• Home
  • Video
  • Camping Gear: Sleeping Pads and Tarps

Camping Gear: Sleeping Pads and Tarps

Description

Watch in 1080

I have had quite a few questions on my sleeping gear...

In this video I go over my 2 most used sleeping pads, and my 3 most used tarps.

Tags: Sleeping Pad (Product Category),thermarest,tarp,Camping (Literature Subject),Tarpaulin

Video Transcription

after I did my last solo over a ninth video I got a lot of questions on how the pad worked for me and I decided I'd like to do a video about it and compare a couple and some tarps as well so this is the backpack that I would use backpacking camping when I say camping I mean backpacking or canoeing that involves portaging I don't mean pulling up to a car camping camping that way if I did that my whole car be packed full of stuff I don't care about that at all this is backcountry camping anyway I brought three tarps Syd and I brought two to air pads so the three tarps that I'll show you today in bushcraft USA messed five by seven I'll go into detail about these all in a minute this is a nine by nine SIL nylon that my friend Kyle made for me this is a bushcraft us a ten by ten the old-school one and then as far as sleeping pads I have the therm-a-rest NeoAir and the evil air Astro light emo Astro air lights let's stay close to them so winning I'm going to give you some details on each but oh man this wind is crazy my real world specs always is better for me so this is the thumb rest NeoAir okay and this is a Nalgene so a little bit bigger than a Nalgene about the same wit a little bit bigger on that that size as well the Nemo smaller than analogy I could pack this down even farther than this let's craft us a 10 by 10 bigger both three times the size the nylon SIL nylon Kyle made for me twice the size blood compresses like crazy or flat and you can put it anywhere and then the five by seven is tiny compared to that again sorry guys about the wind that's getting pretty nuts but put in the woods there's nothing I can really do about it so first up is the therm-a-rest NeoAir all season blow it up show you how big it is give you a lot of specs on it there she is the therm-a-rest NeoAir all season she boasts an r-value of 4.9 which in my mind is fantastic cost about 150 bucks

it weighs in one pound three ounces it's 2.5 inches thick while it's inflated it's packed dimensions are 9 by 5 the top is made of ripped rip saw poly and the bottom is a 70 D nylon I've had this thing for three years I've used it every season and it's going strong all right now time for the astro air light the NEEMO astro air light flimsy all right now I really feel like I'm gonna pass oh man I have no breath after pulling those two things up but the second one is a Nemo Astro air light 20 R now the name is 20-yard do not let it fool you it's not a 20 r-value there is actually no value no our value I could find for it even though the person at the store told me is a 20 our value there is no way comes in at just under 1 pound it's 3 inches thick so half an inch thicker than the thermal rust the minimum temp they're suggesting is 35 to 45 Fahrenheit or 2 to 7 Celsius 2 to 7 Celsius is a huge difference I use this the other night it felt like negative 6 and I was okay because I had a warm bag it's packed sizes at 8 by 320d polyester rip stop is the whole thing top and bottom price is just just around 110 some of my thoughts on these two pads they're both good and they both have different qualities that I like the top one here like I said I used it the other day it got down to negative 6 felt like negative 6 7 Celsius and I had a negative 7 Celsius sleeping bag it down a down seed bed which transfers over to a 22

now I was cold my back whenever my back was on the bottom it was cold if I would roll to my side to be cool whatever part was touching them the pad was cold it wasn't untolerable and I did get a good night's sleep that said this is a summer bag it's a lot as you're saving a boat half a pound and the space is phenomenal that you save I will be using this from for my late spring summer early fall trips the pad on underneath the thumb rest it's good to go man this pad is I have no qualms about suggesting to anybody for a beginner or advanced cut it's you buy one and you're good I've had this just on the ground for a long time never had a hole in it it's really tough on the bottom that said be careful and don't put it down just on the ground I I'm diligent about cleaning off the ground before hand but it's durable and I got soaked underneath it one time in Algonquin Park and it never the water never traveled up and got me if it just stayed underneath it in a pool of water very very good pad both of them I would recommend but just for different things on the left we got a coyote ten by ten bushcraft us a tarp cost sixty bucks it weighs one pound 14 ounces it's made of 70d ripstop nylon with the urethane coating the middle one I don't have too many specs for it's a nine by nine SIL nylon Kyle made it super light tax down awesome far right is a messed or multi-purpose

