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Therm-a-Rest Slacker Super Snuggler Hammock Underquilt Review

Thermarest Slacker Super Snuggler Underquilt
The Therm-a-Rest Slacker Super Snuggler Synthetic Underquilt helps insulate hammocks in colder weather and is more comfortable than trying to wrestle with a sleeping pad. Shown with a Therm-a-Rest Slacker Hammock.

The Therm-a-Rest Slacker Super Snuggler Underquilt is a simple-to-use hammock insulation layer that’s more comfortable to use than trying to wrestle with a sleeping pad in a gathered-end hammock. While designed for use with Therm-a-Rest’s Slacker hammock, it can be used with other gathered end hammocks that use carabiners to clip into a suspension system. If you own a gathered-end hammock with a ridgeline, you can also easily modify the Super Snuggler with some elastic cord and cordlocks to position it on the hammock.

Priced at $129, it would be easy to dismiss the Super Snuggler underquilt as a cheap synthetic hammock insulation option for netless camping hammocks. But there’s much more to this product than meets the eye and it has some innovative, performance-enhancing features that I’ve not found on other underquilts, even from cottage manufacturers.

Therm-a-rest Super Snuggler Underquilt on a Warbonnet Blackbird Hammock
Therm-a-rest Super Snuggler Underquilt on a Warbonnet Blackbird Hammock

For example, the Super Snuggler has a built-in reflective thermal liner. The ends are also cut quite narrow to save weight and block warmth-robbing drafts, without the need for a draft collar. Add in the fact that this is a full size 80″ x 46″ underquilt, and the Super Snuggler provides an eye-popping amount of value for the price. If you’re using a sleeping pad in your hammock and want to switch to a underquilt-based hammock insulation system setup, I think the Slacker Super Snuggler is an excellent place to start. It’s also a cost-effective way to augment an existing underquilt, so you can hammock in colder weather.

Specs at a Glance

  • Temperature rating: None provided; I rate it at 35-40 degrees, but underquilt temp ratings depend a lot of individual metabolic differences.  The use of a winter sock is also recommended when temperatures drop near freezing and there’s any kind of breeze.
  • Weight: 25 oz
  • Length: 80″
  • Width: 46″ in the center, tapering down to 16″ at the ends.
  • Insulation: eraLOFT polyester hollow microfiber w/ reflective lining
  • Fabric: 20D polyester ripstop shell, 30D polyester reflective lining

The Slacker Super Snuggler’s Temperature Rating

Therm-a-Rest doesn’t provide a temperature rating for the Super Snuggler underquilt, which is strange and even off-putting since other underquilt manufacturers provide one. What’s up with that? The truth is that underquilt temperature ratings are notoriously inaccurate, which is why you’ll often get advice like “get a underquilt that’s rated for 20 degrees more warmth than you need.” As it stands, there’s no standardized way to measure the thermal efficiency of a underquilt and individual metabolic differences: whether you’re properly hydrated, when you last ate, what you’re wearing, etc. can have a huge impact on warmth.

The Super Snuggler suspension system is ultra-simple. A elastic single cord attached to corner tab or the quilt and snapped into the carabiners used to hang your hammock
The Super Snuggler suspension system is ultra-simple. A single elastic cord attached to corner tabs on the quilt and snapped into the carabiner used to hang your hammock, and the same system on the other side but with a non-elastic cord.

Some back story is also useful here. Therm-a-Rest was one of the leading companies that pushed the outdoor industry to adopt sleeping bag temperature ratings (EN13537) a few years ago and they’re actively involved in standardization efforts for measuring the R-value of sleeping pads. I know some of the product designers at Therm-a-Rest and given their history, I can understand why they don’t want to pick a temperature rating out of the air and slap in onto their underquilts.  It’s not necessarily smart from a sales perspective, but “making up” temperature ratings isn’t in the Therm-a-Rest DNA.

So how can you know how warm you’ll be with a Slacker Super Snuggler? Short of trying one or taking my word for it (based on field testing) you don’t have many options. But that’s not all that different from any other underquilt you’d consider buying. Personal recommendations from reviewers and friends are still your best source of information since there’s no standard way to measure or judge the accuracy of underquilt temperature ratings. It’s not so different from the way it was before sleeping bag temperature ratings were introduced.

