Best Campground Products: Chop, Sit And Cook With Friends

Backcountry travel brings beauty, along with the challenge to minimize bulk and weight.  Campground or paddle-in settings allow room for creative cooking and dining options; multi-course replaces foil pouches and boiling water.

Active Junky’s Camping Stove Guide captured 11 models to consider including campground models, with the Tent Guide staking out room for family and pets in America’s parks and forests.  Once settled, the fun begins – and extends to lighting and seating options as well.

Image via Lio DelPiccolo

If resetting tent stakes is required or firewood needs to be chopped and split, the Treeline Outdoors Half Hatchet takes a rip at it.  More utility than Paul Bunyan’s double-bit monster, Half Hatchet’s 1.5lb head carries enough power to penetrate.  The beautiful hickory handle provides control for smaller tasks, with a beefy sheath for safety during travel.

Image via Lio DelPiccolo

Chores done, Cascade Design springs for campsite comfort with Treo.  Rising 13” from the forest floor, this stable companion delighted testers with 250lb capacity built around a 6000-series aluminum frame and Dyneema sling seat.  Non-skid and offered in eye-popping colors, Treo belongs in the anytime, anywhere category.

Image via Drew Zieff

No serious campground or base camp effort is complete without GSI’s Bugaboo Camper, a hot value at under $100 for all-in support of four (or more) adventurers.  Active Junky used every piece, from Teflon Classic-coated dual pots to frypan lid, mugs, bowls and plates.  Even the nylon sleeve doubled as a sink.  Bugaboo Waffle Iron and Bugaboo Griddle made cooking for 10 hungry, borderline-impatient friends a joy. 

With darkness approaching, the 1.1lb Goal Zero Lighthouse 250 Lantern sets the stage for dinner clean-up, story-telling, music and merriment.  Testers marveled (not an overstatement) at the 250’s useful range given a trio of recharging options; solar, integrated crank and USB.  Legs extended, the lantern reached even farther with up to 2.5 hours at turbo level.

Stars winking overhead, those of legal age drew out their GSI Soft-Side Wine Flask to reveal a regional red, one punctuated by spicy pepper notes; a perfect pairing with gooey S’Mores.  The spirit lover revealed his rollable, 9oz Highland Fifth Flask as all toasted with the responsible, non-breakable Stemless Red Wine Glass.

To the day behind.  To the Heavens above.  To a day of adventure tomorrow.  Cheers.