Pads for Quilt question

[Odd Man Out]

I am a 50-ish 6'0" 190 lb male looking to obtain the equipment necessary for some long distance AT hiking. Have done much reading about equipment options but am most confused about sleeping systems. With 50 yo knees, I would want to keep things as light as possible, but with a 50 yo body, I need a bit of comfort too. I would prefer a multi-use sleep system that can work not only in the cold found early and late in a thru hike, but also in the heat of mid summer. Based on what I have read recently, it seems like the quilts (as in Nunatak and GoLite) might give me the 3 to 4 season versitility I seek at a low weight. Are there other makes of these types of bags? Also, as a quilt sleeper you are likely to be sleeping directly on your pad. Does this affect your pad selection, since you don't have the layer of down or nylon between you and your pad? Thanks for any tips.

[Odd Man Out]

I should add that Thermarest Neoair, Exped DownMat, and Big Agnes Insulated Air Core are pads I have considered.

[sbhikes]

Some quilts have a sleeve you put the pad in so that there is a layer of nylon between you and the pad. The quilt I had made me sleep directly on the pad. I found that to be surprisingly warm, sometimes hot and sweaty. Since I'm wearing something when I sleep, I'm not usually feeling like I'm sleeping on a sticky pile of sweat, but it could feel that way if I had bare skin against the pad.

I used 6 panels of a Z-rest and half a blue foam pad. I put sticky velcro on each piece and velcroed them together each night for sleeping. These pads are not really cushy but they are warm. I can sleep well without a lot of cushioning.

I'm pretty sure you could use a neoair or a thermarest with a quilt if you prefer more cushioning. The pad itself really does not matter that much. I do notice that if I use just my 6 panel Z-rest it's not really long enough for the quilt straps, so if any of the pads on your list are only torso-length, you might have the same "problem".

[Tinker]

Probably the main reason I switched from ground sleeping to hanging was because of all the sweat I produced during the night in the summer. I found it impossible to cool down enough to sleep well on several nights. An air-only mattress helped (I got a Big
Agnes Air Core Mummy) and that was ok, but it's still a vapor barrier and would get slippery from sweat (I use a sleeping bag as a quilt in the summer when ground sleeping). I've used a closed cell pad on top of it for cushiness and insulation.
The idea above of gluing pieces of Velcro to pad and quilt sounds like a good one.
Re: the sleeping bag - I have three, the heaviest being 2.5 lbs. and the other two being 1.5 and one pound even. I mix and match them for use depending upon the expected temperature. In very cold weather I'd be a little wary of using a quilt unless it had "wings" to hold it securely under your pad.

[Rocketman]

Many people claim that the temperature ranges from late winter/early spring through the hottest days of summer are best handled with two sleeping systems. One would obviously be warmer than the other.

I made an alpine RayWay quilt (the one with the extra layer of insulation for about 25F temperature rating) for the mid April start that I had planned. That quilt would have been perhaps a little too cold for a mid March start - and the weather of a given year is a large part of what determines that.

When I got to the Great Smokies, I sent the quilt back home and used a 40F rated down sleeping bag for the summer part of the trip about mid May. Some years, that may be a little early to switch to a lighter bag. It worked out fine, however. I almost always slept with the 40F bag as a quilt, just laid out on top of me.

I hiked till mid July and went home with medical issues. I think the heavier quilt would have been too warm to be comfortable during the summer. The down sleeping bag packed into a much smaller bundle than did the synthetic RayWay quilt.

I can understand the desire to save money by having only one sleeping system. And certainly many people have previously hiked the whole trail with a single sleeping system.

I would suggest you look into very warm sleeping clothes, such as the long underwear in the warmer weights. You may be able to boost the warmth of your single sleeping system to tolerate more of the winter/spring temperatures and by shipping the warm sleeping clothes home and changing to lighter ones (or none at all), you can better accomodate the summer temperatures.

I suggest that you sleep outside as much as you can this summer with a sleeping bag like what you would take to get first hand experience with how you sleep under those conditions. Also, in the fall/early winter, be sleeping outside some in the sleeping system you plan to take.

That way, you can get an early understanding of what kind of cold and heat your system can tolerate.

That would give you plenty of time to make any changes you would need.

40 years ago, the advice was to buy a sleeping bag for the COLDEST you would ever camp. Quality sleeping bags are now relatively much cheaper than in those days (as are many things now imported from Asia), and the idea of more than one sleeping system is much more common.

