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Poll: What do you sleep on mostly when canoe camping?

What do you sleep on mostly when canoe camping?

  • Nothing - basically just a ground cloth

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Solid foam pad

    Votes: 5 4.7%
  • Hybrid foam/air pad like a ThermaRest

    Votes: 39 36.4%
  • Air mattress

    Votes: 37 34.6%
  • Cot

    Votes: 4 3.7%
  • Hammock

    Votes: 22 20.6%
  • Something else (what?)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    107

Glenn MacGrady

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What type of cushioning/insulating product do you mostly sleep on these days on a canoe camping trip—nothing, a foam pad, a foam/air hybrid like ThermaRest, an air mattress, a cot, a hammock, or something else?

I don't believe I ever used a foam/air hybrid. I began with a simple roll of Ensolite foam, and then as I recall I moved to an air mattress. For a while I used a very comfortable Lafuma cot, which however is quite bulky and heavy. For the past decade, as I've aged, I've become much more weight and bulk conscious in my solo canoes, so I have returned to a very lightweight and non-bulky air mattress. I also use an air pillow. Lots of heavy breathing involved.

Never had a hammock.

If I am canoeing from a base camp, I have usually slept in a van for 40 years, but this poll is focused on camping out of a canoe rather than car camping.
 
Thermarest Pro-Lite Plus, women’s version. Allow me to explain. I’m a relatively small person; 5’10” x 150 lbs.
The women’s version is 66” long and only my heels are off the pad, so i usually put a sweater or jacket under them. But more importantly, the women’s version has a higher R-value; 3.6 vs 3.2.

I do have and use a Thermarest Xtherm air mattress which i use in the winter. It has an R-value of 6.9 which is citical for sub zero comfort. That pad is 72” so my heels don’t get cold!

One more detail which I find important for comfort is that the self inflating Pro-Lite is 1.5” tall vs 2.5“ for the Xtherm. My arms drape off the pad usually and I find the higher pad feels awkward. The Pro-Lite needs little or no additional air fill, so no huffing & puffing! I guess with a snug mummy bag that drape might not happen but I’m claustrophobic and abhor tight mummy bags- I now use a down backpacking quilt by Nunatak, though there are lots available to choose from now by Enlightened Equipment, Zpacks, Jacks-R-Better, UGQ, Katabatic, etc. Way more comfortable and adjustable for shoulder season camping where you don’t need to be fully encased in warmth.
 
Exped SynMat 3-D ist the one I use most of the time. It's kind of a hybrid air matress with Texpedloft as isolating layer. R-value 4.8. All Exped mats come with a snozzel bag -> you don't have to use your lungs to blow it up, very handy.
 
Double layer bridge hammock, with self inflating pad, combined with down or synthetic under quilts, and top quilts.

i am mostly a side sleeper, therefore I utilize a Warbonnet Ridge Runner hammock. And I am a very happy camper, in my RR.
Weight is rarely an issue for me, (portage is extremely rare) so I use a 30" x 77" self inflating pad. Rolls up to about 8" diameter. Pad slips in between the two bottom layers of the hammock, with the valves open, not using any air pressure.
Really flattens out the lay in the hammock. I almost always take a 0* Lynx down under quilt, that is designed specifically for the RR hammock.

But the main beauty of the RR and the 0* Lynx combination is that they mate together so well, that I have never experienced even the slightest draft, much less CBS. Not much experience below 10*, but confident this system would work well down to sub 0*, especially if I take the spindrift winter cover that cocoon's the entire hammock. It adds between 10-15 degrees additional. A good tarp completes the system, and allows the ends to be closed like doors if needed for wind or blowing rain.

And I get to sleep great on either side, or on my back.
Can't ask for much more out of a hammock system.

Bad back here as well. That was my main reason for the RR purchase. Flattest lay hammock I could find. No banana shape sleep allowed.

Tried the RR several nights with just the 0* Lynx under quilt, but preferred the lay when adding the un-inflated pad. Tried it initially with the pad slightly inflated, but kept trying different levels of inflation, releasing air periodically a little at a time while laying in the hammock. Eventually got down to where there was no air pressure, and the valves were open. Slept great. Now I just slip the pad in, with the valves left open. Not all pads are equal, so yours may require experimenting as well. Using the pad addition in my case was strictly for the comfort level, not for the insulation.

Having the self inflating 2.5" x 30" x 77" pad along also allows me the ability to go to ground if necessary. The ridge runner hammock can also be utilized on the ground, while keeping the function of the bug net, which is important in my neck of the woods. The spreader bars for the ends of the bridge hammock then serve as the vertical "poles" for either the bug net, or the spindrift cover, and it has come in handy several times.

I consider it "roughing it" however if forced to ground.

My back definitely prefers the hammock to the ground.

Bill
 
X ped 9 downmat is what I think the right name. I find it comfortable and like the compact bundle when rolled easy to store inside any pack. Using their inflation bag takes the ugly out of set up.
 
As primarily a hammock user, an underneath form of insulation is necessary, even on warm summer nights. I use one of a couple of different weight Big Agnes sleeping bags, depending on temperture. BA bags hava a bottom sleeve that holds a thermarest firmly in place. I don't have an underquilt, so on planned colder air trips I reluctantly bring a tent instead, also placing a thremarest under me, sometimes also a Z-foam pad. The tent gives me more gear storage options too. Like I did the past couple of weekends when I was part of an Adriondack Leanto construction and repair crew.
 
