my comfort target

[GPSGuided]

Other than the quilt, do you have a conventional bag to compare with? Sounded like it's an upper body warmth issue, no?

[DanShell]

Yeh its an upper body issue, thats where I'm feeling the cold the most. No doubt I'm feeling it elsewhere too but its around the back and chest that gives me the chills.

We do have several traditional sleeping bags and yes I can use extra clothing and even a liner. I am managing it ok but for me the point is that I wanted to save weight so I went down the quilt line and its not working for me.
Its not terrible, as I said I can manage it ok but its just disappointing.

If it was just a draft issue Id go back to a sleeping bag but in this case its seriously lacking down in the areas I need it most. Its a bit difficult to explain and the photo doesn't really show my issue but basically the majority of the down is in the two outside tubes. And being a wide quilt those two tubes generally get tucked in or don't really contribute a lot to my warmth. I need the down in the centre tubes, the ones that actually cover my torso.

I have tried shifting it around but to get it out of the outside tubes and get it into the inside tubes is going to require me to unstitch it. Which I am considering, and Ill just add some more down where its needed. The pic isn't the best but the centre tubes hardly loft at all and they are very see through when you hold it up to light.
EE offered to fix it but of course the postage is at my expense. If Im going to throw more money at it its just as easy to do it myself and save all the drama with them. Or just buy one thats rated way better than I need.

[corvus]

Why not just your real Sleeping Bag my -5% Down Bag is super toasty packs down to not much more than a Sherrin weighs 900g with a water resistant shell no gaps or cold spots plus a bonus hood
I use a Thermarest Prolight 4 Reg Mat.

[DanShell]

Why not just your real Sleeping Bag my -5% Down Bag is super toasty packs down to not much more than a Sherrin weighs 900g with a water resistant shell no gaps or cold spots plus a bonus hood
I use a Thermarest Prolight 4 Reg Mat.

I must sleep a lot colder mate, which is odd as Ive always felt that I sleep hot or so my wife says and generally I'm kicking the donna off long before she does during the night at home.

I could lay on my thermarest prolite 4 mat in cold conditions and feel the cold effecting me through the mat. No such troubles with the exped mat, so just on that alone would suggest I sleep a lot colder than you??

Im not convinced my coldness through the quilt is due to it being a quilt and not a sleeping bag. I use mat straps and the quilt can be pretty much wrapping me just as a sleeping bag would, even with the end cinched right up so no air gets in the top and I can feel the coldness in places through the quilt, its not from a draft.

I guess it comes down to everyone being different and so are our expectations. Weight isn't everything for me. I am happy to carry a bit extra if it means I am comfortable. Ill never be one of these ultra lighters! I need to be comfortable to be able to enjoy myself.
I do have a warm sleeping bag but it is way over a kilo. Its rating is also -5. Im not convinced my quilts rating is where it needs to be, well sure they have the right amount of down in it, but in the wrong spots

I dont want to come across as the winger, or the only person on earth who isn't happy with his EE quilt, but its important that Im honest about it and don't just rave about the product to justify money spent or something along those lines

And to be fair I am talking about temperates below zero. Above zero and I am fine, even with the prolite 4.

[Moondog55]

That quilt does look underfilled to my eye; or at least it has moved around too much and it shouldn't do that.
Mind you I still find a sleeping bag weighing a kilo and good for winter to be lightweight, although above the snowline I want a lot more warmth than -5C
Topping the quilt up would seem to be the obvious solution if you don't want to also carry a down parka for sleeping in, although that would still be my suggestion for the flexibility

[Suz]

Word! Nice user review on the exped Dan, I'll get one then now too that you've tested it out. No point pretending the quilt's cutting the mustard if it ain't! Maybe there'll be a simple solution like an extra layer down the middle that you can add? Without spending much money or weight on it. Maybe Simon from tier gear can whip you up something

[GPSGuided]

In sub-zero environment, the open design of the quilt just doesn't make sense. No doubt that's where the heat has been lost, with or without proper down fill. Every bit counts.

[simonm]

Mate I could have personally delivered some extra down to your campsite, along with my treadle and we could have boosted the temp rating on that quilt no problem .

