NeoAir Short, keep, sell, buy a longer version, or go back to my Prolight?

After a lot of consideration I’ve decided to part company with my NeoAir short.

It’s a great mat, super light with a small pack size, and very comfortable once you learn not to over inflate it, but the drawback for me is the short length. Three years ago I slipped a disc, so I need to keep my legs and spine level when I’m sleeping. With a short mat it’s difficult to achieve this, particularly when you’re travelling light, because quite often there is not enough spare kit to make up the difference in height between the mat and the ground sheet.

So the Neo Air short has to go, for now I’ll revert to using my Prolite, whilst I review the alternatives.

I’ve only slept on it four times so; if anyone is interested in buying an as new NeoAir Short, at a competitive price please contact me by email.

Winterproofing my wildcamping gear part 2

My sleeping bag is a Mountain Equipment Xero 550 which I bought in February 2008; it’s quite light for a three season bag and very comfortable. I'd like to add a 4 season bag to my winter shopping list, but I really can’t justify the cost of owning more than one sleeping bag.

Using the same bag for all seasons does have its downsides, in the summer you’re carrying unnecessary weight, and it can become too hot, although the temperature is easily controlled with the two way zip. In the winter it can be quite cold, so I make up for the lack of down by wearing my trousers and either a fleece or my Patagonia Nano Puff jacket.

The mattress I've been using this summer is a NeoAir short, at 278g its very light, but for the winter I prefer a full length mat, so I’ll be reverting to my Prolite (472g). If it looks like being really cold, then I’ll use my old green Trecklite, which I’ve had for many years. It may be quite heavy at 823g, but even on snow is toasty warm.


Cooking

I don’t cook in the hills; I only boil water, either for brews, dehydrated meals or the occasional cuppa soup. This means my summer cooking gear should be perfectly adequate for the colder weather, the Optimus Crux Light stove (74g) works well with a Tibetan 550ml Titanium mug (87g), and boils quite quickly. This set up used to wobble alarmingly, before I solved the problem buy fitting a Primus gas canister feet (28g), which is quite stable on most ground. The one item missing from my camp kitchen is a windshield, so I intend to custom build one, from a disposable foil tray before my next trip.

NeoAir Short – First outing.

My Cairngorm trip also was also the first outing for my NeoAir, but whereas the Golite Jam will now be my rucksack of choice when wild camping, the jury is very much out on the NeoAir.

First of all the with the NeoAir short, or revert to my Prolite, it’s a difficult call, 194grams or 6.9ozs is a big weight saving, but can I adapt to the NeoAirs short comings I'm not sure?

thNeoAir, it’s comfortable, it has a really small pack size and its very light, my short version weighs 278g including the 12g stuff sack.

The things which I don’t like about the NeoAir fall into two categories, generic NeoAir dislikes and ones which are associated with me choosing the short version.

Some of the things I don’t like about the NeoAir, are obvious before you buy, but I found them more irritating than I expected, these are the loss of headroom and the need to blow it up.

The NeoAir is 6.3 cm thick compared with my Prolite’s 2.5 cm, causing my head to touch the roof of the tent when I was sitting up, this was particularly unpleasant when the inner was wet with condensation. I also found my face was very close to the inner when lying down, which was quite claustrophobic and would be very uncomfortable in windy weather. As far as inflating the NeoAir short was concerned, it took a lot more wind than I’d anticipated, and after years of using Thermarest self-inflating mats, I’d forgotten just what a fag blowing up an airbed is when you’re tired!

The other thing didn’t like, which was my own fault for choosing the short version, was having my legs hanging off the end. I just didn’t have enough spare gear to pad out the gap, so found it very uncomfortable.

Will I continue with the NeoAir short, or revert to my Prolite, it’s a difficult call, 194grams or 6.9ozs is a big weight saving, but can I adapt to the NeoAirs short comings I'm not sure?

Maybe I’ll give it another chance, but I can also hear my dear old Dad’s favourite quote ringing in my ears “any fool can be uncomfortable when camping”.

Off to the hills at last!

With a few days of good weather forecast for the Caingorms, on Thursday I headed north towards Braemar. I was hoping to spend a few nights in the hills,which would give me the oppertunity to try out my recently purchased Golite Jam and Thermarest NeoAir. I’ll post an account of my trip in the next couple of days, but meanwhile here’s a photograph of my first nights camp.

The wettest May for years.

The last two weeks have been really frustrating, I’d planned a visit to Bridge of Orchy and Rannoch Moor for a few days wild camping and Munro bagging, but the weather has been absolutely dreadful. Constant high winds and rain across Scotland, meanwhile my NeoAir and Golite Jam remain unused. In desperation I’ve even had the maps out for Wales and the Lakes in the hope of grabbing a quick overnight, but the weather has been just as bad there.

So I’ve been spending my spare time following some of the TGO mobile bloggers, see here, here and here. They seem to have been experiencing the weather I’ve been trying to avoid; even Ron Bloomquist in the USA has had to call a halt to his 70^th Adventure until the weather improves.

343 Update.

Following my recent flurry of activity, I’ve managed to reduce the weight of my big three by 757g.

My shelter weight is unchanged at                                  1240g

My pack including liner has reduced by 562g to                 867g

My sleeping system has reduced by 188g to                   1377g

Big Three Total                                                               3484g

I’ve spent £148.49 on the purchase of my Golite Jam and Thermarest NeoAir to achieve this weight reduction, or to put it another way 19.7 pence per gram, . Was it worth it? I’m not sure, I‘ll be more able to tell after my next wild camping trip, which is likely to be mid May.

The NeoAir has arrived!

My NeoAir has arrived, it looks very small, but hopefully with a bit of practice I’ll be able to sleep without rolling off. It weighs 278g including the 12g stuff sack, and the pack size is truly amazing!

The photographs above show a comparison of my Thermarest sleeping mats, the green one is a Trecklite that I’ve had for years (823g), the mauve one is my Prolite (472g) and the yellow one is my Neo Air (278g).

NeoAir.

In the quest to reduce the weight of my “Big Three” my sleeping mat offers the second biggest chance to save weight. My current mat is a Thermarest Prolite (woman’s). I bought the woman’s version, because for the same advertised weight, it has an R-Value of 2.8 rather than the 2.2 of the men’s, it may be 6 inches shorter but that suites me fine.

To justify the cost of changing my mat, I need to save at least 150g. I’ve looked at quite a few mats and finally chosen the Thermarest NeoAir. The advertised weight for the small version is 260g which is 188g lighter than my Prolite, and if it suites Chris Townsend and Jorgan Johansson then it must be ok!