Therm-a-Rest Z Lite (short) Sleeping Pad Review

We both used Therm-a-Rest Z Lite sleeping pads on our Pacific Crest Trail thruhike in 2018.

Specs:

Weight: 10 oz
Width: 20 in
Length: 50 in
Packed size: 20 in x 4 in x 5.5 in
R-value: 2.6
Made in USA
Price: $34.95 but often on sale for less

Pros:

Light
Easy: no inflating
Durable
Inexpensive
Multi-purpose (doubles as sit-pad)

Cons:

Bulky
Water can soak through

Background

A sleeping-pad is a virtually essential item for a hiker. It provides some comfort, but more importantly it provides warmth by insulating you from the ground. Given the importance of sleeping pads, it is no surprise that there are a multitude to choose from. When selecting a sleeping pad, hikers often consider weight, comfort, durability, and packability as deciding factors. Manufacturers achieve a balance of these factors by offering products that range from simple roll-up foam sheets to complex inflatable webbed structures. The Therm-a-rest Z Lite falls on the simpler end of the spectrum. It folds and unfolds like an accordion, and instead of being inflatable is utilizes a simple closed-cell foam construction. For our needs, the Z Lite was a perfect match. I (Tim) often exclaimed that it was my favorite piece of gear on the trail.

Convenience

Z Lite sleeping pads are extremely easy to use: you just unfold them and they’re ready to go. After a long day of hiking, this simplicity is worth a lot. Many fellow hikers dreaded blowing up their sleeping pads each night and deflating them in the morning. We never had to give this part of the day a second thought since folding/unfolding a Z Lite takes no more than one second.

Just unfold and the Z Lite is ready to use.

Portability

Z Lite pads are light. There are lighter sleeping pads out there, but there are many heavier pads too. Renee and I both saved some weight by getting short pads that didn’t go all the way down to our feet. I have no regrets about this decision — we have used long Z Lites as well, and the sacrifice is negligible.

However, I was frequently a bit frustrated with my Z Lite for its bulkiness. Although it is light, it isn’t very small, so there are few places to put it except for strapped to the outside of your pack. This really was more of an aesthetic distaste than a practical one, and I learned to live with it. Excluding a few windy days in the desert when I had to deal with the Z Lite flapping around, and a few rainy days in Washington when I had to wrap it in a garbage bag to keep it dry, having it on the outside of my pack worked well. In fact, since the Z Lite doubles as a sitting pad, it was convenient to have it always available on the outside of my backpack.

The Z Lite was always easily accessible at the top of my pack.

I had to get used to the aesthetics of the extra bulk, but it fit here fine and the location was convenient.

We had to wrap our Z Lites in garbage bags to keep them dry in Washington.

Sometimes on windy days or during pickup-truck hitches into town our pads flopped around a bit.

Additional Application: Sitting Pad

I was surprised to realize how many ultra-light hikers carry sitting pads. The fact is, when you spend lots of time sitting on the ground an additional layer of protection from moisture, dirt, rocks, and cold is a great thing. Hikers that used inflatable sleeping pads couldn’t apply these as their daytime sitting pads, but with our Z Lites doing so was a non-issue. We’d often sit on them folded in half for extra softness.

Warmth

On cool and cold desert and Sierra nights, our Z Lites insulated us from the ground perfectly. On previous trips where we used inflatables, we have experienced punctures that cause total failure of these inflatable pads and their insulating properties. This happened to us on a winter camping trip in Northern Wisconsin with 0 degree Fahrenheit lows (-18 C), and it was quite dangerous. Ever since, we have relied on Z Lites for warmth since they insulate well and do not fail. Over the course of the PCT our Z Lites compressed considerably, but even during cold Washington nights toward the end of the trip they kept us tolerably warm. That being said, Z Lites are not waterproof. If there is considerable water leakage into a tent, a Z Lite can soak the water up like a sponge and transfer it to your sleeping bag. We avoided this by being extremely careful to keep water out of our tent when it got rainy in Washington. But, on a future trip we have discussed that we might carry an additional inflatable sleeping pad to use on top of the Z Lite if there is supposed to be heavy rain.

Comfort

Comfort is a deal-breaker for many would-be users of the Z Lite, but both Renee and me find them quite comfortable. They are akin to sleeping on a very firm mattress. They make the ground soft, but not compressible. Admittedly, Renee and I sleep on a Korean floor mattress at home (2.5″ of padding placed directly on the floor), so we may be biased toward firm mattresses in general. Still, we are both side-sleepers more often than not, so the frequently repeated claim that Z Lites aren’t good for side sleepers do not hold true for us. I suspect that a few nights of use might be all it takes to acclimate to the firmness of the Z Lite. Additionally, Z Lites are completely silent. Most inflatable sleeping pads make a lot of noise while users toss and turn during the night, so light sleepers should be aware of this.

Durability

This is the best part of the Z Lite. It doesn’t break. It can’t break. Several PCT hikers with inflatable pads had to deal with punctures like any other chore: filter water, brush your teeth, patch your punctures. Even the best inflatable pad in the world becomes completely useless when punctured. Since it is impossible for the Z Lite to puncture, re-inflating, hole patching and pad-less sleeping were not a part of our PCT experience. However, after 142 nights of use on the PCT, the pads have collapsed considerably and are probably ready to be replaced. With a list price of $34.95 and frequent sales, we are OK with that.