Packing for a three-week ski expedition into the massive St. Elias Range is a bit like trying to stuff 20 marshmallows in your mouth at once. You might be able to do it, but it’s a bit of a struggle. Therm-a-rest has made this slightly easier with the new NeoAir XTherm sleeping pad. – Review by MEC Envoy Tobin Seagel
We flew into the St. Elias Range at the junction of Alaska, Yukon and BC in May. When we arrived, the area was not in good condition for skiing – the lines had been baked to blue ice by the sun and the glacier was a mushy, dangerous mess. We knew we had to get higher to ski, so we dragged our 45+kg of gear for across several icefields looking for snow until we reached Mt. Logan’s basecamp (Logan is Canada’s highest mountain at 19,551ft). From there, we made an alpine style five-day push to ski from the summit.
In these kinds of conditions, keeping your body insulated from the snow below the tent is as important as bringing a warm sleeping bag. I used to bring two to three pads to sleep on to stay warm, which was very bulky and would take up the better part of a duffle bag. The Therm-a-rest NeoAir XTherm sleeping pad compresses to the size of a 1L Nalgene bottle, and I’ve never been warmer or more comfortable camped out on the snow and ice.
It weighs about a pound, and when inflated is around 6cm thick. I was pretty impressed. I usually feel a bit of radiant cold come from the ground; not so with this mat. I could sleep on my side and not have my hips hit the frozen ground.
To inflate the pad, you use the stuff sack it comes in (I don’t have the aftermarket battery powered inflator, and wouldn’t carry it on a trip like this). Inflating with the stuff sack is slow, which I didn’t mind, but getting it to a higher pressure was a little difficult. So I gave it a few breaths, and as long as those breaths don’t affect the long-term durability of the pad due to moisture, it was an easy alternative to fussing with the inflator stuff sack.
Overall, this is the best Therm-a-rest product I’ve used and would without reservation recommend it. The downsides are easily outweighed by how well this pad performs.
Sleeping soundly at -50C on the Therm-a-rest NeoAir Xtherm.