The second one has been just as daunting , or draining. Trying to find a light weight pillow that will actually allow me to get a goods night rest. If you’ve seen me in church on a few past Sunday mornings, you’ll now realize those were aftermaths of failed attempts. I even took the sleeping outside equation out of the mix after a few failed attempts. With hubby gone for a month, sleeping on my air pad downstairs with the dogs was a good place to practice.
Attempt 1 was a highly recommended air pillow, that had no intention of staying under my head with all the poly and nylon. Along with side sleeping on it, made it feel like the earplugs were being driven into my brain. Attempt 2 was a different air pillow with hollows that looked like it would keep the ear free and clear of the pressure. I quickly ended that trial and slept in the bed that night. Next was making a pillow case to enclose the 2 air pillows together while I waited for a third purchase of a compressible pillow to arrive. Again the air pillows were counterproductive in sleeping. I found I was bringing a memory foam pillow into the tent as failure back up.
I tried the compressible pillow, but again found it lacking any kind of support if I turned on my side. So memory foam and air pillow went into the pillow case and with the air pillow half filled, I found a nice solution. Only problem was it was close to 1.5 pounds. You really have to think hard about carrying that much weight in a pillow for 2200 miles. If you read forums, hikers will tell you to ball up your clothes, your puffy jacket, and even stuff sacks to make a pillow—— if you are thru hiking you have one set of hiking clothes, one set of sleep clothes (base layer if needed) and rain gear. Do you really want your sweaty, smelly, haven’t been washed in a few days, possibly wet clothes, right at your nose?? So the hunt was still on for a lighter weight pillow. A Facebook hiking page suggested a blow up that had memory foam on top of it all in one. Cool. Amazon 2 day is amazing. Only thing - it might have 1/4” of memory foam. That’s when I came across Backcountry Banters YouTube videos. He makes a lot of his own gear to go light. In one of them he was making a poly filled pillow and it was in the 1-3 ounce range. Only thing was it was the size of a sheet of paper. Literally, that was his pattern. I knew I would need more and sleeping on nylon won’t cut it with contact dermatitis after chemo. I made a nylon with flannel top pillow. Stuffed it with left over poly fill and it came in at 6 ounces and is legal pad size. Ribbon ties to bind the air pillow in under it and I now have a 9.85 ounce pillow that actually lets me sleep.
If I blow it up tight it is great for reading, then reach under and release a little air and I have a cushioned soft pillow.
Did you ever think you would be reading about finding a pillow for thru hiking? Me either. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Thanks for stopping by. 
No comments:
Post a Comment