5 Reasons A 1.3-Ounce Piece Of Foam Is The Most-Used Thing In My Pack
Twenty-seven years guiding and I never once carried one. Then a client half my age showed me why I was going home cold and stiff after every break — and it had nothing to do with my jacket.
Here's something I got wrong for most of my career, and I taught it wrong to other people too.
When a man gets cold sitting down outside, everybody looks at his coat. Better jacket, warmer layers, another shell. And none of that touches the actual problem, because the heat isn't leaving through his coat.
It's leaving through his backside, straight into whatever he sat on.
That's conduction. Direct contact with a colder mass. And it is dramatically faster than losing heat to the air around you — a cold rock, a wet log, a steel tailgate, a concrete step. Those things are enormous heat sinks and you are a small warm thing sitting on top of one.
Sit on a wet log for fifteen minutes in November and you don't just get a damp backside. You give away a real portion of the heat your body spent all morning making, and you spend the next hour getting it back.
I knew all of this in theory. I still sat on cold rocks for twenty-seven years, because the alternative I pictured was carrying a cushion, and I wasn't going to carry a cushion.
Then a client on a fall trip pulled a folded green thing out of his pack, snapped it open, sat down, and ate his lunch. It weighed nothing. It was the size of a paperback. When we got up, he was dry and I wasn't.
I've carried one every trip since. Here's why.
The Bumps Aren't Styling. They're The Whole Mechanism.
Look at the photo, and look at the shadows under the bumps.
That grid of raised dimples means the flat part of the pad never actually touches the ground. It rides on the tips of a few hundred little feet, and between every one of them is a pocket of trapped air.
Still air is one of the worst heat conductors there is. That's the entire principle behind a double-pane window, a down jacket, and a sleeping pad. You're not blocking the cold with material — you're putting a layer of motionless air between yourself and the thing trying to pull heat out of you.
Which is why a thin foam pad with bumps outperforms a thicker flat cushion at this one job. The flat one is in full contact. This one is barely touching.
The foam itself is closed-cell XPE, meaning the bubbles inside are sealed. Water can't soak into it, which matters because wet insulation isn't insulation — the same reason a soaked jacket stops working.
"After sitting on it about thirty seconds you can actually feel it heat up with your own body heat. It's not only waterproof but thermal too."
1.3 Ounces. Which Is Why It's Actually With You.
An ounce and a third. Folded, it's the footprint of a paperback and about two inches thick.
I'm making a point of the weight because it's the only reason this thing gets used. I own a proper camp chair. I own a thick foam cushion. Both of them live in the garage, because carrying either one is a decision, and a decision you make at the truck is a decision you usually make wrong.
This isn't a decision. It goes in the pack in October and it's still there in April. It rides under the compression straps, or flat against the back panel, or shoved in a side pocket.
Owners say the same thing in different words. One thru-hiker carried it fifty miles and reported people kept asking to borrow it. Another straps it to the outside of the pack — his reasoning was that it keeps the sand off everything else, which is a better idea than mine.
The one honest limit: it doesn't compress. It's foam. It folds flat but it doesn't squash down like fabric, so it takes up a fixed footprint in a small pack. That's the trade for it weighing nothing.
Currently 50% Off — Before The Cold Sets In
120-day money back guarantee. Free shipping on 2 or more.
Check Availability →Sit On Anything Wet. Get Up Dry.
Half the reason a man stays standing on a break is that everything available to sit on is wet.
Wet log. Wet rock. Dew on the grass at seven in the morning. Snow. A tailgate with meltwater on it. So you stand and eat your sandwich leaning against a tree, and you don't actually rest.
Closed-cell foam doesn't absorb. Water beads on it and runs off the edge, and the dimples give it somewhere to go so you're not sitting in a puddle held against the surface.
And the practical part: you wipe it off and it's done. A damp cloth or just a shake. It doesn't need to dry out before it goes back in the pack, which is exactly what a fabric cushion needs and never gets.
