The Ozark Trail: A Guide to Hiking Missouri’s Mountains

Your own preferences and uses may push you towards another rating. Summer campers, however, will probably be happier in a 40° F model. If you find that your sleeping bag doesn’t seem to be living up to its temperature rating, the issue is most likely your sleeping pad. Check out our Best Sleeping Pad review for more info about why your overnight warmth can be dependent on how well you’re insulated from the ground. If your plans include both convenient camping and overnight backcountry adventures, we suggest choosing a backpacking sleeping bag. That’s because you won’t have any issues using a backpacking model near your car but carrying a hefty camping sleeping bag any significant distance can quickly become a real pain.

Camp out at the top overnight, catching a glimpse of a full sky of stars if it’s clear. If you’re searching east of the Rockies for stunning scenery, technical terrain, and a long hike option sans the AT crowds, this is your pick. If you’re on a multi-day hike, toilet paper and a cathole shovel are necessities.

I priced other internal frame daypacks before my trip and this was by far the cheapest. I took this pack on a 5-day mountain bike ride from Pittsburgh, Pa., to Washington, D.C., and it performed very well. Similar to the Ozark Trail cooler, the Pelican features orange wheel rims and also has orange clasp accents. You can get this cooler in three colors, Tan which is featured here, as well as graphite and white. The other two colors will have different rims and accents, so if you don’t love the orange you have options.

Get Backpacking Light news, updates, gear info, skills, and commentary delivered into your inbox 1-2x/week. Because it’s basically a single compartment stuff bag, I did have to make sure the items inside were distributed properly. Kelli is a content writer with a degree in English Education from Penn State University. As a mom and a former middle school English teacher, she has spent the last 25 years looking for good deals for her home and the classroom. Get FREE shipping to your home on orders over $35 or FREE in-store pickup.

Its warmth-to-weight ratio is certainly outstanding, but you can attain an even higher warmth-to-weight ratio with a hooded mummy design, like the Therm-a-Rest Hyperion 20. Still, we believe the added versatility of the Flicker is worth this compromise. At this price point, we weren’t expecting greatness from the Coleman Brazos. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the warmth of this bag when we used it on a few chilly nights in Bryce Canyon National Park. It earned an above-average rating in our warmth testing, outscoring a few other bags in this metric. While we don’t recommend it for the truly frigid camp nights, it’s got you covered through the normal camping season of late spring, summer, and early fall.

I have lost a couple of drain caps in my day which makes the cooler unusable until a replacement arrives. Some 1-person tents will have two major spars or spines that cross for the main support structure. In the Ozark Trail tent, it has only one spar traveling down the center lengthwise with a single rib to open up the area in the middle.

Our testers believe it truly lived up to its 0° F temperature rating. They were also delighted with the wider dimensions of this bag compared to many other winter bags. Its high-quality 850 fill power goose down was some of the best at maintaining excellent loft despite numerous compression cycles. The Sierra Designs Get Down 20 is an extremely well-priced product for a down sleeping bag. It is warm enough for most 3-season excursions, ozark trail chair decently lightweight, and packs down pretty small. Yes, there are fancier and higher-performing bags, but at this price, the Get Down represents a spectacular value.

This innovative model incorporates a truly full-length ozark trail backpack zipper that allows it to function as a hoodless mummy bag or an open quilt. When opened as a quilt, it offered plenty of ventilation for a warm summer night. Meanwhile, its 8.4 ounces of 950+ fill power goose down proved to be capable all the way down to its 40° F temperature rating. That makes this bag an ideal choice for thru-hikers or serious backpackers looking for a lightweight model that can handle a range of conditions. The Bishop Pass simply can’t match the performance of an ultra-premium sleeping bag.

The four or six tent pegs hold the structure down but are crucial for the tent to stand by itself. The Ozark does need those pegs in the ground to be self-standing so setting up on rocks would be infeasible (at least without applying some clever tenting skills). The set-up was understandably a few steps shorter, which is always nice when setting up in the dark. More than once in the dark I’ve attached a rain fly upside down and we had to restart that particular step.