When
thinking about hiking the long trail I really didn't want to spend a lot of
money on equipment/gear, this is possible but usually means you sacrifice
weight to do so. Anyone planning a long trek or a thru hike will understand
this. There is a balancing act between inexpensive vs not effective and this as
stated before will depend one persons desires.
When it came to choosing a air
mattress for my sleep system the first one I purchased was the Naturehike
Air Mattress (orange). I watched reviews
on you tube that said for the price which was about $50 Canadian this would be
a good light mattress. Upon receipt It seemed fine, I inflated it and rested
upon it on the living room floor. In this location it was a good mattress, it
was slightly different when hiking with it. We all know you can't have optimum
conditions in the wilderness. Of course rocks and roots are a part of everyday
life, based on this I found that this mattress was not good for me. The rocks
and roots found a way to push up through the mattress. It wasn't great but
better than with nothing at all. I suppose in hindsight it is good for the price.
My next decision was to go to REI and see what
was available. the nice part about REI is that you could try the mattress prior
to purchase, albeit in a controlled environment but you could try before you
buy. After trying a few we decided on the Nemo Cosmo Air Sleeping Pad 20R.
In our
opinion this was a great choice some of the elements that I liked were as
follows, First it was easy to inflate as it had an integrated foot/hand pump
built in. No batteries required. simply unroll and begin. if you decided to you
could oral inflate but I can't see why. During the pack up time I would pull
the plug after getting up and the mattress would fully deflate while I was
preparing breakfast. Very easy to roll up when deflated. I end up being a side
sleeper most of the time because my charming wife will not allow me to sleep on
my back and snore. Really I move around quite a bit and this is big enough to
allow for this movement. There is plenty of loft so you don't feel the rocks or
roots when you fall asleep. It is an insulated mattress but I cannot speak
about how the insulation works as we were hiking in warmer temperatures. The
mattress is relatively quiet as well, some of the others we tried sounded like
you were sleeping on a chip bag. Overall very happy with the mattress. Now a
said at the start I didn't want to spend a lot of money but ended up purchasing
two mattress to find the one that works.....Wish I had of read this review...or
at least had the chance to try all the mattress first. I might have just bought one as opposed to two But such is life.
The Nemo Cosmo that I used
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