Review: Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft Sleeping Pad

My favorite place to wake up is in a sleeping bag, which is good because I tend to wake up a lot when sleeping in a sleeping bag. It's not the bag, it's the pad underneath me. I've tried them all (it's part of my job), and while some are definitely better than others, I've never found one that quite fulfilled every backpacker’s dream—a lightweight, packable sleeping pad that feels just like the bed you left at home.

Until now, that is. The Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft sleeping pad isn't the lightest at 25 ounces—goodbye, ultralight readers—but the 4.6-inch cushion is a true luxury, and it offers a great night's rest, which can be more valuable than shedding a few ounces.

The Great Weight Debate

Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

There are two problems with carrying a big sleeping pad in the backcountry. First, there's the weight you have to carry, and then there's the amount of room it takes up in your pack. The ultralight community online will try to convince you that camp comfort—that is, your shelter and your sleeping set up—aren't as important as keeping weight down, so you can move fast.

Depending on your goals in the backcountry, that may indeed be true. But after trying it for quite a few trips, I've found it's not the case for me. For me, carrying a little more weight in the form of a heavier tent and sleeping pad affords me a better night's sleep, which helps me (on average) to hike further than I do with less weight but poorer sleep.

Therm-a-Rest's new NeoLoft pad steps into this weight/size/comfort debate by leaning heavily on the side of comfort. It is undeniably big, relative to something like Therm-a-Rest's XLite pads or Sea to Summit's Ether Light series (our two favorite ultralight sleeping pads). For all that, though, the Neoloft isn't that big when packed down, especially considering how big it is when you inflate it.

The NeoLoft reliably packs down to a size that's just larger than a Nalgene water bottle—about an inch bigger around and an inch taller for the regular wide size pad that I tested. It's a tight squeeze fitting the NeoLoft in my Hyperlite Junction 40 with the rest of my gear, but it works for shorter trips where I'm not carrying a ton of food. For trips longer than three or four nights, I'd want a 55L pack. (Naturally, this will depend a lot on the size of the rest of your gear. You can see what I carry at LighterPack.)

I'll confess that I was dreading testing this pad. I didn't want to lug it with me, but when I actually loaded it up … I didn't really notice the extra 8 ounces over the Nemo Tensor I usually carry. Again though, I am not trying to win any ultralight prizes. Rather, I'm looking for the right balance between weight and comfort.

Sleeping Pad Technology

Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

I test organic mattresses for WIRED, and I use roughly the same criteria to judge sleeping pads. Comfort while sleeping comes down to how well your pad keeps you warm, how well it relieves pressure, how well it provides support, and how stable it is to sleep on.

Warmth is regrettably subjective. I sleep hot, so I am generally fine with an R-7 pad even in the depths of Wisconsin winters. I normally carry a Nemo Tensor Trail with an R-value of 3 in summer and fall and am plenty warm with that down to freezing. Unsurprisingly, I was never cold on the NeoLoft even down to one night that hit 15 degrees Fahrenheit on my thermometer.

Internally, Therm-a-Rest has filled the NeoLoft with a trademark word salad of features dubbed ContourCore Matrix, ThermaCapture, and 3D Construction. The 3D construction is what makes the NeoLoft look like a plush car camping pad. It refers to the squared-off edges that come from having vertical sidewalls. This makes for a larger sleeping area, compared to a similar pad where the edges taper off. The NeoLoft gives you full height and excellent firmness all the way to the edge, much like our favorite car camping pad, the Therm-a-Rest MondoKing. There is also a side rail baffle all the way around the pad which acts as a kind of small barrier, helping to keep you on the pad.

ContourCore Matrix is Therm-a-Rest's name for the triangular horizontal baffles running through out the pad. There's two layers of baffles, with the top layer being of a stretchier fabric that helps provide pressure relief, especially for side sleepers. The baffles, combined with the stretch knit top fabric, make this pad so comfortable. The knit top is also excellent for pressure relief and the side baffles also help provide support. I never had this pad “taco” on me.

The ThermaCapture is a reflective coating inside the pad designed to radiate your body heat back up and keep you warmer. Pretty much every pad on the market uses some kind of reflective internal material, with all of them adding to the noise level of the pad. Thankfully, there's enough space here that the NeoLoft is quite quiet. The stretch knit top also helps cut down on that swishy nylon sound. It also makes sleeping on the pad with a quilt much more comfortable. It's not quite Zenbivy-sheet-level comfortable, but it's much better than the awful feeling of sleeping on plasticky nylon. It also does a much better job of keeping you from sliding off in the night.

Therm-a-Rest uses its twin-valve inflation system on the NeoLoft—one valve to inflate, one to deflate, which I happen to like because it saves fiddling with double-function valves. The Neoloft comes with the biggest pump sack I've ever used (54L). It took about 2 minutes to inflate the NeoLoft, about six to seven fills of the pump sack depending on how full you want the pad. It works, but I've long since gone to the motorized side, using a Flextail pump most of the time. The extra size of the NeoLoft does reduce the number of times the Flextail can fill it, though. In my testing, I could only fill the reliably NeoLoft 9 times with the Flextail, compared to 11 for my Nemo pad.

Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

However you inflate the NeoLoft, my one tip would be to experiment with how full you fill it. With 4.6 inches of loft, there's quite a bit of room to remove air and find the most comfortable spot for your body and sleep habits. For me that was around 85 percent full, but even down to about 60 percent I didn't bottom out, which is unheard of in a backpacking pad. Keep in mind that the R-value is for a fully inflated pad. When you don't fill it up all the way, you lose some insulation, so you have to balance that with comfort and support.

Finally, one cautionary note: This is a big pad when inflated. Two would not fit side by side in many of the two-person ultralight tents I've tested, and fully inflated I can't quite sit up in the Hilleberg Akto. At 85 percent inflated, I can sit up in the Akto, so it's not a huge issue. It's just worth making sure that it will fit in your tent before you buy (especially if you're camping with a partner who will also have one).

The Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft is the most comfortable sleeping pad I've ever used. The nearest competition is the Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated pad, which weights a bit less (17 ounces) with an R-value of 4.8 and thickness of 4.25. It's close on paper. While the Rapide SL is a very nice pad worth considering if you're really counting ounces, the NeoLoft wins when it comes to comfort. I think the NeoLoft is worth the space and weight for those who value a good night’s sleep. It’s a wonderfully comfortable pad that will have you forgetting that you’re sleeping on the ground.