No Longer Made: The NEMO Tensor Insulated Mummy Sleeping Pad was 48 inches long and weighed 10.1 ounces.

Switching to a shorter length sleeping pad is a good way to reduce the weight of your ultralight backpacking gear, since your legs don’t need as much insulation as your core in three-season conditions. For example, if you have a short torso-length pad 36-48″ in length, you can usually rest your feet and legs on top of your backpack and spare clothing at night and stay perfectly warm.

How much weight can you save by switching to a shorter pad? Let’s say you have a 6′ long inflatable pad that weighs 14 ounces, and you replace it with one that’s 4′ long and weighs 10 ounces. Four ounces is a pretty significant weight reduction with very little loss of comfort.

Using a shorter sleeping pad also provides another important benefit: reduced volume. This is an important consideration if you’re trying to switch to a lower-volume or frameless ultralight backpack.

Here’s a list of short sleeping pads to give you an idea of the savings you can get by buying a shorter foam pad or an inflatable one.

DIY Sleeping Pad Shortening

If you’re willing to gamble on modifying an air-inflatable pad you already own, there are videos online that explain how to shorten it using a pair of scissors and an iron. Here are a couple of good ones that I recommend, although they’re a little dated now.

• How to Cut and Reseal a Klymit Static V Ultralight Sleeping Pad by John Abela
• Trimming a NeoAir Xlite by Neemor
• How to Cut and Reseal an Original NeoAir by Steve Evans of Suluk46 (a classic)
• How to Shorten a Full Length Self-Inflatable Mattress by Erlo Brown

In addition, don’t overlook the option of switching to a cut-down closed-cell foam pad, like the accordion-style folding Therm-a-Rest Zlite favored by many long-distance hikers because it’s so durable. Each section of a Thermarest Zlite Sol weighs 1.1 oz, so cutting one down can quickly save you a bunch of weight without costing much.

See Also:

• Sleeping Pad R-Values
• Can You Use a High R-Value Sleeping Pad in Summer?

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