The Super Snuggler has a differential cut, meaning that the inner fabric is smaller than the exterior fabric to help reduce weight and conform to the hammock's shape
The Super Snuggler has a differential cut, meaning that the inner fabric is smaller than the exterior fabric to help reduce weight and conform to the hammock’s shape. The brown interior fabric is the reflective liner.

Super Snuggler Design

How different is the insulation and design of the Super Snuggler from other hammock underquilts? First off, Therm-a-Rest includes a thermal reflective liner in their underquilts, much like the reflective liners they include in their NeoAir inflatable sleeping pads, or the emergency mylar blankets that cold weather hammockers use to augment a underquilt. While this makes the Super Snuggler a bit crinkly sounding when you pull it out of your backpack, it’s silent once the underquilt is hung below your hammock.

The insulation that Therm-a-Rest uses in the Super Snuggler is called eraLOFT. While it’s not as well-known as Primaloft or Climashield Apex, it’s the same hollow fiber insulation that Therm-a-Rest uses in the synthetic sleeping bags and quilts they manufacture. There’s an interesting debate going on behind the scenes in the outdoor industry about whether consumers really care about having massively marked up insulation like Primaloft, Climashield, or Polartec when there are plenty of no-name products that provide equivalent or close-to equivalent performance at a lower price. By using eraLOFT, the Super Snuggler is nearly 50% less expensive than other synthetic underquilts like the Primaloft-filled ENO Vulcan. Having tested both these of these synthetic underquilts (see my Vulcan Review), I think the Super Snuggler is a far better value.

Closeup of the underquilt ends. The underquilt is still quite wide, even one foot from the end - 34 inches, shown here - providing plenty of coverage for your feet or head
Closeup of the underquilt ends. The underquilt is still quite wide, even one foot from the end (34 inches, shown here) providing plenty of coverage for your feet or head.

The Super Snuggler is a full length 80″ quilt, which is what you want in colder temps to insulate your feet. It’s also quite wide, a full 46″, providing plenty of coverage, even if you like to sleep on a diagonal in your hammock. Where it differs from other, mostly rectangular cold weather quilts, is close to the ends, where the Super Snuggler tapers to 16″. The taper is quite sudden though. If you measure the quilt’s width one foot from the end, it’s 34″ wide, which still gives you plenty of foot coverage.

The nice thing about these narrow ends and the curve of fabric between them is that they wrap around the end of your hammock without the need for the more elaborate primary and secondary suspension systems found on rectangular-shaped underquilts. This helps keep the cost of the Super Snuggler down and makes it easy for people new to hammock underquilts to configure right away.

Note how the ends of the underquilt wrap tightly around the hammock
Note how the ends of the underquilt wrap tightly around the hammock.

Layering multiple underquilts

The Super Snuggler can also be used together with another underquilt if you want the option of hammocking in even colder weather. Given its thermal reflective liner, I’d position it flush against your hammock and add your other hammock over it if it’s shorter or filled with down. Synthetic insulation doesn’t lose its insulating value like down does when it can’t loft. For example, here’s a Super Snuggler in use with a 3/4 synthetic underquilt that I own. I don’t normally insulate my feet in warmer weather, but when temperatures drop below 40, the Super Snuggler can be used to provide foot insulation because it’s a full-length quilt.

The Super Snuggler, because it's synthetic, can be easily layered with another underquilt if you want even more warmth
The Super Snuggler, because it’s synthetic, can be easily layered with another underquilt if you want even more warmth. Shown here with a 3/4 synthetic quilt.

I’ve also modified the Super Snuggler in this configuration to make it easier to reposition along the length of my hammock. I simply replaced the two end cords that the underquilt comes with, with four individual elastic cords, to make it more compatible with a hammock with a ridgeline. Each pair of cords hooks onto an S-biner attached to the ridgeline. I’ve also placed a cord lock on each elastic cord to make it easy to tighten or reposition each side individually, by taking slack out of the lines without the need to tie any knots.

I've modified the Super Snuggler Suspension to make it more ridgeline compatible and so I can slide it up or down my hammock more easily
I’ve modified the Super Snuggler Suspension to make it more ridgeline compatible and so I can slide it up or down my hammock more easily.

