SectionHiker reports using a Big Agnes Insulated Aircore sleeping pad in combination with a foam pad instead of an Exped Downmat 7 for camping on his winter backpacking trip. He reports the Insulated Aircore is much more compressible than the Downmat and this was a poor choice because he was a little cold, but it gives you some idea of the trade-offs that can go into picking different pad combination’s for different weather conditions. The real value of his post is that he is still looking for a more compressible, warm winter pad and compiled a table of sleeping pad R-values for this purpose. The table is sortable, so you can rank order products on any of it’s dimensions if you want explore cost, weight, R-value, or thickness trade-offs. Check it out here.
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