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Extra consideration is often required when choosing a winter kit. Especially kit you wish to spend a night in below zero conditions with potentially a long walk away from the nearest road. How much each piece of gear weighs will be a factor, but more importantly, it needs to be up to the job. A sleep mat is a key item as it is the main barrier against the frozen ground, to help provide a w …

Exped describes the Dura 5R M as a ‘durable, extra-warm mat for demanding adventures, including extended outings in alpine and polar regions, rugged paddling trips and overlanding.’ Compared to their Ultra range this is quite large in comparison with a weight of approx. 900 grams including the inflation bag and an R-value of 4.8. Having also been using the Exped Ultra 7R alon …

As a cold sleeper, I find the combination of the Nemo Women’s Riff 15 Sleeping bag and the Tensor Insulated sleeping mat perfect for 3 and 4-season use in the UK. The spoon shaped Riff 15 has 825g of down in the Women’s (and 540g in the men’s) and 800 fill power in both versions giving a comfort limit of -9C for both men and women. As a side sleeper, I find the Riff has the ben …

With a weight of 650 grams and an R-Value rating of 7.1, this is a mat reserved for the winter seasons or travel in below freezing environments. These were our first thoughts when first looking up the specs for the Ultra 7R. What we found out after only our first few nights sleep is this is a mat which we kept reaching to place in our kit over a winter season that fluctuated widely in t …

Thermarest had, for us, changed our approach to wild-camping when we first received a NeoAir XLite around a decade ago. We have now used the XLite and XTherm as our core piece of kit for multi-day wild-camping group activities since we started our business 9 years ago. We suppose that once you put trust in a product it’s easy to stick with it, with  Thermarest offering a dependabl …

As the name suggests this is a superlight foam mat weighing in at an impressive 74 grams with a sizing of 150 cm x 50cm and a thickness of 3mm. It has a low profile which means it can easily be rolled or folded to fit within our pack. Rather than replacing a sleeping mat, we found it much more suitable as a footprint for a solo tent or bivy bag. Protection from the ground is very impor …

Exped have revamped their sleeping mat ranges and are now using recycled fabrics and are producing the mats to a carbon neutral standard, furthermore they have simplified their naming convention so that the mats now feature the R-Value in the name. This is only a good thing if you understand R-Values and we think the names could have been better. The R3 is a regular sized mat 7cm th …

The Uberlite weighs a highly impressive 240g, not including its storage bag, and packs down to an absolutely ridiculous 9 x 15cm… not much bigger than a can of soft drink! If you are investing in this mat it is unlikely you would carry the weight of an additional inflation system and once released from its storage bag it can be quickly blown up with around 20 breaths, through the highly reliable s …

Keeping yourself off the floor whilst wild camping is beneficial not only in terms of comfort but more importantly in providing a buffer between you and the ground itself. You can be in the best sleeping bag around, but in the UK, if you don’t raise yourself away from the ground you will find it hard to have a pleasant night’s sleep. One of the best advancements in modern lightweight equipment is …

Straight out of the packaging you can see that this is a product of very high quality. The mat is incredibly compact and instantly nudges the memory back towards the bulky foam mats that would have to be strapped to the outside of your rucksack. How things have changed! Certainly, some of the most innovative designs of modern lightweight trekking have to be the advancements in sleeping mats. Ultra …

I’ve used the Thermarest NeoAir XTherm for a number of years and it’s become my all-year-round sleeping mat. It is light enough and packs down small enough to work for summer and three season use compared to other mats I would have considered while providing more than enough insulation for any winter trips I go on. This is a review of my past experiences of the XTherm combined with new opini …

I like the Big Agnes AXL mat. It weighs in at 321 grams with the pouch adding 6-7g and the repair kit another 3g. It’s a mummy shape to save weight but there’s a rectangular version available that’s about 10% heavier, some people prefer rectangular mats because they’re easier to stay on, but I don’t mind, I’d rather save the weight as I don’t find the mummy shape a problem, especially this one bec …