emergency survival tarp cost twenty four bucks at bushcraft Outfitters calm it's five by seven twelve ounce 70d rip stop nylon urethane coating let's sit these bad boys up I never use a bag for this I just wrapped nice paracord around

this is the setup that I used the other night and I'm going to set up each tarp up the way that I would normally use it so this mask is too small in my opinion to do a neat frame you get some coverage for sure but my ideal setup for this will be the lean-to you've got to remember too that this is an emergency style tarp so I would only take it as a backup or if I knew it wasn't going to rain that night because the coverage that you would get off of this if you were multi-day camping and stuff just can't rely on staying dry in something along those lines but for a survival or like just like a wind block and something it's perfect and I've done five or six overnighters using just this as my turn all right up next is the Kyle made that's what I'm calling it nine by nine still nylon tarp so this one like I said packs down really small and it can go flat or anything this is what I would use if there's no bugs and I'm going altra light I know it's not ultra light compared to other people but for me it is I would even use this glow glow wire instead of paracord so let's let's set this up in the Adirondack wouldn't shelter confetti pancake next up is a nine by nine SIL nylon Kyle made tarp that's what I'm calling it now and like I was saying earlier it crushes down not to really really happened size flat whatever this is my option when there's no bugs and I'm going lightweight on a backpacking trip or something it's not ultra lightweight or anything like that I'd write around a pound but it's it's pretty nice mani I can carry a pound and be happy for my shelter for that I also use Glo wire or Glo cord I supposed to paracord with this because it's a lighter option and I and we have these pile made it up but there's these toggles made from like an arrow shaft or whatever already on there so on projects so there's no need to find you know sticks to make toggle all right so my Adirondack wind shelter is done this is actually the kind of shelter I'd set up if I was sleeping over here today um you can see lots of room in there I've got the front stake though I've got a tarp or sorry a sleeping pad in there tons of room this is my preferred tarp shelter set up you can see I didn't use any paracord because it has to come straight to the ground so the stakes are just right through the loops call me the loops big so I can put substantial size sticks through them and I could also use that middle tie out and pull it back and get a lot more room like you've seen me doing the pit in the past but for purposes of just demonstrating this it's not necessary last but definitely not least is my bushcraft USA bushcraft Outfitters 10 by 10 nylon turf this was my very first real tarp not one that you can get at Canadian Tire or Walmart or whatever ah

nylon tart I've used this for better part of four to five years on canoeing camping backpacking all sorts of crazy adventures and Shera still reeks of smoke which I love I've slept in here in torrential downpours and been fine I actually poked holes through it I had over top of a tent and the wind broke my tent poles and poked through and I actually just fixed it up with some nylon tape and some seam sealer and it's been good as it good as new the tabs have held no problem with the stitching nothing like that I could not recommend this this tarp more it's a great tarpon for 60 bucks you're laughs and a little heavy over a pound but for what you get and if you don't care that much about weight it's golden this is even a great tarp for when you're canoeing and you need like a communal shelter you can just set up behind the fire whatnot so as you can see I've had my fair share of work out here today I talked about the mess tarp down but this will be it I hope that this answers some questions and if there is any more wow just shoot me a message or in the comments and I'll try to get a try to answer you and make a video maybe thanks for watching guys and I'll see you on the next one there's equality this look any better than my normal stuff does it sound better than my normal stuff got a new camera I'm not sure if I should keep it or sell it and get a better DSLR this is a Canon video camera

About the Author

JoeRobinetBushcraft

JoeRobinetBushcraft

Joe is a very talented bushcrafter. He has a "straight" approach to bushcraft life-style. His videos reach a very high quality, both for the shootings and for the content. He took part on the History Channel show "Alone"

You can find all his videos on his YouTube channel.

More articles from this author