This system lets me easily position the underquilt closer to my body or move it closer to one end of the hammock than the other. It’s not rocket science, but I find it more convenient to use than the suspension that’s included with the Super Snuggler when using a ridgeline hammock.

Recommendation

The Therm-a-Rest Slacker Super Snuggler Underquilt is a great value if you want to switch from a sleeping pad to an underquilt for hammock insulation. It’s a full size underquilt measuring 80″ x 46″ which is what you want in cold weather to provide coverage for your feet, with enough width so that it’s easy to sleep on a diagonal. Filled with synthetic insulation, the Super Snuggler is compatible with all gathered-end hammocks, with a simple suspension system that’s virtually fool-proof to use and configure properly. While Therm-a-Rest has not published a temperature rating for this quilt or any of the others they sell, I’m quite comfortable recommending it for use in 35-40 degree temperatures.

Disclosure: Therm-a-Rest provided the author with this product for review.

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17 comments

  1. Interesting UQ from a mainstream (i.e. – non-cottage) vendor. This seems like a great first quilt to test the waters. I’m glad to hear that you can still use it on the diagonal with its tapered dimensions. One question – did you get any condensation from the reflective liner?

    • None. My wife informs me that this is the same reflective liner they use on their Tech blankets too.

      • Is there something about this quilt that makes it better for testing the waters of underquilts as opposed to being a good underquilt for a more experienced person? I don’t use an underquilt yet, and it can be difficult sometimes knowing what products are good enough to use for years and what features might be better to wait on purchasing and spend $ more on.

        • It’s much easier to set up than a cottage UQ which has a much more sophisticated and complex suspension system that assumes you have a ridgeline.
          Even then, people have problems staying warm. This product pretty much eliminates that learning curve.
          It’s longer than most cottage UQs, so you’ll get better coverage.
          It’s also less expensive.

  2. Feather in the Wind

    Thanks for the review. I am in the middle of shopping for an UQ, so I am still using a pad and a sleeping bag.

  3. Thanks. This sounds like a good starter underquilt, readily combined with a winter sock (thanks also for that review) and a zipped-open sleeping bag as top quilt. To tell the truth, I don’t really like camping in the summer when the night low temperature is 75. I only perk up when nights are 65 degrees or lower.

  4. Would this work with a bar style hammock?

  5. OK, so I bought this item and am going to be trying it out in the next few weeks. I will likely do a similar adaptation on the cords as shown above. But I have one general question about synthetic insulation. The quilt was shipped in a compacted form inside an attached zippered stuff sack. It’s a tight fit in that sack. For down sleeping bags, I store them in an oversized mesh laundry bag, nicely fluffed out. Should synthetic insulation be treated in the same manner, stored “loosely packed”?

    • I’d suggest keeping the cords the way they are for an ENO Hammock (which I believe is what you said you have). The issue is length. Your hammock is likely shorter than mine. You want that UQ right up snug against your body without any air gaps. Otherwise you’ll get a cold butt. The quilt should be really pretty tight against the hammock and the stock cords will ensure that. my 2 cents.

      I wouldn’t worry about the synthetic insulation being compressed, unless you stuff and un stuff it daily for 6 months. The reduction in insulating qualities only occurs when you stuff and un stuff it (you’re breaking the fibers) not when it sits stuffed.

      • Thanks. Yes, the ENO double nest is shorter than most at 9’4″ long but wider than most at 6’2″. I am shorter than most hammock users (forums seem to be predominantly male users). This is my one and only hammock at the moment.

  6. I’ve got this underquilt also and am having a hard time keeping it under my feet. I’ve got it pulled up snug and if I end up wiggling around I can feel the foot edge of the underquilt start to inch towards my heel and then pop around and out from under my foot to the side.
    Do you think this has anything to do with the taper and not being as wide at the ends? I’ve tried some fiddling with individual chords on each of the 4 tieouts but haven’t found the right setup. Should I keep working with it with 4 individual shock chords – tightening and loosening them individually? Or did you find this underquilt any more prone to foot slippage than other underquilts? I think I’d like to hear that it’s user error as opposed to an issue with the quilt that way I can try to fix it :)

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