My brother swore I'd hate a foam pad in cold weather, and 3 nights at Tahoe proved him half right
He told me back in October that my closed cell foam pad would leave me shivering on any trip below freezing, so I almost bought an inflatable one for $140. I took the foam pad to Tahoe last weekend anyway, temps hit 28 degrees, and my back was cold but my sleeping bag stayed dry. Turns out the pad was fine on the bottom, and what actually froze me was not putting anything between me and the ground except the thin pad itself. A $12 reflective sheet under it fixed the problem on night two. Has anyone else found the cheap fix worked better than the gear upgrade someone pushed on them?
my back was cold but my sleeping bag stayed dry" is exactly the trap I fall into every single winter trip, so you're not alone there. I once spent way too long cursing my pad and my bag and the whole world when the real problem was that the ground was stealing all my heat through a pad that had nothing to trap it. The $12 sheet under it is such a boring fix that my pride almost didn't let me try it, but of course it worked better than anything I'd paid real money for. My big lesson was that my $60 pad was doing its job fine and the cold was coming from underneath the whole time. Props for testing it out instead of just buying the $140 thing your brother pushed on you lol.