We've had a lot of people ask us about what we use for sleeping pads. "How can you be comfortable sleeping on the ground?" they ask. They seem to think that sleeping on the ground is...hard.
Well, to be fair, the ground is hard, and we've made some adjustments over the years.
I slept for many years on a 1/2 inch piece of closed cell blue foam. My wife was always trying something new, and usually in combination with at least one other pad--the best combination was a Thermarest Z-rest mattress over 1/2 of foam pad.
But then one year for her birthday, I bought her a Thermarest Neo-Air mattress--the modern version of that old inflatable plastic thing that we used as scouts. It was a revelation, and she was in heaven.
I remained unconvinced. "Goldurn fancypants foolishness" or something like that, was what I could be heard to mutter under my breath.
Until, that is, one day when I accepted her offer to borrow her Neo-Air to take a nap in the afternoon. Holy Mackerel was that nice! I quickly bought one for myself. One order of fancypants foolishness to go, and make it snappy!
They are relatively light (about 12 ounces, all in) and inflate to a VERY comfortable 2 inches or more. Of luxury. All part of our home away from home.
So we used these pads for about four years, and were pretty darn happy with them. Over time they began to leak and flatten out over the course of a night. And after living with them for a couple of years that way, re-inflating them in the middle of the night, we finally contacted Neo-Air about getting them fixed.
Very simply process, and they made it easy. We sent them our mattresses, and they promised to fix them for very little money indeed--all in the course of a promised 4-6 week turnaround. Can't beat that.
Well, you can beat that.
Because about two weeks later, instead of fixing all of the leaks in our older model mattresses, they sent us brand new ones that don't leak.
We're sold. Again. We can hardly wait to sleep on them. Again.
Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-Rocks-Paul-Wagner/dp/0984884963