Honestly though I would just stuff some extra down in that quilt.

[DanShell]

Mate I could have personally delivered some extra down to your campsite, along with my treadle and we could have boosted the temp rating on that quilt no problem .

Honestly though I would just stuff some extra down in that quilt.

lol I am leaning that way for the short term, but for the longer term Id like to make my own ridiculously warm quilt/sleeping bag/hybrid type design so the good wife can be warm when she comes along and for all the times she doesn't Ill use it I just need to work out how to extract $200-300 from somewhere

[kitty]

+1 to what Simon says

Your quilt looks seriously deflated in the middle.

[undercling-mike]

I'd give another recommendation for just getting some down and adding it to the quilt yourself. It'll be cheaper than shipping both ways to the states and you won't be without it for a period of time, look at the fill weight of the next warmer quilt model for an idea how much to add. It's unfortunate that it didn't live up to expectations out of the box of course. My only question is what are you using for head insulation?

Temp ratings are a notoriously slippery business, there's just such a big variation in how warm people sleep, even the same person in different situations. There's also the difference between cold and humid and cold and dry, cold and humid seems much colder to me and this could be a source of some of the variation in reports.

Also if you look at the EN standard temp rating test numbers for comfort, limit and extreme I'm probably close to a standard man in terms of how warm I sleep and at the comfort rating I'm just that, comfortable. At the limit rating I'll sleep OK but probably wake up and feel a bit of cold coming through, would need to add an insulated jacket for comfort. I'm not aware of any cottage industry quilts that have been tested to the EN standard (the test might not be suitable for testing quilts without modification anyway) but I get the feeling that the rating given is close to the limit rating and I'd want something 5C/10F warmer for comfort.

[GPSGuided]

So why was the middle section 'deflated'? Has it been washed before and the down migrated toward the feet or did it come like that?

[DanShell]

Thanks Mike I agree in regards to the rating being the limit.

I use a thinsulate beanie and neck sock for my head/face warmth. I am starting to think I must sleep colder than I have always thought I do. I only really have my wife to gauge my sleeping temperature and I admit she does sleep very cold and needs the fire in the house at some stupidly high temp to keep herself warm, so maybe she is unusually cold I better stop, i may get into trouble!

[DanShell]

So why was the middle section 'deflated'? Has it been washed before and the down migrated toward the feet or did it come like that?

Never been washed mate, it came like that. I have distributed the down around as best as I can (it does tend to move up and down the channels a bit) but what I can't do easily is to remove the down from the two outside channels and put it in the middle channels easily. Its easier to just unstitch a small section and feed new down into those middle channels. There is a small section right down the centre of the quilt where the baffle is only stitched on one side, so thats the access to all the channels for filling with down.

[GPSGuided]

Sounds like it's going to be another Simon to the rescue.

[Moondog55]

Luckily the adding of more down is easy with that design and if you word your email correctly the maker should be willing to pay for the down you need to add. Simon to the rescue; with; I think a 100 grams of 850 fill power dry down

[DanShell]

Ive emailed EE extensively about it and whilst I didn't want to put them down in any way (pardon the pun!) as they have offered to sort it out, albeit costing me postage but here were no offers of paying for more down and I am not going to ask.

Simon supplies me with a special service, he will give me the down, put it in the quilt for me and give me $50 for the pleasure of being able to do it He loves it.

[simonm]

Ive emailed EE extensively about it and whilst I didn't want to put them down in any way (pardon the pun!) as they have offered to sort it out, albeit costing me postage but here were no offers of paying for more down and I am not going to ask.

Simon supplies me with a special service, he will give me the down, put it in the quilt for me and give me $50 for the pleasure of being able to do it He loves it.

I think your brain has been affected by all that exposure to cold temperatures .

[Suz]

Simon supplies me with a special service, he will give me the down, put it in the quilt for me and give me $50 for the pleasure of being able to do it He loves it.

Haha

Hey does anyone know if you can pair an S2S pump with an Exped Synmat? Just asking cos main peak don't seem to have the Exped pump in stock.

[Suz]

Or…has anyone tried out the Exped pillow pump? Recommend, no recommend?