We used different sleepingmats of Thermarest during our previous trips. The ProLite was not comfortable enough, it’s too thin. The NeoAir is comfortable, but not very warm and very thin and therefor very vulnerable. That’s why we decided to buy the Exped downmat 7m for this trip. These 7 cm (2.8 inch) thick mats are filled with down for extra isolation and sleepingcomfort. And that’s something you can really use on a long trip like ours. It’s important to sleep well.

Exped downmat 7m

According to Exped, the mats have a temperaturerange till -24˚ C (-11,2 F). Our highest campingspot so far was on 4600 meters (14.000 ft) and the temperature inside the tent reached -10˚ C (14 F). Due to our good sleepingbags, but definitely also the sleepingmats we didn’t get cold. It’s easy to inflate them through the built-in pump, but it does take a while. It also is quite a lot of work to get them neatly back into the pouch, you need to roll them a couple of times to get all the air out. Other disadvantages are the pretty high weight of 880 grams (almost 2 lbs) and the packsize of 23×16 cm (58×40 inch). But overall, we’re very happy with these mats, they’re comfortable and we haven’t been cold so far.

We heard from some other travelers that they were having problems with leeking Exped mats, but so far we haven’t had that experience.