Staying warm is easy … staying warm while carrying as little as possible isn’t quite so simple!
The Thermartex blanket is a new product that will hopefully help in the endless quest for warmth without weight or bulk. The first thing to remember is that the blanket is designed for sleeping under, one thing it’s not is a glorified space or emergency blanket … okay?
The blanket’s made from rip-stop nylon, one side is plain and the other side is coated (the silver side) … the manufactures say the coating can reflect up to 65% of body heat lost through radiation and can reduce your total heat loss by as much as 40%. Both sides of the blanket feel soft, it’s not stiff or crinkly like a foil blanket, so should happily drape over you rather than sticking out a weird angles and poking you in the eye!
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| Just in case you missed the important bit. |
At 1.5m x 2m it offers plenty of coverage even for the bigger boned amongst us and certainly won’t weigh you down at 125g. There’s no concerns about pack size either … it’ll easily fit in your pocket.
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| Silver side up = more warmth. |
If it does everything promised, then it opens up a few options for us weight obsessed folk. Obviously it might allow the use of a lighter sleeping bag than would usually be suitable for the conditions … maybe even no sleeping bag in summer. It might also take the place of a ‘sleeping bag cover’ when you’re under a tarp. I say sleeping bag cover rather than bivvy bag because the blanket isn’t waterproof but the fact it’s made from nylon means that it’s water resistant to some degree, much like many ultralight bivvy bags. It’s also very breathable so hopefully there’ll be no condensation issues.
I’ll report back after initial testing … wish me luck, it’s frosty out.
This looks very interesting for anything from sleeping indoors on floors to open shelter such as tarps or barns. Would you be able to provide an update from your initial testing on how you used it and where you found it most useful? Thanks.
Hello Martin. An update is on the to do list, it's taken a while for 2 reasons. Firstly, I felt it needed a good few nights out to get a real feel for it and secndly, it's a very difficult thing to test and draw any meaningful conclusions, even conducting semi-scientific tests under controlled conditions results in an awful lot of speculation and 'feeling' … hopefully we're somewhere close.