Bringing the right sleeping pad on a winter hiking/camping trip is incredibly important. Even if all your other gear is top-notch (tent, sleeping bag, clothes…), if you don’t bring a solid sleeping pad, all your precious body heat will be lost to the cold ground. Warmth is one of the first things to come to mind when buying a winter sleeping pad, but there are a lot of other important factors, and it can be especially difficult when you are working with a limited budget.
No worries, after reading this article you should be able to decide what the best sleeping pad is for your needs and budget. If you don’t know about R-value, I would recommend to read about it here.
Quick recommendations
I’ll make it as easy as possible for you with a very quick overview:
Outdoorsman Lab Winter: Best budget winter sleeping pad, heavy.
Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xtherm: Best warmth-to-weight ratio, expensive.
Exped Synmat XP 9: The in-between option, very comfortable.
Exped SynMat HL Sleeping Pad: The ultralight option, not as warm, expensive.
1. Outdoorsman Lab Winter
R-value: 8 | Price: $ | Weight: 7lb
My first recommendation would be the Outdoorsman Lab winter sleeping pad. As you can see, this sleeping pad is absolutely great when you are looking for a warm sleeping pad, but you can’t afford an expensive winter sleeping pad.
In my opinion, this is currently the best budget sleeping pad for very cold winter nights. With an R-value of 8, you are absolutely sure that you won’t get cold during the night. This should be able to keep you warm in temperatures up to -36F/-38C. However, I would highly recommend to build up to these temperatures (human bodies are very different when it comes to handling cold during the night).
It also comes with some handy features like anti-slip and the pad is self-inflatable.
So, you might be wondering “what’s the catch?”. Well, it’s pretty simple, it’s a rather heavy sleeping pad… For some of you this might not be an issue, but for the hikers who really care about keeping their backpack light, it might be. But ultralight quality gear is usually really expensive…
If it doesn’t really matter that much whether or not you backpack is ultralight, I would highly recommend buying this sleeping pad!
Also, Outdoorsman Lab is so confident in their product that they offer a double(!) refund if you are not satisfied:
“If we don’t live up to any of these promises, contact us so we can issue a DOUBLE REFUND”
You can get this sleeping pad on amazon: Outdoorsman Lab Winter
2. Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xtherm
R-value: 6.9 | Price: $$$ | Weight: 1.14lb
The Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xtherm is one of the absolute best winter sleeping pads you can buy today. However, I should also mention that this is not the pad to get if you are on a budget.
That being said, it has an R-value of 6.9 and weighs only 1.14lb, making this one of the best warmth-to-weight ratio’s ever for a sleeping pad. A pretty extreme difference with the outdoorsman lab sleeping pad. It basically comes down to whether or not you want to spend a lot more money on a pad that’s a lot lighter.
Especially for hikers this pad might be interesting. It’s not only light and warm, it’s also a pretty durable sleeping pad. Therm-a-Rest is a very well-known brand and provides quality products. You can be sure that the pad won’t do terrible in terms of durability either. However, inflatable pads are almost always less durable than foam pads, so don’t expect this to last as long as the Therm-A-Rest Z Lite Sol for example.
Long story short, if you want an ultralight high quality sleeping pad that will keep you warm in really cold weather, the neoAir Xtherm is probably your best option. If you are interested in buying this sleeping pad, the cheapest price can usually be found on amazon: Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xtherm.
If you absolutely hate the fact that your sleeping pad makes that annoying noise, maybe you should take a look at the Nemo Tensor Alpine Ultralight instead, which is an honourable competitor for the NeoAir Xtherm.
If you don’t need an R-value that’s this high, you might also be interested in the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite. Which is an even lighter version of this model, but won’t provide as much insulation. However, it still has an R-value of 4.2 which is more than enough for some milder winter nights!
3. Exped Synmat XP 9
R-value: 6 | Price: $$ | Weight: 2.4lb
I would consider the Exped Synmat XP 9 the in-between option. It’s not as expensive or as light as the NeoAir Xtherm, but it’s a lot lighter than the outdoorsman lab sleeping pad.
It’s light enough so that it’s still a solid options for hikers, but it’s definitely on the heavier side if you try to keep your backpack lightweight.
It’s also a very durable sleeping pad, even more so than the NeoAir Xtherm.
What’s probably even more important is that this sleeping pad is very comfortable! In fact, this is one of the most comfortable lightweight sleeping pads at this time.
It’s not the cheapest and not the lightest winter sleeping pad, but it has almost no other real downsides and it’s simply great overall.
In case you are interested, here’s a link to amazon: Exped Synmat XP 9.
Exped SynMat HL Sleeping Pad
R-value: 3.3 | Price: $$$ | Weight: 0.77lb
The Synmat HL is perfect for those of you who want to as light as possible. Weighing only 0.77lb this pad is truly ultralight, especially when you would consider this a winter sleeping pad.
However, it has the lowest R-Value on the list. Which may or may not be a problem depending on how cold you expect those winter nights to be and how cold of a sleeper you are.
I think it’s officially a 3-season sleeping pad, but it has been tested on snow by many hikers who still remained warm during the night.
If you feel comfortable with this R-Value and you want to stay as light as possible, the Synmat HL is a no-brainer in my opinion.
Even though it’s an expensive sleeping pad, it won’t cost you as much as the NeoAir Xtherm and it still scores pretty decent when it comes to comfort (especially when considering how ultralight this pad is).
It’s pretty straightforward, this pad is for the ultralight hikers out there.
Link to amazon: Exped SynMat HL Sleeping Pad
What's important in a sleeping pad for winter
Warmth
This is an obvious one I guess…
Warmth is linked to the R-Value of a sleeping pad. Explaining in detail what the R-value is, is outside of the scope of this article, but you can read about it here.
One thing that I would like to note is that the R-Value is always a claimed value. It’s not necesarily always 100% true and accurate. Therefore I would always recommend to read reviews and don’t immediately push your sleeping pads to the warmth limit on your first night out. It’s always best to ease into the limit temperatures and see if your sleeping pad lives up to the expectations.
Weight
So weight is probably a lot more important for the alpinist or the long distance hiker than for people who are “just” going camping and don’t need to carry it for a long distance.
Lightweight gear always comes with certain disadvantages, the first one being that it’s usually a lot more expensive. It’s also often less comfortable, less warm, etc… However, for some of us, it’s worth it to make these sacrifices.
Comfort
Another obvious one would be comfort. Once again, much more important for certain people than for others. If you want to go ultralight you can’t always be very picky about comfort.
Conclusion
I think the quick recommendations section pretty much sums up the entire article. You should be able to find the best winter sleeping pad for your needs.
If you haven’t found it, feel free to specify your needs in the comments section below and I will try to help you.
If you are wondering why you should trust me with all this advice. Well, I’m no expert and I have by no means tested all the sleeping pads in the world.
However, I’m an enthusiastic hiker with many years of experience and I get obsessed with finding the best products before I bring them on a hiking trip.
This results in hours and hours of hiking and research. It would be a shame to not simply summarize my findings.
Also, I do have some experience with cold nights and sleeping pads…
