Sleeping on the ground is widely touted as rather passe. Why sleep outside on the ground when you have a nice comfy bed inside? A fair question indeed. However I am not fortunate enough to live in a mansion high atop the alpine wilderness, so the ground it is.
I’m not going to sport anyones intellegence on the types and uses of the many sleeping pads. I will point out that if you’ve read my pillow review you know that I pop everything. I can’t justify more money for a matress that crinkles and pops, with a lower R value. I picked the Therm-a-rest Trail Pro regular. With a superb R value of 4 and a weight of one pound ten ounces it is the logical choice for my needs.
It arrives with a decent storage sack and rolls up quite well. The factory has it split down the middle which produces a short fat roll. For TMEJ I rolled the mattress the traditional way without the half fold so I could stuff it into my pack upright. Call me a worry wort, but I don’t like my sleeping pad outside my pack scraping nature.
The outer portion of the mat has an air baffle, and the main body is 2″ inches of sweet comfy foam. This blend of foam and baffle give the mat its great R value and keeps pushing the weight down each new generation.
I had a chance to sleep on this mat after a long day of heavy hiking and it was on par with the Therm-a-rest Basecamp I use when car camping. That’s saying something. I also didn’t stay up all night listening to a crinckly mess, which is important to me. I also roll around at night and I would say the width on this mattress is about as narrow as I will go, otherwise I’d end up on the ground. I also discovered it was more comfortable with just a kiss of air as opposed to fully inflated. It felt more comfortable and confirming at half or less capacity once I was on it.
I chose to get the regular length so it will fit more tents as the years go on. Even though I’m technically longer than the pad I didn’t have any issues because I used my new pillow to make up the difference.
I’m very happy with its performance and we will be buying my wife the ladies version this coming year.