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Reviews > Sleep Gear > Pads and Air Mattresses > Therm-a-Rest Expedition L > Owner Review by steven millerOWNER REVIEW - Therm-a-Rest Trek & Travel Series EXPEDITION L MattressName: Steven H. Miller Age: 52 Gender: Male Height: 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) Weight: 175 lb (79 kg) Email address: metaphorce@earthlink.net City: Pacific Palisades, CA Date: Feb. 17, 2006 Backpacking Background: I began backpacking in the early 1980's, trekking in the mountains and deserts of California. I stopped backpacking after I got married in the late 80's. Now my sons are 10 and 13, and I've had to resurrect my equipment, my skills, and many long-neglected muscles. I recently took my first backpacking (as opposed to car-camping) trip in 20 years. I tend towards short tenting trips, pack too much and end up carrying over 40 lb. in the desert (including water). I'm looking for ways to cut it down without sacrificing creature comforts. PRODUCT INFORMATION Manufacturer: Therm-a-Rest Year of manufacture: 2005 Website: http://www.thermarest.com/ Listed weight: 2 lbs 15 oz / 1.33 kg Weight as delivered: 2 lbs 14.7 oz / 1.32 kg Weight with optional stuff sack: 3 lbs / 1.36 kg Advertised Width 25 in / 63 cm Advertised Length 75 in / 191 cm Width printed on Packaging: 25 in / 63 cm Length printed on Packaging: 77 in / 196 cm Advertised Thickness 1.75 in / 4.5 cm Measured Width: 26 in / 66 cm Measured Length: 76 in / 193 cm Measured Thickness 1.75 in / 4.5 cm. (Due to an uninflatable margin of about .375 in / 1 cm where the top and bottom pieces of fabric have been sealed together, the actual inflated surface measures 25 in / 64 cm X 75 in / 191 cm.) MSRP: $79.95 US (This model has apparently been superseded by a 2 in/50 cm thick model, which occupies the same price-point. However, the Expedition L is still available from some retailers.) PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: An air mattress made of two sheets of polyurethane-coated polyester cloth, sealed together at the edges, and filled with polyurethane foam. The inflated mattress presents a flat surface with a slight ripple to it, with no "tubes" or integrated "pillow." It rolls up into a cylinder-shape 26 in / 66 cm wide by approximately 5 in / 13 cm in diameter (depending on how efficiently it is rolled). It is made in the USA and features a lifetime warranty. Each mattress has an individual serial number imprinted on it.
The Expedition L mattress features a plastic screw-valve at one corner. The valve is mounted at a diagonal, so it sticks out slightly past the edge of the mattress when it's rolled up. The valve is approximately 1 in / 2.5 cm long and .63 in / 1.6 cm in diameter, a reasonable size for inflating by mouth. The fabric on the mattress top is light green. On the bottom it's black. (I consider the side with the logo-printing as the top, and the physics of heat reflection by light colors and absorption by dark colors would suggest that Therm-a-Rest figures it the same way I do.) To pack the mattress, the user opens the valve and rolls up the mattress, squeezing the air back out, then closes the valve to keep the mattress from self-inflating. I have always found that the mattress can be packed most efficiently by doing the rolling procedure twice. I open the valve and roll it up along the ground starting from the "head" end of the mattress. (I always use it with the valve-end at my feet.) When I have completely rolled the mattress, I kneel on it to squeeze out as much air as possible, and close the valve. Then I unroll it, and re-roll it along the ground as tightly as I can. When I get it completely rolled, there's usually a little more air that can be squeezed out the second time, so I open the valve again, kneel on it again, and re-close the valve. It's then a fairly tight and stable roll, and easy to slip into its stuff sack. FIELD INFORMATION LOCATIONS: Car Camping: Sawmill Mountain in Angeles National Forest 5200 ft / 1600 m. Hidden Falls campground in Mountain Home State Forest 6200 ft / 1900 m. Wheeler Gorge Campground in Los Padre National Forest 1800 ft / 550 m. White Tank campground 3800 ft / 1150 m and Jumbo Rocks campground 4400 ft / 1350 m, both in Joshua Tree National Park. Backpacking: Pinto Basin in Joshua Tree National Park 1500 ft /450 m -1600 ft / 500 m. DESCRIPTION OF LOCATIONS: Sawmill Mountain is a dry campsite shaded by California live oaks and long-needled pine trees. The location appears to get very little rainfall, and the ground is hard-packed dry clay studded with many small rocks. Most of the campsites are positioned under trees, so there are dry leaves available for cushioning under the tent, but California live oak leaves tend to be hard, brittle, and sharp-edged, and do not make ideal cushioning. Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest is a redwood forest in the southern part of Sequoia National Forest, just south of Sequoia National Park. The campsites at Hidden Falls are some distance from the parking lot, ranged along the rim of a rock gorge featuring a series of dramatic waterfalls. The terrain is rocky and uneven, with few level areas, but the earth tends to be soft and moist. Wheeler Gorge is a narrow gorge in the Coastal Range north of Ojai, California. The campsites are along a stream, and most have lots of shade-trees, but the ground is hard-packed clay. Joshua Tree National Park is a desert park on the interface of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, offering several different kinds of terrain at varying elevations. Jumbo Rocks and White Tank campgrounds are in the high desert, in an area of small loping hills and enormous rough rock outcroppings. The ground is generally hard-packed. Pinto Basin is flat desert and very sandy. It is thoroughly undermined by burrowing animals and somewhat treacherous to walk on. (My son stepped on a hole that collapsed revealing a live snake that attacked him. Fortunately, my son was wearing steel-toed boots.) The ground is not steep, but there isn't that much truly level ground, either. There's a regular, well-spaced growth of small shrubs, making it a bit tricky to find a bare patch large enough to pitch a tent. WEATHER CONDITIONS: Sawmill Mountain was dry and windy when we visited there in mid-Summer. Temperature at night dropped to about 45-50 F / 7-10 C. Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest in late summer was warm during the day, colder at night (probably about 45 F / 7 C). No rain, but considerable dew in the morning. Wheeler Gorge in late summer was quite hot during the day, cool but not cold at night (probably 50-55 F / 10-13 C). Joshua Tree in winter has mild daytime temperatures, despite being in the desert. It was sometimes as low as 55 F / 13 C during the day, and never got above about 75 F / 24 C while we were there. Nights can get quite cold, however. Pinto Basin on a January night was about 35 F / 2 C with extremely strong winds. On our trip to White Tank, we encountered one of those rare and exciting desert rain-storms when we first arrived, and the ground was actually damp beneath our tent throughout our stay. FIELD PERFORMANCE: I have always gone backpacking for the wonder of the places I can get to, rather than the pure joy of the hike. Backpacking and camping are something of a sacrifice for me, because I have great trouble sleeping in a sleeping bag on the ground. I am a side-sleeper, and need both support and cushioning to prevent neck, lower back, and hip pain. Moreover, I tent to turn over frequently, which is difficult in a sleeping bag and more difficult on a narrow mattress, so I wake up frequently when camping. Sleep deficit has several negative impacts on the experience, not only for me but for those with me, usually my children. I'm not a fun dad if I don't sleep for two nights running. I also don't function too well at some of the basic camping activities, like cooking. By the end of the trip when I have to drive home (usually a drive of at least two hours, often more) the drowsiness starts to catch up with me and creates a dangerous situation. These discomforts also have longer-term effects that cannot be ignored. I'm getting into my mid-50's, and the back and hip pain resulting from two or three bad nights on the ground lasts for a week or more and impacts my ability to function as a professional, as a husband, and as a dad. In short, the comfort factor has become a serious consideration in choosing my equipment and my trips. At the same time, the increased equipment weight that usually accompanies increased comfort is a serious consideration for backpacking, as carrying increased weight can cause back and neck pain, too. These factors were a major motivation for my purchase of the Therm-a-Rest Expedition L air mattress. I already owned two orange Therm-a-Rest mattresses which are the original design (as far as I know), but they are narrow and thin. I wanted greater thickness to ease the impact on my hips and shoulders. I wanted the wider footprint to allow rolling over. All of the experiences I've had with the Expedition L mattress, except the Pinto Basin trip, were car-camping trips. However, since most of the performance characteristics of the Therm-a-Rest mattress are related to setting up, sleeping, and packing up, I feel the car-camping experiences are all relevant, and that the one backpacking trip was enough to reveal characteristics of the product that relate to packing and carrying it. The Therm-a-Rest Expedition L performed quite consistently under all conditions listed above, despite variations in temperature and hardness or softness of the ground beneath. After extracting it from its stuff-sack, it is easy to un-roll. One doesn't really need to unroll it completely flat, because it will unroll itself as the self-inflating feature begins to work. The more it's unrolled, however, the faster it will self-inflate. I found that the Expedition L does not self-inflate quite as effectively as my older, thinner, original Therm-a-Rest mattresses do. The Expedition L seems to stop inflating before it's completely smooth, probably due to the die-cutting of the interior foam. I have timed it for full inflation in about 10 minutes (near sea level), not a great deal of time, and considerably shorter than, say, a down sleeping bag takes to regain full insulating loft after being compressed in a stuff-sack. It took me about 10 breaths of additional inflation to bring the Therm-a-Rest to a state of very taut pressure and maximum support.
