Car campers who plan to brave miserable weather will appreciate the extra strength and protection of the REI Co-op Base Camp 4 Tent. The main bodies of our other picks are structured with two main poles with added support from smaller brow poles. The Base Camp, by contrast, has four ozark trail backpack full-size aluminum struts woven throughout it, somewhat like a basket, plus an additional brow pole that frames the front entrance and supports the larger of the two vestibules. The Base Camp also offers more privacy compared with our other picks—with or without the rain fly.
At 35 liters, this pack is perfect for day trips or for hikers who don’t need to carry a lot of gear on the trails. Also a good choice for youngsters who are new to hiking, or who need a rugged pack for toting school items. ozark trail chair Temperatures can swing from chilly mornings to sweltering afternoons. Pack rain gear to stay warm and dry, and consider bringing one set of clothes to change into at camp as well as one or two sets of clothes for hiking.
The Spot 400 is known to be one of the most durable headlamps available. Jenni ran it through a dryer cycle, and it came out no worse for the wear. We also threw it into our backpacks for long hikes, lost it in the chaotic trunk of our cars on occasion, and Jenni let her toddler play with it. All of Black Diamond’s headlamps are backed by the company’s three-year warranty.
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.
If you won’t be carrying your tent more than a couple hundred feet, more space means more comfort (as well as more room for your stuff). Its walls are 75-denier polyester fabric (tougher than the Wireless 6’s 68-denier polyester and the same as the REI Co-op Base Camp’s) that extends about two-thirds up the tent’s sides, and then is topped with mesh. The partial fly does a great job of keeping rain out of the upper, mesh areas, and cleverly placed vents maintain airflow so it never feels too stuffy. The Mineral King 3’s fly attaches intuitively with plastic buckles and has well-placed guy tabs. You can secure the fly to the poles with Velcro ties underneath the fly, so that the extra lines anchored the whole tent, not just the thin protective fabric, but we only needed to do so in very windy conditions.
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.
The Mineral King 3 has a full rain fly, which you can roll up halfway or completely remove for epic stargazing. It also comes with a groundsheet (aka footprint) ozark trail backpack to protect the tent floor. Its fly extends into a huge front vestibule that can store large items like bikes, or even accommodate a table and chairs.