This pad is testing my sanity

[doulos]

It was said earlier but yes the pad not completely filled works great for me in my HH. I place mine at my shoulders and comes down to my knees. I simply get my head placed correctly and then just shift it to the right angle. With it being not fully inflated i have no problem keeping it in place.

[DigitalJanitor]

Glad to see you got it sorted! I noticed with my GT UL that it's VERY small, and as such sleeping bags/pads tended to 'ooze' pretty badly out of the hammock itself. I haven't had this issue with any other hammock we've used, so that one is now mostly relegated to recreational day use.

Now to some of the other posts in this thread... pads can be awesome.

I'm camping in the central/east Cascades, and there's always the possibility of going to ground if you get caught in an area that's been severely ravaged by wildfire. Many trees will be left, but they will be damaged and sometimes have other dead ones hung up in them. Some of these fires can be measured in square miles, so you can see where a person can wind up SOL. The other possibility is hiking lower down in the sagebrush and not making it to the patch of trees you found on Google Earth (or finding those burned out too...).

With that in mind we went with pads straight off. Husby and I both now have an Exped Downmat 7, and since his shoulders are wide he has a SPE that I scored from here. We simply blow it up completely, throw it in the hammock, spread the bag out on top w/ the zipper open, carefully eyeball our butt-plant spot when getting in.... and just fall asleep. Our daughter has a BA bag with the pad pocket and we use an older woman's thermarest for her.

One thing I noticed about the Exped pad is that the outer baffles are slightly oversized compared to the middles, so it tends to cradle you in place. None of us have ever had an issue rolling off the pads in any case.

SO... if you don't have an underquilt, DO NOT DESPAIR. You can lash up a very nice and highly versatile piece of sleeping kit without it and go on with your adventures.