Since I have accumulated a lot of equipment over time, I am in the multiple sleeping gear family because I am quite a lot older than you, and I hate to carry more weight than I have to. If you keep hiking, you will understand if you don't already.

Nice to see younger guys taking up the sport. :-)

[skinewmexico]

My 50 year old body demands a POE Ether Thermo 6. I have the uninsulated version for summer. I run the straps for my quilt under the pad if I think it might get cold. It's never really bothered me sleeping on the bare pad.

[jesse]

55 y/o. I use a POE inflatable insulated pad and a Ray-way 28* quilt year round.

[chiefduffy]

My 54 year old body demands a hammock. I use a Ray-way alpine and Z-rest. Just can't sleep well on the ground anymore.
- Duffy

[JAK]

I still get by with a blue foam pad at 47, but I have to choose my ground carefully.

[sbhikes]

I did not affix velcro to the quilt. Only to the two halves of my franken pad to make the two pads stick to each other. My only point about the pads was that it doesn't really matter what kind of pad you use with the quilt, except a short pad might be hard to strap the pad around.

[on_the_GOEZ]

@Rocketman - THanks for the great input!

Ive never slept with a top quilt in my hammock. Are straps necessary to keep it in place during the night or will it (hypothetically) stay put?

[Rocketman]

Odd Man Out,

Temperatures

You might wish to do some of your own research on temperatures on the AT and temperatures "at home". A good tool is the graphical data at:

http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sectors/conus.php

This gives predicted max and min temperatures in graphical plots or maps of the whole country. By clicking or double clicking on specific areas, you can get a blow-up of the local temperatures.

The temperatures at the tops of mountains and ridges, which is where most of the AT is located, is not accurately predicted. You can get a better estimate of those temperatures if you know something about how air temperature changes as it rises.

So, the idea is to get the temperature (estimate - prediction) at a town near the AT and then using the town elevation and the AT elevation range for that area, you can better estimate the temperature.

There are two rules of thumb - one for dry air and one for moist air. Dry air cools at about 5*F per 1,000 foot rise, and moist air cools at about 3.5*F per 1,000 foot rise. In the winter, you would prefer to err on the cold side, so you would assume that the air temp drops at about 5*F/1,000 ft. In summer, when it is hot and humid over much of the East, you would want to assume that the cooling is only about 3.5*F/1,000 ft.

Suppose the Smokey mountains National Park is where you considering Icewater Spring Shelter at 5,920 feet - the highest AT shelter in the park.

You know the temperature (or the daily average temperature) at Knoxville, TN which is at 936 feet, or roughly 5,000 feet (4,984 ft) below this point of interest. In the Winter, you would estimate that the shelter would be 25*F colder than Knoxville. In the summer you would estimate that it would be 5*F or up at the shelter and in the summer, a hot near 75*F night in Knoxville would be around 60*F up at the shelter.

This sort of more detailed estimation, if you want to bother, needs trail elevation data as in most guide books, and some maps of the trail and of the general USA to find the towns that are relevant.

You can find a lot of climatological data at www.wunderground.com in the link on weather forecast pages called Seasonal Weather Averages for each of the cities/town that you might be interested in. Usually, the climatological data is only easily available for larger towns and airports.

I stayed at that shelter about May 10, 2007 and it was a cold night with frost on the ground in the morning. The average nightime temperature for Knoxville that date was just below 40*F, putting the shelter expected temperature below freezing.

On the other hand, you might just listen to people tell you the "average experience" that they had, and avoid dealing with numbers. For example, I often hear "Carry a 20*F bag for a March start".

PADS
Because I am short and weight conscious, I use the 48" sleeping pads and have always used only Thermarest, ever since the first one they made back in the 1970's. I gave two really oldies to the Girl Scounts this winter and only have a very light shortie and a heavy 1.5 inch one I sometimes carry for bike camping and the new NeoAir nice thick and light one which is my preferred version - saves several ounces over the much thinner "shortie".

Never noticed a problem except when stuck camping on a hill, and then you can slide off. So, I don't do that.

[Rocketman]

You know the temperature (or the daily average temperature) at Knoxville, TN which is at 936 feet, or roughly 5,000 feet (4,984 ft) below this point of interest. In the Winter, you would estimate that the shelter would be 25*F colder than Knoxville or about 5*F up at the shelter. In the summer you would estimate that a hot near 75*F night in Knoxville would be around 60*F up at the shelter.