Blowing up air matresses

How can one blow up a air matress like a neo without introducing water vapor and it super light. I tried a plastic bag which works but is a fiddle.

Thermarest says the water vapor isn't an issue, since there's no insulation to wet out, and the internal structures are (allegedly) resistant to mold, etc. I believe they do recommend storing it flat with the valve open, to let it air out a bit.

A salesperson at the local outfitter did find something called an Instaflator (http://www.themillair.com/); it was dirt cheap, so I ordered a few.

It's a neat concept: a 6 or 8 foot long tube with a valve on the end (you use a clear poly tube section to adapt it to lock onto the NeoAir valve securely.) You then blow into the open end of the tube, gently, to get it to open up. You then roll it toward the valve, and the long tube holds enough air that one tube of air inflates the 66" NeoAir enough for sleeping (if you prefer a fairly firm inflation, you might need another half a tube of air.)

It only weighs an ounce or so, but the material is that really thin film-like plastic. The first time I used it, I had a rough fingernail that snagged it and left a few pinholes in it, so I can only imagine what deploying across a typical forest campsite might do. The pinholes didn't affect it's performance, but over the course of a week, I could see pinholes becoming large tears as they snagged on twigs, pine cones, etc.

I'm not sure, in 80% summer humidity where I usually camp, that using a pump instead of my mouth really prevents mositure from getting into the pad. Another disadvantage is that it's 6 or 8 feet long, so if it's raining, you'll have to be out in the rain to fill the pad - no way to sit inside the tent and inflate it.

By the way, the NeoAir all season comes with a nylon pump-style stuff sack that works on the same principle. The problem is that there's no backflow preventer on the valve, so when you get the pad about half full, the air flows back out while you reinflate the pump, and you never make any more headway. (I don't know if MSR sells the sack separately, but you could always tell them you lost yours and would like to replace it.)

I've pretty much resigned myself to blowing mine up myself.

Couple of my friends have large bags to blow up their fishing tubes with and they seem to work well. But you still have to finish it off a bit with lung air. I store mine with the valves open and I still have a couple of thermarest pads from late 60's or early 70's that work fine and have no strange odors emanating from inside. These I just blow up myself.

Auto painters connect a small plastic cylinder filled with a tiny roll of paper to their air hose to keep moisture out of the air supply to their paint gun. You can buy them at auto paint suppliers. That would probably work pretty good.

Great tips. I suppose I just do not want to carry the weight of mosture in my pad!

Instaflator
Big Agnes Pumphouse (IMHO a failure as a dry bag or pillow)
Plastic garbage bag with small section of lower corner cut out, plus rubber band
Exped pillow pump--I'm told this is the best pump but have no personal experience

You might have to rig up an adaptor for some of these with your own air pad.

For the BA Pumphouse or the plastic garbage bag, it takes some practice to shake the bag open to fill it with air and then roll it up. It took at least half a dozen times for me to get the hang of doing it efficiently. Either still beats huffing and puffing, especially at high altitude when you're not yet acclimatized. I now use the plastic garbage bag, which I take along to keep my dog's pack dry, because I usually have to keep it outside the tent. I just close up the cut corner with the rubber band.

camptek microburst. It takes about 3 minutes to inflate the neo large.
air nozzle fits the neo with no adapter. Weights 2.3 oz .

http://www.camp-tek.com/

Depends on what is meant by best, of course. It does work well. Takes about 25 pumps to fill my small Neoair. It's sort of like doing CPR. Place your hand over the hole and press down. Lift up to allow the foam to self-fill again and repeat. Main downside is it's heavy - 5.5 oz for the one I have. But it's a comfy pillow, too. I didn't take it last time to save weight. Just used lung power, but I may give using my trash bag a try.

I forgot the CampTek Microburst! Of course it requires batteries....

Not trying to talk you out of your preference, but FWIW I too have been quite happy blowing mine up with lung power. I've spent quite a number of nights on different air mattresses in differing conditions, and don't feel that water vapor in the inflatable is any significant issue.

One kind of odd "benefit" (?) to blowing up a decent sized inflatable is that I find it to be somewhat of an objective read on how tired I am, or at least relative to current elevation and my adaptation to same. I.e., the nights when I feel a bit light headed or even faint when blowing it up are pretty much one-to-one those times that I've really pushed myself during the day.

