While much of the trail is under shaded tree canopy, you’ll still want to use sunscreen to prevent any burns. Backpacking stoves are a convenient way to boil water for dehydrated meals and instant coffee without adding a lot of weight to your pack. Whether you’re planning an epic thru-hike or an out-and-back weekend excursion, this guide will help you get started on your Missouri adventure.
The Spot 400’s two top buttons are intuitive to use; you’ll have to experiment with clicking through the various modes, but the learning curve is fairly quick. It has a red light (for night use), a “proximity” floodlight (for a wider field of view), and strobe options (for throwing an emergency signal). The Spot 400 weighs 3 ounces, ozark trail canopy has a lock mode, and is weather-resistant. This drivable par 4 gives you multiple options off the tee. Hitting driver could give you a great look at birdie, but it will also bring the bunkers short of the green into play. The wide fairway offers plenty of room for a safe layup shot and easy short iron or wedge into the green.
Like our top pick, the Tungsten 4 is a sturdy, two-door dome-style tent that can be deployed in about 5 minutes. It uses high-quality materials such as aluminum poles, breathable mesh, and water-resistant polyester fabric, and it comes with a full fly and a footprint. The Tungsten 4’s larger size accounts for the higher price tag (about $40 more), but ozark trail chair campers who would like that extra room may find the expense worthwhile. A full rain fly with easy-attach color-coded clips covers the tent body and adds two large vestibules. Like the Mineral King 3, the Tungsten has aluminum poles that are connected at the top (for lightning-quick pitching) and pre-bent, which increases the dome tent’s headroom.
Avoid the left side to stay out of the heavy rough, deep bunker, and the lake. This uphill par 4 has a generous fairway with a large natural limestone formation on the right. Aim just right of the middle fairway bunker to hit the widest part of the landing area. The elevated green slopes from back to front with a dangerous false front on the left side. This eye-catching peninsula green requires a solid iron shot to stay dry.
With a 44-square-foot vestibule, and 86 square feet of interior living space, the tent has plenty of room to house beds, cribs, gear, pets, and camping furniture. Zippered doors can enclose the vestibule fully, so it serves as a separate room for the tent, or you can leave one or both open, so the vestibule can act like a porch or mudroom. The main tent body has a giant front door that’s oriented to make entry and exit easy for all the tent’s occupants at night, and a smaller back window that doubles as a second door. The geodesic structure of the Base Camp tents is built to withstand wind and rain. It has two main that thread through sleeves, stretching between the four corners of the tent. Generally, we like clip-on designs better, since those are easier to put together, but in the case of the Base Camp models, the sleeves add extra tension and stability throughout the tent fabric.
So if you ordered more than one item on a single order and receive only a part of your item don’t worry, you will receive your other items shortly after. If you’re on the trail for several days, toilet paper and a cathole shovel are necessities. When you do have to answer the call of the wild, make sure to stay at least 100 yards away from a water source and bury any solid waste at least 6 inches deep. Bring enough water for your trip or a way to purify water to make it safe to drink.
The Bindi does have a battery indicator system with red, yellow, and green lights, which makes it easy to see when you’re getting close to needing a charge. Also note that the headlamp needs to be charged out of the box; ours arrived completely dead. And it uses a Micro-USB cable, which is becoming less common (many of the rechargeable headlamps we tested use USB-C). Costing only $20, the Black Diamond Astro matched the brightness of our top pick in our tests, despite its lower lumen count. We got 10 hours out of the battery on high, the same as our top pick, and the settings are simpler. But the headband feels cheaper than the Spot’s, and there’s no battery light indicator (most of our other picks have them) or red light.