excellent for cold hips/back
My sleeping bag is a little thin on 2 back panels. i often get a cold hip or back. Just returned from a central Australia hike with very cold overnights (-3 to 4 celsius). Popped the minion under my thermals and problem solved! And it weighs nothing. Brillian bit of kit. Maybe rejig it and make it as just a straight rectangulat piece, a little longer, and no pressstuds, etc. Lots of folk get the cold hip and this is an easy resolution. Better than stuffing my down jacket in the bag.
My goodness, this is a clever idea!
Within the first two weeks of owning my Minion, I think I may have tried packing every piece of my gear in it at one point or another. I settled on using it for my entire sleep system. I rolled my Thermarest XTherm pad into the Minion, and had room inside the pad roll for my EE quilt, long johns, Cocoon pillow, EE hoodlum, EE booties, EE mittens, AND a battery-powered pad inflator, and it all stuffs into the sleeping bag compartment of my pack. At night I stuff my puffy jacket and Cocoon pillow into the Minion, inflate the Cocoon for just the right loft, don the long johns, Hoodlum, booties and mittens and I'm toasty for the night. At least, I hope so! Doesn't get cold here in Texas but I'll put them to the test this summer in the Rockies. In the summer, it still comes in handy. It's a table, a chair, a stuff bag - the possibilities are endless and appreciated. This is one fine piece of ultralight multifunctional gear.
Minion versatility
Will find many uses for my Minion. It had the same great build as my Enlightened Equipment quilt. I will mostly use it to supplement as inflatable pillow.
A great piece of gear that helped solve my side sleeping issue.
I have the 4oz. APEX Minion, and it is one of my favorite pieces of gear. The 10D side of the minion is super soft and the insulation combined makes it great to cuddle up with.
When hiking or backpacking I bring it, along with a piece of polycro for it, to use as a sit pad on the cold ground. Haven't used it as a pot cozy, yet, but I've read it works great for that. It has helped me when I wasn't expecting bad weather to slow me down or stop me, and I didn't bring a dedicated hat for warmth. This can be folded/zipped/snapped together in a multitude of ways to make a great insulated hat or balaclava. It may not be the most fashionable thing out there, but that's one reason I go backpacking, to get away from some those societal norms you adhere to in everyday life. This piece of gear is definitely all function.
The biggest issue that the Minion helped solve for me was a good pillow. I am a side sleeper and my shoulders aren't the slimmest, and most backpacking pillows don't provide enough height or they're too bulky and heavy and don't serve multiple functions. I got this to use originally as a stuff sack for my 10 degree Revelation Quilt, which worked fine. Then I would stuff a jacket into it for filling to use as a pillow. That wasn't the best solution, but it certainly helped a lot in terms of a pillow. However, I recently started stuffing my quilt into a dry bag so I could compress it really small and have it fit better into my pack. The dry bag worked so well in keeping the quilt form lofting back up in my pack and was very air tight I decided to loft up the dry bag at camp and stuff that into the Minion, making the Minion a very plush pillow case for an air bladder. The dry bag provided plenty of vertical support for my neck and the Minion, with the 10D fabric side facing out, made a nice plush covering that my ear didn't suction cup to at all. The insulation also helped it not feel like I was just resting on an air bladder, but made it feel more like an actual pillow.
It worked so well it completely solved my main comfort complaint when trying to sleep in the backcountry. I have never slept so well and woken up with no sore neck or a dead arm trying to support my neck. It was the closest I've ever felt to waking up in my own bed at home when camping. This alone makes this worth 5 stars. Everything else this can be used for is just icing on the cake. And I bet many people have come up with more creative ways to use the Minion.
And I wish I could rank it another star higher, because it made me figure out how to make the dry bag for my quilt multipurpose, too.
Pillow/Stuff sack/hat/hand warmer!
This is where my quilt lives when it is in my pack. I got the middle insulated one so it is a little warmer and fuller. Comes with me year round.
Great useful multipurpose item.
The minion is great. As a pillow it is my absolute favorite. I stuff my down jacket and legging in at night so they're nice and warm in the morning. I like to wrap it around my camera strap and it keeps my hands warm while shooting in the winter.
A great pillow but way more. It's a keeper
We were not 100% sure what we were ordering actually when we ordered 2 4oz Minions but our curiosity was peaked and we had a hunch. This is a great item. First of all, I have never been able to find a really comfortable pillow for hiking and as I get older and days out longer it has been a (excuse the pun) real pain in the neck! I have tried no pillow, inflatable pillows, travel pillows and nothing was comfortable. The first thing I did with the Minion was use it as a pillow. I stuffed in my down jacket and my shirt and it was great! In fact, I was tossing at home recently and grabbed it, stuffed it and tossed my bed pillow on the floor and slept great. When hiking I really liked the idea that it kept my down jacket right (and glasses)where I could find them easily in the night and both my shirt and jacket hand no morning chill or dampness to it. It fits on my head fine but worked great as a cozy, but I did wrap my pot with my towel to protect the fabric. I love it as a hand warmer but am trying to adapt it to a wrap around hand muff by hooking on a couple of micro biners, some 550 and wrapping around my waist so I can take my gloves off, leave them in the minion to stay warm, work till my hands ache and then toss em back in the muff stationed right in front of me. When packing I toss my bag with my spare contacts, cleaner, glasses, meds and cleaning stuff inside my pack and it adds protection but also allows me to find the essentials quickly by feeling in my pack since I am darn near useless if I pop out a contact by mistake. All in all we give thumbs up to this. Is it essential? Well, for me, to get a good night sleep, yes. Is it able to be used in multiple ways? yes. Quality and US made? yes. That means for me, it is a keeper
