Portable Cot Experiences in the Wild?

Q

Quirt

Joined
Oct 10, 2005
Messages
1,030
Okay, call me a wimp but if you slept on the ground as much as I do in my line of work and if you had arthritis in your lower back then you'd be thinking what I'm thinking...

A co-worker showed up to work with a new portable, semi-lightweight cot that sits 3" up from the ground. He let me try it one night and now I'm sold.

Now I'm all into making bough or debris beds and they work great. I use them when I have the time and they're plenty of available materials on the ground to collect. But I'm not cutting any off of live trees unless I'm in survival mode. Besides, I'm sleeping on the ground a LOT and not always for recreation.

Now before everyone gets on the hammock bandwagon, I already have a Hennessy Hammock and I use it in the late Spring to Early Fall. But in the winter I need to use a tarp shelter in order to have reflective warming fire.

So I'm down to the Cabelas Voyager cot which sits 6" off the ground or the Go Kot which sits 3" off the ground and costs more than double of the Cabelas. Other than the height difference and the substantial difference in price I'm not sure what else is different.

Anyway, who uses a short legged cot (not the army type) in a tent or tarp shelter? Who owns or uses either the Go Kot or Cabelas Voyager? I'd like some feedback before I pull the trigger on one.
 
I bought an Alaskan Guide cot from Cabelas with a Christmas gift certificate from my wife.
I have all but given up back pack camping. Old age is not for the faint of heart.
Still, I camp a LOT, and this weekend I tried out the new cot. It sits 19 inches off the ground, and is much more comfortable than my old air mattress. With it being 7 feet long, and 32 inches wide, it is more than adequate for these old bones.
The cot fits very comfortably in my Eureka Timberline tent, with room to spare.
Timberlineandcot.jpg
 
Never seen the short leg cot around these parts. Great idea for my old bones :o
I make due with a therma-rest but my back still hurts usually.
They're building a Cabelas here for the spring , maybe they will have it. Perfect for truck camping this idea is :thumbup: (I'm sure I'll see a knife I like there too ,no doubt :D)
 
I used a short leg cot for a couple years. I can't remember the brand, or even where I got it. But I do remember it was pretty cheap. I gotta say, the cot beats the heck out of rocky ground. Hammocks are not very useful for me, being a desert rat, where I don't always have the luxury of having trees around.

It broke down to a reasonable size, consisting of two collapsible steel poles, canvas bed, and two bent steel rods that fit into the poles holding the canvas taut, and served as the feet. After a couple years, the canvas tore. The last few times I've been out, I really missed that thing. And I haven't really seen another one that was as compact. It would be nice to see one that was a little better constructed and similarly portable.
 
I still find it pretty hard to beat an air mattress, providing you don't over inflate it, as a lot of people do. In order to defeat the heat-robbing tendencies of an air mattress, you put an ensolite pad on top of the mattress.

Doc
 
Doc, I have the down filled air mattress made by Exped. It works great and that is what I use now. But sleeping on it four to six days per week this time of the year gets difficult after a while. Again, this is not for a once a month-weekend situation otherwise I just keep using it.

Yea, pitdog that is my first choice but wow is that expensive! Cabelas sells that model and I've checked it out.

Mannlicher, which model Eureka is that? Timberline 4/6?
 
When I have used them, I loved em. I have gotten some of the finest sleep on these rascals. I am using an Exped for backpacking, but where space and weight are not an issue, I like a cot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top