Having finally succumbed to the siren call of recommendations on OM, I ordered one from gogogear a week ago. It arrived this morning. Not bad going from Aus...

I was going to put a link to their website whilst announcing my latest purchase, only to find that it no longer features on the gogogear website.

Instead, there's an Insul-Mat Ether Thermo 6. Which looks identical, and still has the 'Backpacker Editor's Choice 2004' claim.

I couldn't see much difference to the Max Thermo, except maybe a few grammes shaved off.

Any of the Insul-Mat fans know anything about this?

Unusually, I haven't tried the mat out on the floor at work...

Welcome to the world of comfort camping, Captain ! Say farewell to stiff backs, dead arms and sore hips.

As far as I can tell they're the same still.

This link
http://www.pacoutdoor.com/2007/index.cfm?action=family&familyID=1 takes you to the current product offerings from Pacific Outdoor Equipment
and this one
http://www.pacoutdoor.com/2006/index.cfm?action=family&familyID=1 takes you to last year's pages

You can drill down to the Max Thermo and the Ether to compare specs....


Btw, have you weighed it yet - I've had 2 mats from them, I think they're both great but both were also 10 or 15% over the quoted weights <grrrr, pet hate!!>

My Insul-Mat Max Thermo Long arrived 2 days ago and the weight was exactly as stated on the pack - 709g. But the website gives a different weight - 624g.

Hmmm...

I think theres a new mat called Insul Mat max Thermo Lite which shaves a few gramms off the Max Thermo.Have a look at the Sierra designs website(sorry but no good at doing links)

Welcome to the life of comfort Captain!

Indeed the Max Thermo is no more, but is still available from a few US stores at bargain prices.

Pacfic Outdoor themselves are claiming the Ether Thermo 6 won the 2004 Backpacker award so I hope its just a renaming.

The ECO Thermo 6 also seems to be the same pad, but a zero carbon footprint design for those wanting to atone for driving their cars to the mountains!

Matt: weighed it last night, and it was 612g, including the 18g stuff sack. So within the quoted weight of 624g.

BG: There must be an error on the 2006 weight of the MT long: says 24oz = 624g. This is 22oz (as per Regular). 24oz = 681g