Big Agnes Zoom UL sleeping pad review
The Big Agnes Zoom UL is a light, small and comfortable sleeping pad. Built to help you camp more comfortably in three-season UK conditions, it guarantees cosier nights under canvas, whether you’re a side, back or belly sleeper.
The Big Agnes Zoom UL
Ideal for: Backpacking, thru-hiking, wild camping, bikepacking, and three-season adventuring
Not suitable for: Deep winter use in very cold temperatures
Ultralight and ultra-comfortable, the Big Agnes Zoom UL is the new kid on the block when it comes to top-performing inflatable sleeping pads, easily rivalling the likes of Thermarest and Sea to Summit for the title of the most comfortable UL pad out there. Featuring a 4.3 R-Value, the Zoom UL also delivers plenty of warmth on all of your UK 3-season camping escapades, while being so light and small that you’ll barely even notice it in your pack.
The Good
Very comfortable
Great warmth for weight
Very quiet
Easy to inflate and deflate
Tiny pack size
Lightweight
Comes with pump sack
The Bad
Quite expensive
The Big Agnes Zoom UL
The Zoom UL is Big Agnes’ lightest and most compact sleeping pad. A striking orange, it stands out for both its looks and its weight, coming in a mere 20 grams heavier than the ever-popular Thermarest Neoair Xlite. Where the Xlite saves weight by rounding out the corners and keeping the padding to a minimum, however, the Zoom UL has pulled no punches when it comes to comfort: The pad is fully rectangular in shape (no rounded corners here), ideal for front, side and back sleepers, and delivers a whole half-inch more of cushioning in comparison to its yellow rival.
What’s more, due to some serious R & D, Big Agnes has managed to produce a pad that packs down slightly smaller than the Thermarest too. The Zoom UL’s pack size comes in at 10 x 20 cm, whereas the Thermarest Neoair XLite comes in at 10 x 23 cm, taking up 3 cm more space in your bag. But this piece isn’t about the Thermarest, nor is it a comparison article looking at which pad is better. It’s a standalone review of the Big Agnes Zoom UL — because we think this new exciting player in the sleeping pad space deserves it.
Big Agnes
For those not familiar with Big Agnes, they’re behind some of the most innovative and exciting developments in the UL space. Hailing from Colorado, USA, they have brought us excellent UL shelters like the beloved Fly Creek 2 and the fantastic Three Wire Hooped Bivy. Additionally, over the last few years, their reputation for building quality sleeping kit has cemented itself over here in the UK, producing a number of market-leading sleeping bags and sleeping pads, such as the notably comfortable Rapide SL inflatable pad. In that sense, then, the Zoom UL is Big Agnes’ big step into the world of ultralightweight sleeping pads. And we think they’ve seriously delivered with the Zoom UL.
Price
At the time of writing, the Big Agnes Zoom UL costs £155.55 for the regular version when bought from Valley and Peak. Price-wise, this puts the Zoom UL up against the likes of the Sea to Summit Ether Light XT, a thicker and arguably more luxurious pad, although it is slightly heavier than the Zoom UL at 480 g and comes with a significantly lower R-value.
Our experience using the Big Agnes Zoom UL
To test the Zoom UL, we used this thing on quite a few different trips through the summer, autumn and winter of 2023. We took it fastpacking, bikepacking, backpacking and mountaineering, and one of our editors even spent a few days sleeping on it on a living room floor in lieu of a spare bed. We had it out on numerous jaunts across the open planes of Dartmoor National Park, we carried it on a 60-kilometre run through the Chiltern Hills, we lugged it up and over numerous summits in the Brecon Beacons, and we used it on a particularly chilly 3-dayer around Llyn y Fan Fach towards the start of the winter where the temperature really tested the Zoom’s R-value.
All in, between us, we’d guess we spent around 25-30 nights on the Zoom UL by the time of writing this review, so we think we know it pretty well by now. And, honestly, based on our experience, it’s become one of our favourite pads.
Comfort
The main reason we love the Big Agnes Zoom UL is for how comfortable we find the pad to be. It’s quiet, wonderfully wide and very thick. If you inflate it fully, no single part of you will ever touch the ground, even if you lean something sharp like your knee into it. For side sleepers out there, this is great: It means pressure points like your hips stay suitably supported, allowing for a comfortable night’s sleep outdoors. In fact, the only time we ever felt even slightly uncomfortable on the Zoom UL was when we took it down to temperatures reaching -9 degrees Celsius. To prepare for the occasion, we paired the pad with a hard foam mat to add an extra number to the R-value. But despite this, we still felt the cold penetrate our hips during the night. For full disclosure, we were camping at several hundred metres of altitude on an exposed plateau that had been battered by freezing wind for the last few days. The ground temperature was undoubtedly seriously chilly, so we can’t really deduct any points off the Big Agnes Zoom UL for this. That being said, it’s worth understanding that is, for us, a demonstrably three-season pad.
