East Harbor SP (basile12 on Flickr)
Every year, Steve Cheslock takes his family camping at East Harbor State Park, on Lake Erie in Ohio. Like most of us who camp, Steve had seen his share of people struggle with tent stake removal over the years, but last year he got to experience it for himself when it came time for him to tear down his tent. This got Steve to thinking about a better way to remove stubborn tent stakes from the ground and, in January of this year, the STAKE BUDDYâ„¢ was born.
Vintage Coleman cooler (photo by Caffinara on Flickr)
The year I was born, 1965, Coleman® introduced the popular steel-sided ice chest that I imagine many of us grew with, camping with our families. I imagine that it wasn’t all that great, compared to some of today’s high-tech plastic coolers, but it was as much a part of my early camping experience as the smell of kerosene from the camp stove and I kind of miss its retro-simplicity.
Unlike 1965, we have a lot of choices these days, when it comes to keeping our camping food cold. There are coolers of all different shapes and sizes, hard-sided, soft-sided and even refrigerated units. We have the boating industry to thank for a lot of the technology we see in today’s multi-day ice chests and, indeed, some of the best (and most expensive) coolers on the market are aimed primarily at boaters.
Continuing our look at some of the highest quality family camping tents on the market, this week we turn to Mountain Hardwear, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company is known for their innovative technology and products, including tents.
While Mountain Hardwear focuses primarily on lightweight backpacking and climbing tents, their Habitat and Casa line are both suitable for family camping. Best of all, these larger tents include all of the great technology of Mountain Hardwear’s lightweight tents, including anodized aluminum poles with clips for attaching the tent body.
GPS and map software company DeLorme and personal satellite communications company SPOT are launching the DeLorme Earthmate® PN-60w with SPOT Satellite Communicator today, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The two devices communicate over a proprietary wireless data link, allowing the user to send short messages over the worldwide Globalstar satellite network.
Over the next several weeks, I will be looking at some of the best tents on the market, for family camping. First up, this week, is Big Agnes in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Big Agnes is known for quality tents featuring easy-to-assemble clip-style construction and lightweight hub-style frames. In addition, these tents all feature aluminum poles, which are superior to the more common fiberglass poles that come with cheaper tents. Big Agnes tents are more expensive than many others, but they will last for years and their no-nonsense 100% guarantee can’t be beat.