Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow Review

Getting the comfort of your bed at home when in a tent feels challenging. There’s an entire industry behind making a bed in a tent comfortable. It seems like you can check off two items out of this list: comfortable, lightweight, inexpensive and durable. Enter the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow. I bought one several years ago and have been using it since then. This is my quick Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow review (what can you say about a pillow). How many items will it check off?

Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow Review Description

The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow is designed to be stuffed with clothing and used as a place to store that clothing when not being used and to be used as a pillow during the night. Made from lightweight Dyneema® Composite Fabric (DCF), it weighs 1.7 ounces in the large 12-inch by 17-inch size. DCF is waterproof before they stitch it, so it ends up as a water resistant product. One side of the inside is lined with Polartec® 100-weight fleece lining

Comfort

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The comfort of this pillow depends heavily upon what you fill it with. This will vary based on how you like your pillows. I’ve found that pants, underwear and shirts aren’t comfortable for me. But, stuffing it full with a Patagonia Nano Puff or Nano Air makes it extremely comfortable. The soft fleece lining is also comfy. So, it checks this off our list.

Lightweight

At under 1.7 ounces for the large, it is one of the lighter weight versions of this style of pillow. Ultimately, it depends though. It depends, because of the clothing you bring. Even if I know I won’t need my Nano Puff, I tend to bring it along now, because I know it will provide a better night’s sleep. A Nano Puff weighs 12 ounces, so do you count that extra weight or not? If I had a lightweight inflatable pillow with primaloft insulation, such as Nemo’s Fillo Elite, maybe I wouldn’t bring my coat. Those inflatable pillows weigh 3 ounces. That’s only 1.3 ounces more and the comfort doesn’t depend on the type of clothing you bring. So, it halfway checks this box.

Durable

They are using Dyneema® Composite Fabric. This stuff is bomber! Checked!

Inexpensive

At $47 for a stuff sack, it’s not exactly cheap. Therm-a-rest makes a stuff sack pillow that weighs 2.3 ounces for $19. That’s $25 extra to save about half an ounce. If you’re going ultralight, it’s probably worth the savings, but it isn’t inexpensive.

Quirks

One thing that I didn’t think about before buying a stuff sack pillow is that it doesn’t allow your clothing to breath during the night. This traps in sweat and moisture and can cause odors to get worse. I’ve noticed this in temp ranges that cause me to throw on my jacket. I use the jacket, sweat and that sweat gets trapped in the coat and doesn’t air out overnight when it is in the pillow. By the end of the trip when using the stuff sack pillow, the coat is stinkier than it would have otherwise been. When I’m not using the coat, it doesn’t get the extra funk. This isn’t really a big deal if you wash your clothing when you get home, but it is something to consider. You might be better off with an inflatable pillow, such as Nemo’s Fillo Elite, if this bothers you.

The other quirk is the sizing. I originally ordered the small version and when turned inside out, I found it way too small for my needs. The large works much better. When inside out, it ends up being about 10-inches by 15-inches

Overall

It checks 2.5 of our boxes with a few asterisks. Would I buy it again? Probably not. I’d get the Nemo or the Therm-a-rest that I linked above. But, if a half an ounce is important to you, and I understand that it may be, then this is the product to get.