It effectively insulated me from the cold when used in combination with my sleeping bag even in near-freezing temperatures. This was true whether the ground beneath the tent was wet or dry. (In all cases, we used a ground sheet, so the moisture of the ground did not get through the tent, but moisture probably did affect the ground temperature.) It also provided adequate cushioning for me to sleep on my side if I arranged myself carefully, although my hip hurt some in the morning. The footprint of the mattress is large enough to be very comfortable. Even though I tossed and turned a lot during those nights, I rarely slipped over the edge of the mattress. Several times I found that my fellow sleeper (one or another of my sons) had moved off their mattress partway onto mine and I still had enough room to sleep. Using this Therm-a-Rest with a nylon sleeping bag presents one interesting problem. The combination of the nylon and coated polyester fabrics creates very low friction. If the ground is not level, the bag is prone to sliding downhill off the mattress very easily. When camping on mildly pitched ground, I sometimes woke to find myself halfway down the tent. The Expedition L has been easy to roll and pack. It compresses very thin, and curls slightly when compressed. The fabric seems to have just enough texture that the roll does not tend to squish out sideways. The matching Therm-a-Rest stuff-sack for this mattress (optional accessory approx. $10 at retail) is cut generously enough that it's easy to get a well-rolled mattress into it and out of it. It is the same color as the top side of the mattress, and so was easily identified among the other stuff-sacks in my tent. The stuff-sack is an excellent way to keep the mattress both well-packed and clean. It weighs just 1.3 oz / 37 g, and includes a strip of web-fabric sewn along the outside to create 5 lash-points for strapping it to your pack. I always pack the rolled mattress into the stuff-sack valve-end first, to keep dirt away from the valve. Since the mattress is both light and durable, I packed it on the outside of my backpack, strapped sideways across the lower part of the pack. It is wide enough that it protruded past the edge of my body considerably and I bumped into my fellow hiker several times. In the future, I will probably lash it on across the top of the pack, or vertically on the back. After about a dozen nights of use and half a dozen packings and unpackings, the mattress show no signs of wear other than dirt. A certain amount of hair and dust tend to stick to it by static attraction, and something spilled on it which did not run off and has left a small stain. The mattress seems to have retained a bit of directional curl when uninflated, which actually makes it easier to roll and pack. However, I may make a practice of alternating the direction of rolling to help it wear evenly. Based on the durability of my two previous Therm-a-Rest mattresses, both purchased in the 1980's, both bought on discount as "irregulars," and both still functioning much as new after two decades, I expect the Expedition L to be very durable and long-lived. SUMMARY The Therm-a-Rest Expedition L large mattress is a very well designed, effective sleeping aid. It provides good thermal insulation, is comfortable to lie on, and packs and unpacks easily. Its signature self-inflating feature is not especially impressive, but it is thoroughly adequate. The optional stuff-sack is an excellent addition for packing ease and protection of the product. LIKES: Thick enough for comfort Wide enough for comfort Self-inflating Good thermal insulation from ground Packs easily DISLIKES: Doesn't quite self-inflate fully Surface is slippery against a nylon sleeping bag Read more reviews of Therm-A-Rest gear Read more gear reviews by steven miller Reviews > Sleep Gear > Pads and Air Mattresses > Therm-a-Rest Expedition L > Owner Review by steven miller | |||||||||||
