Preparing for a Backpacking Trip: Repairing Thermarest Sleeping Pad

My last backpacking trip, the Eden Creek Adventure back in April - a quick overnighter, left me feeling sore all over, due to a leaking Thermarest. Admittedly, it was no fault of the pad itself, but rather a casualty of the treacherous brush tunnels that inhabited the infrequently-used trail. Packing the Thermarest on the outside of my pack was the final nail... I tossed and turned all night on the deflated pad.

Its been decided that the time has come for this new daddy (My wife gave birth to our perfect little girl on July 19, Baby Addilyn, 8lbs 1 oz) to get out for some wilderness time. a 2-night backpacking trip is the plan, and the Golden Trout Wilderness is the place. I was thinking about the upcoming trip while driving home from work today, When I remembered the last trip... and my sleeping pad problems.

So without further ado, I give you: How to Repair a Thermarest Sleeping Pad.

 I stopped at Big5 on the way home and picked up a Seam Grip Pad Repair Kit for $6.99 (Thermarest has a similar patch kit, though it wasn't carried at my Big5). The diminutive package is aimed at "on the go" repairs, but promises to work equally well long-term. The packaging reveals the contents: A tube of seam-grip (strikingly similar to Aquaseal if you ask me), an applicator brush, some basic instructions, and some self-adhesive patches.

 The Goods.

The first step is to locate the leak. Seems pretty straightforward... inflate the pad and see where the air comes out, Right? Wrong. The Leak, while substantial, was still too small to locate with the listen/feel method (the noise of squeezing the pad made it hard to hear where air was escaping from); time to bring out the big guns:

The Doggie Pool: For all your leak-finding needs.

Submerge the inflated pad in the doggie pool (or bathtub), and the leaking abrasion is quickly identified by a steady stream of bubbles. With a quick mark from a sharpie marker (standard procedure on my creek waders), the spot is identified and allowed to dry out. It doesn't look like much more than a scuff, but underwater, the stream of bubbles is unmistakable.

 Sharpie's "Brown" is a purple-based brown... so when damp you get this.

Once the pad has been allowed to dry out, I applied the Seam Grip in about a dime-sized circle over the hole, and brushed into the abrasion as best as possible. Then, as per the instructions, I put the self-adhesive patch over that (the patch is MUCH larger, but is primarily there to hold the adhesive in place over the hole while it dries. Also, it supposedly allows the pad to be used immediately after repair, during a trip.

Seems to be holding air fine now. The instructions say the adhesive patch can be removed after 8 hours when the Seam Grip is dried(like AquaSeal, drying can be accelerated by using Cotol 240), but I plan on leaving mine on until it starts peeling on its own. It can't hurt.

And that's it!