Delivering four season warmth and comfort, the Exped DownMat 7 is perfect for your next
backpacking adventure. When you are looking for a warm sleeping pad that this go-ing to
pack down to be really small and is extremely lightweight, but has a really high R value.
There is a lot of features here going on that are going to keep you uncomfortable and safe
in the backcountry.
First thing I want to talk about is the insulation and how this keeps you warm from cold ground.
This is filled with 750 plus premium goose down. So this packs down to be really small.
With that goose down it is very lightweight, so that is going to give you a lot of thermal
efficiency from the cold ground. It has an R value of 5.9 and that is a really high R
value for the weight of this sleeping pad. And the down on the inside of this pad is
ap-plied to the sleeping pad in a way that when you inflate the pad, the down also gets
lofty and also kind of inflates with the sleeping pad. You don’t have unwanted shifting of
down here, so you don’t have down that is going to shift up and down the chambers. In
fact, at the end of each chamber there are little foam pads that don’t allow the down
to move into other parts of the pad. So you have really great even distribution of heat
here. You don’t have to worry about that down breaking down. And because you have an
in-tegrated pump, you are not introducing that moisture from your breath into the pad.
So you don’t have to worry about that breaking down the pad at all. And, in fact, the glues
that are used to seal the pad and with the baffles here are designed in such a way that
any moisture that would make its way into the pad isn’t going to break down those
glues and also isn’t going to break down the loft of that down. So there is a lot of
technologies in there that are going to keep you warm and that are going to last a long
time.
I mentioned the pump here. And it does have an included pump. It is basically a piece
of foam. It is very flexible foam and there are two valves here. If I turn the pad around
you can see there was two hand marks here. So this is where that foam is in the pad.
It doesn't weigh a lot and, like I said, it breaks down really easily, but you have got
your inflation valve here. And as soon as you push down on the foam, it is going to
push the air from the foam into the pad. Like I said, there is another valve, so you have
got a purge valve here. When you need to deflate the pad in the morning, you just pull that
and the air just escapes really easily. So you want to make sure that is closed when
you are inflat-ing the pad.
But, again, this allows you to inflate your entire sleeping pad without having to use
your breath. If you are on a long day of backpacking, the last thing you want to do is sit there
and inflate the pad by mouth and get light headed, especially if you are at higher eleva-tions
and especially if it is really cold. So this is just really great innovation.
One thing I will mention. When you do inflate the pad, the last inflation there, when the
rest of the pad is blown up is going to leave the foam in this chamber a little bit deflated.
And there is a little valve behind the scenes here. You can’t see it, but you can feel
it. It is right on the bottom of this pad. And once you have your entire pad inflated,
you just simply push on that and it is to allow a little bit of air to come back into
this chamber so that this can be fully inflated. So that is one little helpful tip that I have
found. But, over-all, it is really comfortable mat. Again, really lightweight. The material
on the top here isn’t noisy. It is a pretty silent material. And there is even a little
bit of texture on there so what when you put your sleeping bag down onto it, it is not
going to slide around. And the material is very durable, but also very lightweight.
Overall it is a completely airtight, long lasting pad that is going to just deliver
four season warmth with that high R value. It is the Exped DownMat 7.