Pack size and weight
When it comes to portability, the argument that the Big Agnes Zoom UL is best-in-class is an easy one to make. It’s tiny and weighs fewer than 400 grams, being comparable in size to a tin of baked beans and weighing a little more than a can of Coke. This makes it an ideal choice for practically any three-season adventure: We’ve had it in the bottom of big 60-litre packs as often as we’ve had it at the bottom of a 20-litre fastpacking pack (as well as other small, lightweight bits of gear), and each time we barely notice it’s there.
Inflating and deflating
Pumping up the Big Agnes Zoom UL is decidedly simple: Included in the stuff sack you get a handy pump sack that allows you to blow it up without using your mouth. This is good for two reasons: One, any moisture that collects inside the bag won’t turn to ice in freezing conditions (and affect the thermo-efficiency of the pad). And two, that same moisture will stay in your pad forever, causing it to get mouldy over time, which can affect the life of the product. Therefore, we’d always recommend you use the pump sack if possible. Which is a much more pleasant way to inflate your pad after hiking dozens of miles through the day, anyway.
To deflate the pad, all you need to do is insert the key at the end of the pump valve into the hole to hold it open and roll up your pad like normal. Due to the lightweight material, it’s easy to see where air has collected so you can push it out accordingly. For the same reason, however, we found that it’s not as easy to fully empty the pad by rolling it up as it is with pads made of thicker materials. Due to the flexibility of the material, air can move around as you try to press it out through the valve, so we found we had to roll it up a few times before we could fold it back up in order to pack it away.
Durability
As with any ultralightweight pad, durability is definitely a factor with the Big Agnes Zoom UL. Made out of lightweight ripstop nylon, you can be sure that the pad is reasonably durable, although you’re not going to want to sleep directly on the ground on this thing. You’ll need to always pair it with at least a groundsheet. If you use it in an ultralight tent with a thin bathtub floor, such as the Robens Chaser 1, the Forclaz MT900 UL 2 from Decathlon or the Big Agnes Fly Creek UL 2, you should be very cautious where you pitch. Make sure the ground is void of bracken, sticks or anything that could pierce both your bathtub or your pad through the night, and, if possible, pair them with a groundsheet. Again, as this is a feature of the lightweight materials used, any pad in this category needs to be used with the same level of care, so we won’t hold that to Big Agnes. As a plus, the Big Agnes Zoom UL does come with some repair patches so you can fix your pad in the field if the worst happens, but fingers crossed you never need them.
Big Agnes Zoom UL sleeping pad FAQs
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The Big Agnes Zoom UL sleeping pad comes with an R-value of 4.3, which makes it a very warm 3-season pad. This means that it should easily see you through spring and autumn and even into the winter in the UK. In fact, if you only camp on milder winter days in sheltered areas, the Big Agnes Zoom UL could even be stretched through winter and used four-season, although you may want to consider doubling it up with a hard foam mat to be sure that you’ll stay comfortable through the night and not feel any cold spots.
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The Big Agnes Zoom UL is luxuriously comfortable to sleep on. This thing is up there with some of the most comfortable pads we’ve ever tested, being soft and quiet and providing over 3 inches of cushioning from the ground. What’s more, the design of the pad means it’s just as comfortable whether you sleep on your back or are a side sleepier.
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The Big Agnes Zoom UL is very easy to inflate. The provided inflation sack means you can quickly pump it up without needing to breathe into it yourself, therefore avoiding moisture build-up and any lingering mould from forming inside the pad.
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Costing around £150, the Big Agnes Zoom UL is definitely at the expensive end of the sleeping pad spectrum. When you consider the alternative products out there that deliver the same level of performance, however, and then add in the fact that the Zoom UL beats most competitors in terms of comfort, we think the pad is a worthy investment and definitely worth the money if you can afford it.
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Made from ripstop nylon, the Big Agnes Zoom UL sleeping pad is reasonably durable. We’ve used this thing dozens of times and have never had any issues by the time of writing. That being said, being an ultralightweight balloon, a certain degree of care is necessary to ensure you don’t pierce it. If used in a UL tent (with a thin bathtub floor), make sure the ground is void of anything sharp before you lie down on the pad, or consider pairing it with a groundsheet.
Conclusion
Overall, we really rate the Big Agnes Zoom UL. The design is as nice to look at as it is to sleep on, and the combination of weight, warmth and pack size makes the Zoom UL one of the most impressive pads on the market right now. Granted, at over £150, this quality doesn’t come cheap, but if you take care of the pad, you’ll have a comfortable and versatile sleeping pad for years to come that can tangibly improve the quality of the sleep you get outdoors.