Once you hang you'll never want to go to ground again.

And spring for a good Under Quilt
I agree completely. I have been a dedicated hanger for the past 15 or so years, ever since the first light Hennessey models came out. Have been dragging my feet on the underquillt deal, but should go there to complete my system. The early UC systems were just as heavy in total as carrying a tent, so when it got cold out I went back to ground (very "reluctantly" as I mentioned).
 
I fought with a pad in my Blackbird Double for a couple of years. I broke down and bought the Under Quilt and it made all the difference. I still use a sleeping bag as an Over Quilt, zipped up just enough to create a pocket for my feet. I sleep better in my hammock than I do in my bed at home and get up fewer times during the night.
 
I use a wooden Byers of Maine cot with a lightley inflated thermarest pad under my sleeping bag. I recently took it on a 2 portage solo trip for the first time and it worked well in my 4 man Ureka Timberline tent. This was a first for me, I usually only slept on the Thermarest on the ground on portage trips.
Last week I spent 7 nights on it in a northen Maine moose camp and I slept well. I'm closing in on 100 nights on it in my small wall tent, a comfortable combination for an old guy. It has held up well too.004.JPG
 
I use a ridge rest pad under an air mattress. I've had air mattresses fail before, so the little extra bulk is well worth carrying.
 
until a few years ago always a foam pad or various brands of the latest and greatest self-inflating pads, but after a few experiences with leaks on some extended trips I gravitated back to leak proof foam pads, sacrificing some bulk and comfort for reliability instead. However, after forcing myself to try a hammock a few years ago I discovered that I can and do sleep fine in one. So now its my go to unless I'm headed somewhere that suitable trees may not be an option such as beach camping along the coast or the beach sites down in the everglades. For canoe camping its a non-issue to pack my marmot 2 man along with the hammock, bug net and tarp so I'm covered either way...
 
I use an LL Bean "Camp Futon". It's a self inflating foam pad, and it's thick, bulky, and heavy. I sleep well on it though. Once I've crawled into the @&$*?! tent, I don't know I'm not home in my own bed.
 
I use a ridge rest pad under an air mattress. I've had air mattresses fail before, so the little extra bulk is well worth carrying.
i have several thermarest pads, long, short, and tapered, a couple of them are pushing 30 years old that I still use up to last weekend. Never had a leak or fail of any kind in any of them. I store them fully inlated and laying flat in my basement.
 
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Air pad with some kind of layer inside. I'd say the synmat is an air mattress, the dlx9 is down filled, as far as I know.
I believe the summary is filled with a synthetic fibrous material, a less effective filling than down. I just didn't know where they fit in poll. I selected hybrid as closer than air mattress.
 
I used to just through down a bed roll and call it good. However, as my trips grew in duration and body aged in years I have used a 48 inch thermarest about 1 inch thick for my back and shoulders. This is still very light, “portagable“ and takes up almost no space in my bedroll.

in winter, I use a full length thermarest that is like 3 inches thick. Makes a huge difference when sleeping on well frozen ground.

Bob.
 
In the tent a 3” thick XL ThermaRest Luxury Map. There are now better R-value pads to be, but I sleep warm, and that one does me fine. Egads, looking at the current cost, pads got supply-chain pricey, if available in stock at all.

Tightly compressed and rolled Luxury Map is a big pad, so I made a DIY dry bag just for it. No sense taking up half 115L bag for a sleeping pad.

Like the Devil SIL I slide a (half) of a Ridgerest pad under the Luxury Map. That half RR pad serves as in-camp kneeling pad when setting up/taking down, and as off-season camp chair insulation. Slid below the Luxury Map at bedtime and located under my shoulders and hips, not so much for the extra cushion/insulation as for protection from thorn or sharp shell puncture. Although that half RidgeRest saved my arse, or at least my shoulders and hips, during one off-season trip with an unidentifiable slow leak pad.

(In the back of the tripping truck I sleep on a dense 3” thick foam pad covered with 1” memory foam and a fitted microfiber sheet. More comfortable than my bed at home, and everything I need is at my fingertips)

Oh, yeah, the ThermaRest has a fitted micro-fiber cover too. A pad cover sheet is worth the extra couple ounces, and it’s nice to run it through the wash after sweaty summer trips or sandy/muddy foot entry.

Not wanting to thread drift too far here, but there are greenbriar thorns and sharp shell fragments aplenty in some places I trip. I inspect the tent area, but even a sharp pine cone prickle fragment could be weighted pad deflation deadly. I’m thinking about incorporating a secondary puncture resistant ground cloth, to use as extra protection when sharps conditions merit.

Simply laying a tent floor sized (less some side inches) Non-Absorbent Anti-Puncture Layer (NAAPL, copyright ) atop the “outie” footprint, so both the tent floor and pad are puncture protected under body weight.

I can see multi-purpose uses for such a NAAPL ground cloth when not under the tent. Picnic blanket. Chickee board-gap protection. Tossed on the damp ground as a gear staging area. Muleta for playing with rutting moose.

Any suggestions for some kind of NAAPL material? Maybe thick Cordura nylon, or. . . . . .
 
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