My cheap foam sleeping pad popped on a cold night in the White Mountains
I bought a basic foam pad for $25 last year, thinking it would be fine for a few weekend trips. On a hike near Mount Washington, the temperature dropped to 28 degrees overnight. I woke up freezing because the pad had lost all its insulation where I was lying. Turns out the thin foam just couldn't handle the cold ground, even with my sleeping bag. Has anyone else had a pad fail like that in the cold? What do you use for a reliable backup?
Honestly, that's just the foam getting brittle. Cold makes it crack, not just lose loft. You need something with actual air inside to block the ground chill.