Therm-a-Rest Z-Seat

Summary

A really warm, comfortable lightweight seat, that packs down really small!

I have the mustard yellow with the bright silver finish on the underside. It is the new more efficient thermal finish that Thermarest makes.

I have several sit mats all work and are comfortable to differing degrees of success, but this Thermarest Z Seat with the Sol (aluminium coating) finish is really brilliant. It has a small pack size — 2.5cm by 33cm by 2.0 cm thick. It is instantly warm. The honey comb pattern makes for a really comfortable seat. Rolled out flat the dimensions are 33cm by 41cm.

This is my favorite camping sit mat.

I bought the Z-Seat after one too many trips of sitting on soggy logs or muddy rocks. I was tired of getting my butt wet or muddy or being uncomfortable. My main motivation was comfort. I walked into my local outdoor gear shop and picked one up for $15.

My first impression was nice. It was nice to not have to look for a "clean" spot to sit down the next trip I made. I liked that the Z-seat was really light and that it cleaned off really easily. If it gets muddy all it takes is a couple of wipes with a damp cloth and it's clean again.

But, my attachment to this product came on a much different trip. On a trip to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Colorado my friend, my girlfriend, and myself got caught in a freak snowstorm next to a mountain lake. We went to sleep cold and woke up in the morning freezing our buns off. The temperature was supposed to be in the 70's and here we were in the 40's. The only place it was warm was on a large rock that was exposed to the sun. The rock, however, was as cold as ice. We didn't really have a good place to sit to make breakfast.

That's when I fell in love with the Z-seat. Both my girlfriend and enjoyed warming up and cooking breakfast without freezing our butts off while my buddy kept complaining about how cold the rock was.

Is this seat a necessity? No. Should you buy one? Yes. It makes life much, much more comfortable.