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Feature: February 2007 ToughSkin Pad by Therm-A-Rest |
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If you do much traveling
abroad or into the wilderness, you’re likely to be faced with
water supplies that aren’t safe to drink. Picking up a “bug” from
contaminated water can be an unpleasant if not completely debilitating
experience. Iodine treatments for water take time and aren’t
effective against Cryptosporidium. Boiling also takes time and burns
up a lot of fuel. Water purification filters may not be effective
in removing the small viruses. Ultraviolet light is a high-tech approach
to safe drinking water and is often used in municipal water-treatment
facilities. The SteriPEN is a portable UV microbiological water treatment
system. In use, it looks like a swizzle stick on steroids. The business
end is a clear tube that emits a bright germicidal UV light when
immersed in water. Treating a liter of water takes only 90 seconds. |
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 Cascade
Designs patented the self-inflating mattress
idea in the 1970s, and lots of campers gladly traded
in their closed-cell foam pads for the greater comfort
of a Therm-A-Rest pad. The downside is that the Therm-A-Rest pad,
like any air mattress, is vulnerable to punctures. A pinhole leak
will leave the sleeper on the cold hard ground. The ToughSkin pad
from Therm-A-Rest adds a bit of closed-cell foam inside a Therm-A-Rest
pad to provide a measure of puncture resistance. The fabric on
the bottom of the pad is fused to a sheet of -inch closed-cell
foam, which is in turn fused to the usual layer of open-cell foam.
If a thorn, sharp twig or rock shard punctures the bottom fabric
but doesn’t
completely penetrate the closed cell foam, the airtight integrity
of the pad won’t be compromised.We tested the pad by pushing a safety pin at a shallow angle through the fabric, into the foam and back out the fabric again. After making several holes this way, we submerged the inflated pad, checked for leaks and holes, and squeezed the pad. There were no bubbles coming from the holes even when we squeezed the pad hard to create some pressure. We also set the pad on the floor, piled some weights on top of it and left it there. After two days, the pad was still fully inflated. If you do happen to get a puncture through the foam and the pad leaks, at least you’ll have the closed-cell foam to provide some measure of insulation, perhaps enough to get you through the night. Repairs to the ToughSkin pad are the same as they are with other Therm-A-Rest pads, using the repair kit available separately from the manufacturer. The addition of the closed-cell foam adds only a bit more bulk. In the small size, the pad rolls up to a diameter of 4 _ inches—an inch more than the standard pad of the same length. |
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| ToughSkin Pad: Small (51 inches/130 cm, reviewed
here) $99.95; Large (72 inches/183 cm) $199.95 Therm-A-Rest 800-531-9531 or 206-505-9500 consumer@cascadedesigns.com www.thermarest.com |
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