Gear Review: Exped Dura 3R

Whilst backpacking is the reason I bought this sleeping mat, sleeping well is also the reason I got this one bag. I’m an avid hiker, not really a backpacker but I like to camp and have camped multiple times around the area I live in.

Exped Dura 3R is one out of several sleeping mats they have to offer. Among others you’ll find Dura 3R, 5R as well as 8R, more of this can be found on the table bellow.

I’ve had the sleeping mats for over 1.5 years and unfortunately only around 20 days sleeping on the mats in Germany and France. Out in the campground, bivouacking or just visiting friends. Out of these days, I’ve only had 3 days not so great sleeps not because of the mat, but because of the weather. I am a really light sleeper so I’m woken up so easily if there’s a sudden sound. The only way to minimise getting waken up is to wear ear plugs and they’ve been a great help for me. So when sleeping on the mat, I’d always wear them.

Upon delivery, you’ll receive basically the mat, a schnozzel pumpbag as well as some patching kit as well as the compression sack

The mat has 2 valves, one to for pumping air in and one to let the air out. I mostly use the pumpbag to inflate the mattress, due to less condensation (of course it depends on the air) than using mouth.

The pumpbag is particularly very helpful also for other stuff as it can act as a quick drybag if condensation inside the tent is out of ordinary.

My experience

I was camping in Ardeche, France kayaking with my university kayak group. It was a chill camp on a campground. The lot we rented was quite limited in size. Unfortunately for me, I got fairly unlucky with my tent placement. I couldn’t pitch my tent as I wanted to, thus leading to poor air circulation inside the tent. Now the story begins, at some point it rained quite heavily at night. As I realised the rain was too much, I had to act. I had to move everything from my tent somewhere else. It was so bad, even our communal tent was so flooded. It was also not a great day as well as I got sick from exhaustion. I luckily had 2 friends who were willing to help me and other friends to shelter in their big a** tent. It was surreal big. Basically a palace. I joked at how big their place when I arrived was but never realised I’d end up in their tent to shelter from the big rain. So after moving into their palace I felt so much better and finally could rest. What about my stuff? how did I move them? To transport everything during the rain, I had to think, just because I had my camera, wallet, etc. And I remembered that I had the schnozzel pumpbag next to me. I then realize, if it can contain air without the air getting released it means it’s air tight and air tight is mostly water tight so then I put everything inside. Everything stayed dried. so that was great. End of the story.

As I said, even though ear plugs are great, one major problem with ear plugs is that it doesn’t reduce noise through vibration / structure borne noise. When you move around during sleep this causes some movement on your mat, this will likely cause noise as it rubs against the floor. Thankfully my Dura 3R doesn’t cause any significant noise that I fill annoyed.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

1. Fairly quiet
2. Holds pretty well in cold (I tested in area around 5-12c as well as 15c++)
3. Not the heaviest
4. Good price when I got it
5. Comfortable (very subjective)
6. Climate Neutral
7. Delivered with some patching kit

Cons:

1. Not the lightest
2. Additional width might matter for larger people, I definitely recommend Dura 3R MW instead of Dura 3R M

As hiker/nature people, we value the environment and I strongly support reducing carbon emission from any products as much as we can. Even though it will (can) never be perfect but this is a step we must take. I admit I’m also very inconsistent but I’m trying my best.

Exped Sleeping Mats - Product Specifications

source: exped.com

Summary Statistics

• Total Products: 17
• R-Value Range: 1.3 - 7.8
• Temperature Range: -40°C to 10°C
• Series: Ultra (8 products), Dura (5 products), Versa (4 products)