Exped

The quilt version of Exped's Ultra bag: 850-fill RDS Muscovy down, a recycled 10-denier shell, 18.5 ounces in the middle size, and — unlike the bag — no ISO figures at all, just a 32 °F number of Exped's own. That is worth knowing, because the hooded bag it shares a shell with tests to a 43 °F comfort rating, and a quilt is if anything harder to stay warm in. A 58-inch wrap width is generous by quilt standards and the three lengths cover most people.

Best for: Summer quilt use where a wide wrap matters more than a lab number

The widest honesty gap in this catalogue, and the reason the gap is worth measuring at all: this bag is sold as a 30 and its published ISO comfort figure is 43 °F. Thirteen degrees. Exped is not hiding it — they print comfort, limit and extreme side by side on the product page, which is more than most brands do — but a buyer reading the name and not the table will be cold on a 35-degree night. Taken on its real numbers it is a very good summer bag: 22.5 ounces, 850-fill RDS down, a 10-denier recycled shell and a shoulder girth of 58 inches with a wide option at 64.

Best for: Summer backpacking, once you read the comfort figure rather than the name

Exped's winter flagship insulates with actual down inside the air chambers, which is why it reaches R 8.8 — the highest figure in this catalogue — at twenty ounces. Exped quotes it as good to about -49 °F, which is a number for expeditions rather than for anyone's weekend. Down inside a pad has one obvious vulnerability: moisture from breath-inflation will eventually kill it, which is exactly why the Schnozzel pump bag is in the box and why using it is not optional on this model.

Best for: Expedition and deep-winter camping

The MegaMat is the reference car-camping mattress, and the reason is its foam: vertically laminated rather than a simple slab, so four inches of loft stays supportive under a hip instead of compressing to nothing. R-value 8.1 is warmer than any air pad here except Exped's own 8R, and Exped rates it to about -40 °F. It weighs four and a half pounds and rolls to the size of a sleeping bag, and once inflated it gets made up with a fitted sheet and forgotten about.

Best for: Car camping, van sleeping and cold basecamps

The oddity in this catalogue: an R 6.9 pad that weighs half an ounce less than the R 3.2 pad from the same brand. Exped's naming is confusing — the model is called 6.5R and tests at 6.9 — but the numbers are real and they make this the best warmth-per-ounce pad here, at 0.45 R per ounce. Three and a half inches thick, silent batting insulation, and again the same price in every width. If you were going to buy one insulated pad and use it from May to October and occasionally in snow, this is the strongest argument in the catalogue.

Best for: One pad for everything, including the occasional night on snow

Exped insulates with actual synthetic batting welded inside the air chambers rather than with reflective film, which is why their pads are silent and why they feel warm to the touch the moment you lie down instead of after ten minutes. The Ultra 3R is the three-season member: R-value 3.2, three inches thick, 16 ounces, and — unusually — the same price in every size, so a wide version costs nothing extra. The Schnozzel pump bag that comes with it doubles as a dry bag.

Best for: Three-season backpacking where pad noise is a dealbreaker