20
Bought a ultralight sleeping pad for $180 and regretted it by mile 3 on the Appalachian Trail
I was all hyped up on saving weight and got this inflatable pad that's thinner than a pancake. Worked great for the first two nights, then a sharp rock gave it a pinhole leak around 3 AM near Harper's Ferry. Spent the next 4 hours freezing on the ground and patching it with duct tape. Anyone else had a supposedly premium piece of gear fail on them out there?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
gibson.morgan1d ago
Man I feel your pain, I had the exact same thing happen with a Thermarest near Partnership Shelter. Best fix I found is to bring a tiny patch kit and check your site for pointy stuff before you lay down, saves a lot of cursing at 3am lol.
8
logan5251d agoMost Upvoted
Partnership Shelter is a great spot but man that gravel parking lot can be brutal on pads. Speaking of which I once hiked with a guy who used a cheap foam pad and just slept on a pile of leaves instead. Said he liked the crunching sound. Weird dude but he never got a leak. Point is sometimes the simplest solution works better than the fancy gear. I always carry a folded piece of Tyvek now under my pad too, extra layer of protection and doubles as a sit pad for lunch breaks. But yeah checking the ground before you set up is key. I missed a stray acorn once near a campsite in Virginia and spent the next hour trying to find the hole in the dark.
1
reese_hayes711d ago
Folding a piece of Tyvek under the pad is a solid move, it takes a beating and barely adds weight. That acorn story hits close to home, I once set up on what looked like flat ground near a shelter in Georgia and woke up with a hole from a sharp rock that poked right through my pad and my cheap foam back up. Now I always sweep the spot with my boot first and carry Tenacious Tape in my pack, that stuff fixes almost anything quick. A friend of mine swears by cutting a section of an old foam sleeping pad to use as a sit pad and extra ground layer, and he's never had a leak since he started doing that. Have you tried using a piece of that blue closed cell foam under your pad at all?
2