If you can afford the steep price tag, an inflatable sleeping pad鈥like the Therm-a-Rest here鈥攚ill reward you with the best night鈥檚 sleep听in the backcountry. But closed-cell foam pads have their perks too: they鈥檙e lightweight,听cheap, and impossible to听pop or deflate.
As a broke college student in 2010 trying to assemble my own backpacking kit, I purchased as my first pad听the well-reviewed closed-cell听. Its simple design and budget price still make it one of the most popular pads on the market. Because Therm-a-Rest did such a good job, and because closed-cell foam is a difficult material to work with, no other company has tried to mimic the design in nearly two decades. Until now.听
NEMO鈥檚 new Switchback pad,听which is the brand鈥檚 first foray into closed-cell foam pads,听looks awfully similar to the Z Lite. It, too, features an accordion听folding design and a layer of听metallic听film on the bottom to reflect听warmth back to the sleeper. But the difference is big.
The Switchback costs and weighs as much听as the Z Lite but is 30 percent thicker. To achieve this, NEMO developed two new foams鈥攐ne that鈥檚 high-density听for durability and support, and a low-density one for plushness. Together, they create听the ideal blend of support and comfort. But two pieces of flat foam merely glued together would be stiff and uncomfortable, so NEMO engineers researched different designs for the nodes, the small raised foam spikes that boost the sleeper off the ground. Drawing inspiration from the structure of packaging materials like cardboard, the team landed on hexagons听with high ridges that prevent the nodes from being completely crushed flat.
All of this translates听into the thickest, warmest, most comfortable closed cell-foam pad ever made. Don鈥檛 believe us? Find one at your local REI this fall and lie听on it. You鈥檒l feel the difference immediately. And $50 is a small price to pay.
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