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”.