That's true! On the other hand, those who have gone to down-filled mats have to use a pump or they'll collapse their insulation!

Words of wisdom from a recent winner of the Triple Crown award! Brian, you've probably spent more nights on your pad than many of the rest of us will in a lifetime!

Brian, I remember looking at your gear list before you started the CDT, but at this point can't find it and don't remember what pad you used! Did you use the same pad for the PCT and AT?

On the PCT I started with a thermarest prolite 3 combined with a 3/8" ccf pad underneath to keep pokey things from causing unhappiness. I had ordered the Montbell pad system and switched to that along the way --- U.L. pad 90 inflatable combined with their (inflatable) pillow that toggles to it.

Switched to a size regular original type Neo-Air for trips after that, combined at different times with 1/8" and at times 1/4" gossamer gear thinlight ccf pads.

The evolution of pads continues. My prolite 3 was a 'short' at 47" long and weighed 13.6 oz in a light carry sack. Size regular neo-air weighs 15.1 oz (in the same carry sack), but is 72" long and much thicker.

It does require considerably more air to inflate!

Once in a while I miss being able to toggle the pillow to the montbell inflatable pad, but not enough to step back from the neo-air benefits.

Just to tempt you: have you considered switching to the 66" NeoAir All-Season? It weighs a couple of ounces more than the 72" original, but I find that 66" is effectively full length for 5'10" me, since my head isn't on the pad. Also, it's plenty warm (at 20 degrees, I still felt heat radiating back up to me), so you could arguably do without the CCF backup pad, which would offset the extra weight.

Your eyes are starting to glaze over, and you're starting to salivate, aren't you?

I have an instaflator. Mostly I just blow up the neoair. Nothing inside it to get damaged by moist breath. Since I don't blow it up till it's completely full (more comfortable 1/2 - 2/3 full) this doesn't take much effort. But, I have the medium, not the large.

Interesting; I'm about 5'10" too, but find that with the 66" neo-air the heels of my feet hang off the end. Or I need a really beefy pillow setup to have my head hang over the other end. That's one place where the thickness of the neo-air sort of works against me, as with thinner pads I don't consider having the pillow on top of the pad.

My wife is slightly shorter than I, so we got the 66" version for her, but of course I did try it out. I can live with it, but prefer the 72" version. I expect that I could be fine with the torso length version too, just don't fully inflate or use backpack to avoid the "steep drop-off at the end" problem. I've not tried this, but am inclined at this point to stick with the size regular --- I'm not an ultralight backpacker.

At an ambient 20F outside, I definitely prefer a thin ccf pad on top of the neo-air, and possibly one below it as well. It's so tough doing an apples-to-apples comparison on this, however; it's not just variations in individual metabolism, but I suspect humidity, what it is that you're sleeping on (at an ambient 20F that could be snow, or dirt, or duff, or rock ...) and perhaps other factors.

Hmm.. Black Powder (if you compress it inside the wrapped up air mattress).. maybe 3 or four M80's... C4 if you can get it...

Should get Blowed up Real Good

Soooo...they also make a 72" All-season...

The neo-air story is getting a bit confusing; I only have experience with the initial/standard yellow neo-air. Now there's the trekker and the all season models.

In size "regular" (72" x 20"), the standard weighs 14 oz with a listed R-value of 2.5, the trekker weighs 20 oz with R-value listed at 2.0, and the all season weighs 19 oz with R-value listed at 4.9.

So the Trekker is meant to be more durable, but dispenses with the reflecting layer so actually has a lower R-value than the lighter standard model. The all season beefs up the R-value, but again, is heavier (by 5 oz in size regular).

To make things even more confusing, now the XLite is coming out, yet another neoair model. 12 oz in size regular, and R-value increased to 3.2. Looking at the manufacturer's website, I get the sense that the original model will no longer be made (?). Not sure.

In any event, the difference in size regular between the coming XLite model and the All Season is a whopping 7 oz. A 1/8" thinlight ccf pad, in contrast, weighs 2.2 oz, and would add a bit to the 3.2 R-value of the XLite.

Guess which I would rather carry? Of course on summer trips a person could dispense with the thinlight pad as well.

Due to thread drift, I'm moving my comments to the new NeoAir thread.

I really like the Big Agnes "Pumpsack". 1.6 oz and works well with most types of valves, including NeoAir.