Owners use it on wet sand at the beach, on soaked benches, on snow, in a sauna and a steam room, and one fellow keeps his for changing out of fishing waders in a muddy parking lot.
Your Knees Get More Use Out Of It Than Your Backside
This surprised me and it's now the thing I use it for most.
Past sixty, kneeling on gravel isn't a minor inconvenience. It's a thing you avoid, and avoiding it means you do jobs standing and bent over that you should be doing kneeling — which your back then charges you for.
Changing a tire. Working under a hood. Setting a trap line. Planting. Cleaning fish on a dock. Digging something out from under the truck seat.
Throw the pad down and kneel on it. Sharp gravel stops being sharp, cold concrete stops pulling heat out of your knee joints, and you can stay down there for the length of the job instead of standing up every ninety seconds.
Owners mention exactly this: kneeling for survey work on a beach, gardening, kneeling at a cemetery, changing in and out of waders and snowboard boots. One woman said simply that it's good for her knees, which is the whole review right there.
It Ends Up In Places You Didn't Buy It For
I bought mine for the backcountry. Here's where it's actually been since.
The tailgate at the end of a long day. The concrete step outside the shop when I'm having coffee and don't want to go inside. Metal bleachers at a ball game in October. A folding chair with no padding left in it. Under a wet pack as a dry place to set gear down. Under my knees at the woodpile.
The reviews read the same way — a jack of many trades, one fellow called it. People use it as extra back padding against a pack frame, as a dry spot to set things on, on a plane seat, on a stadium seat, waiting in line, and one man's dog claimed his.
It's two dollars of foam doing about nine jobs, and the reason it does nine is that it's always there. Gear you have to remember to bring gets used once. Gear that lives in the pack gets used constantly.
Open: 15.75" × 12". Folded: about the size of a paperback. That is one seat — enough for one adult to sit or kneel on. It is not a blanket, not a picnic mat, and two people can't share it. Several owners bought a second rather than a bigger one.
It's half an inch thick and it does not compress. It folds into four flat panels; it won't squash down small like fabric. If you're counting every cubic inch in a tiny pack, strap it to the outside — most owners do, and it keeps the dirt off the rest of your kit.
Straight Answer After Two Seasons
The honest list. It's thin — this is insulation with a bit of cushion, not a cushion. On a truly hard surface for a truly long sit you'll still feel the surface. It doesn't compress, so it takes fixed space in a small pack. It's one seat, not a mat. And the foam will eventually get scuffed and dented; it's foam.
What it is, is the cheapest thing in my kit and the one I reach for most. It solved a problem I'd been solving with a heavier jacket for twenty-seven years, and it solved it at an ounce and a third.
- Raised dimple grid traps air — the pad barely touches the cold surface
- Closed-cell XPE foam — water beads off, doesn't soak in
- 1.3 oz / 38 g · 15.75" × 12" open, paperback-sized folded
- Four folding panels, no buckles, no straps, nothing to break
- Works as a kneeling pad on gravel, concrete and frozen ground
- Wipe it off and put it away — no drying time
- Both faces usable
- 120-day no-questions-asked return policy
That's the one that sold me on carrying two. Snow, twenty degrees, back against a tree for forty minutes — and I got up warm enough to keep going instead of warm enough to head back.
And this is the one I didn't expect to matter. A steel tailgate in November pulls heat out of you faster than the ground does.
That's where mine lives. It went in there last October and it hasn't come out except to be sat on.
The company's running them half off and doing a two-pack, which is what I'd tell you to take — one in the pack, one behind the seat of the truck. The pack one you plan for. The truck one is for every time you didn't plan for it, which in my experience is most times.
They go out of stock through the fall most years. If it's available, grab it.
That's the review. Twenty-seven years late, but I got there.
— Tom
Armadillo Sit Pad
✓ 120-Day Money-Back Guarantee · ✓ Free US Shipping On 2+ · ✓ Ships In 24 Hours