I don’t sleep well when camping…

try less inflation of your kooka pad before you sell it for something thinner and harder

Great point David, I only recently learned the valuable tip of bleeding some air from my pad until my hip just touched. Such a great technique to allow the air mattress to actually conform properly to your spine and eliminate the feeling that you going to rolloff the pad. Much better.

Less inflation makes the pad more comfy, but can reduce insulative value. Finding a happy medium is key.

Some dabs/dots/strips of silicone sealant are often times helpful to reduce the slippery feel of an air mat. If you sleep in a quilt this becomes a non-issue because you lay directly on the mat rather than the slippery sleeping bag material sitting on top of it.

Benadryl is a really great trick too. Often times if I'm spending 24/7 outside, my sinuses that are used to spending all day in a filtered air office are unhappy by bedtime anyway, so the benadryl both opens my nasal passages, and knocks me the heck OUT. As long is it's not extraordinarily cold, noisy (bugs, animals, people, weather) or otherwise, it can be pretty easy to sleep much much better.

The pad is comfy and the flask helps with the tossing and turning. Bring pure grain to stay UL

If you start with an extra thick air mattress like a Kooka Bay 3.5" or Exped Downmat 9, you can partially deflate the mat without losing it's insulating value.

Ken

> If you start with an extra thick air mattress like a Kooka Bay 3.5" or Exped Downmat
> 9, you can partially deflate the mat without losing it's insulating value.

Correction: without losing ALL of its insulating value.
Check what happens at
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/testing_thermal_insulation.html

Cheers

Benadryl has been my friend for a long time. I have bad allergies, so I always bring it along and it helps ensure I get a good night of sleep. I recently switched to the hammock setup and now I sleep like a baby. I wouldn't need the benadryl if it weren't for those allergies. It made a huge difference and it's not too hard to get a light set up.

bridge hammock is for back sleepers, gathered ends for side sleepers. get a hammock, problem solved. Recommendations: Grizz bridge or warbonnet blackbird.

Pretty funny how often drugs and alcohol are suggested :)

I am going to pick up a ProLite Plus and see how that works, and I am seriously considering a Blackbird hammock as well. I have a feeling I will end up with both, and maybe some booze.

Never mind

If width is the issue the prolite plus may be the ticket but IMNHO 1 1/2" is not that cushy unless you can find a soft spot to put it on maybe a wider thicker insulated air mat would be best nobody likes extra weight but if you are sleeping to bad its mostlikely worth the weight

Over the years, as my pads have become too thin (ha ha), I have switched to increasingly thicker pads. My POE insulated air pad (the old Insulmat Max Thermo) at 2.5" thick has become borderline, so I have ordered a 3.5" thick Climashield Apex insulated air pad from Bender of Kooka Bay. I'm really looking forward to comfort this summer! Its estimated weight is 4 oz. less than my current POE pad, even though it's longer and warmer.

You do want your air pad squishy, not firm. I try to adjust mine so that, when I'm on my side, my hip and shoulder sink down in and my spine is parallel to the ground. Roger is right in that the insulation is less effective when the mat is only partially inflated. With the extra inch thickness on the Kooka Bay pad, I expect to have better insulation than with the 2.5" thick POE pad on which my hip is just barely off the ground and feeling the cold come through.

Don't give up your Kooka Bay pad until you've tried it only about 1/2 to 2/3 inflated!

IMHO, a good night's sleep is worth almost any expenditure or weight!

I was using either a short or regular length 20" wide exped DM7 year round with great success, but recently moved to a wider pad at 24". This made all the difference for me, particularly now I am a quilt user year round. I too have a Kookabay down filled mattress (24"x60") and really like it. Too much air and it's pretty bouncy, but 60-70% full and it's side sleeping heaven.

I was doing the same sort of searches a couple years ago here myself. I had always slept really good while on the trail and I can pass out in seconds at home. But then I started to have a lot of trouble getting to sleep on my Thermarest. Tossed and turned and could never get a decent nights sleep. When I would finally get up in the morning I was sore and stiff and it basically was ruining my trips. Looking for a solution lead me to hammocks, I have not slept on the ground since…who would really want to…As one of the guys at Hammock forums says "we pee on the ground." ;) Now when on the trail I fall asleep as easy as at home. I get a full nights sleep wake up with the sun refreshed and feeling like I never hiked the day before. No aches and pains, I'm not sore and I can be ready to hit the trail faster than I ever could with my groundling gear.

It's not for everyone and I'm not going to say that it's some sort of magic solution to camping. But for me, I would rather sleep in my hammock than my crazy expensive bed. last fall I hosted a group get together and hike and got to spend 7 nights hiking and hanging and I felt better from that week of sleep than any I can remember. My hammock set up weighs less than my ground set up did, though has slightly greater bulk…I can fit all my gear into a med. Golite Ion…no food for the hammock set up(just fills it), 1 days worth for the ground set up….so not a big jump in bulk but a little. If I were to go with a more compact hammock than the Black Bird it would be equal. The difference is a full nights restful sleep.

Good luck on your search for a nights rest on the trail.