Gear Review: Platypus Softbottle
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Can a simple piece of one ounce gear invoke actual love? Yes. I admit it. I love my Platypus SoftBottle!
More >Tagged: Backpacking
Trail Map: Piney Creek Wilderness
Piney Creek Wilderness is one of our favorites.
Located in Barry County Missouri, the Pineview (Tower) Trailhead is 5.5 miles west of Cape Fair on Highway 76 off Farm road 2150, and around 4.5 miles on Highway 76 from Highway 39. See Getting To Piney Creek.
More >Trail Map: Bell Mountain Trail
Bell Mountain Wilderness is in Iron County Missouri, around 30 miles south of Potosi. Bell mountain is an 11 or so mile loop depending on the trail head you start from. Bell Mountain is 1702 ft. and offers superb views to the east and of the 600 ft. drop into the very steep valley of Shut-in Creek.
More >Gear Review: NeoAir All Season sleeping pad
Ginger wanted a pad that was slightly thicker, (more comfy), wider and warmer than our Therm-a-Rest ProLite Plus sleeping pads. We found our NeoAir All Season pad online at a very reasonable price.
More >Trip Report: Bell Mountain Wilderness – March 2012
Eager to find a new sort of ground to cover, we turned our attention to the St. Francois Mountain area for our Spring Break trip. The St. Francois Mountains are an ancient granite mountain range that stands, literally, as an island in the limestone and dolomite former sea beds that are the Ozarks Plateau.
More >Doing the Dishes
Whether you’re backpacking or car camping there comes a time when you have to do the dishes. It seems like a simple thing, and it is, but there are a few things to consider.
More >Photo gallery: Bell Mountain Wilderness
Welcome to our gallery of photographs taken at Bell Mountain Wilderness, Iron County, Missouri. Click on a picture to see a larger version.
More >Trail Map: Hercules Glades Wilderness
The trails at Hercules Glades have been re-named (2018), so we’ve switched out the map and links to ones that show the new trail names.
More >Trip report: Backpacking in Hercules Glades – September 2012
Taking advantage of a long weekend, we took Lanie with us on a three day backpacking trip to Hercules Glades. Our plan was to map some of the western trails with the GPS, try to find the Spring we think Rock Spring Trail is named after, and show Lanie the falls.
More >Photo gallery: Piney Creek Wilderness
Welcome to our gallery of photographs taken at Piney Creek Wilderness, Missouri.
More >Photo gallery: Hercules Glades
Welcome to our gallery of photographs taken at Hercules Glades Wilderness. Click on a picture to see a larger version.
More >Photo gallery: Camping and backpacking in Scotland, 2011
Not one of our usual hiking destinations. In the summer of 2011 we took a trip to the UK to see relatives. A visit to Gary’s uncle living near Glasgow gave us an opportunity for some hiking, backpacking and car camping in Scotland. Very different from the Ozarks…
More >Photo gallery: Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area
Welcome to our gallery of photographs taken at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area. Click on a picture to see a larger version.
More >Hiking Huaraches – My hiking ‘boots’
If one thing is likely to start a passionate gear discussion, it’s hiking and backpacking footwear. I’m in a minority on this subject and I know it. Why? If you look closely at any of our backpacking or hiking pictures, you’ll see I’m almost always apparently barefoot…
More >Trip report: Two days solo backpacking in Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area
With a couple of spare days I decided to fit in a quick solo backpacking trip. To save on gas I stayed close to Springfield, backpacking around Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area. I found a second cemetery and an abandoned vehicle I didn’t know were there.
More >Trip report: Three days backpacking in the Piney Creek Wilderness – June 2012
School’s out for the summer, so there’s no school run to worry about. Lanie’s staying with her grandparents for a few days. The big kids are old enough to be left home alone. What better opportunity to get in a few days backpacking?
More >Getting Everyone Onboard…Overcoming Obstacles
If you’re wanting to go camping and your significant other or children aren’t as enthusiastic as you are, perhaps there are some unspoken objections they have. Take a look at the list below and see how many of these you can address. I’ll bet you’ll find yourself surrounded with family if you can overcome these common obstacles.
More >Places to go: Piney Creek Wilderness
Right off the bat, the most unusual thing about this Wilderness area is that its boundaries circumscribe the entire drainage of Piney Creek. So you always start on a ridge and go down into the valley of the same creek system. There isn’t a lot of up and down all day hiking. Once you’re down in the valley it’s flat. Piney Creek opens into Table Rock Lake on the east, allowing access to and from the lake…
More >Trip report: Backpacking at Piney Creek Wilderness – April 2012
One of the more problematic aspects of an outdoor-loving lifestyle is that you have to either find someone to take your kids while you go play or you have to bring your kids with you. We finally have two kids old enough to leave at home. But our youngest is still a bit young so we’ve been working on getting her interested in the idea of going on backpacking trips with us
More >Trip report: Backpacking the Berryman Trail – 2011
With the kids away for Spring Break with their father for a week we decided it was time for our next backpacking trip. The children had to be dropped off and picked up from St Louis, so that focused our attention on the Berryman Trail. Some people do this trail in a day, bikes do […]
More >Gear Review: Montbell Super Spiral Sleeping Bags
We’ve bought our Mont·Bell Super Spiral Sleeping Bags back in 2010. They were expensive, but it’s a purchase we’ve never regretted, and we’d buy them again. We wanted bags that would keep us warm three season camping and backpacking and that were warm enough for the occasional trip out in winter. These bags have exceeded […]
More >Trip report: backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness – December 2010
Our first backpacking experience The kids were with their dad in Chicago. The forecast was for unseasonably warm temperatures. We had backpacking gear we’d not fully tried out yet. It had been nearly six weeks since our last camping trip. It was time. We were ready to go on our first backpacking trip!
More >Trip report: Hercules Glades day hike with MDC
We wanted to backpack in the Hercules Glades Wilderness, but we’d never been there. We decided to reconnoiter the Wilderness first, in preparation for our first ever backpacking trip. We found out that MDC’s Springfield Nature Center was organizing a ‘Hiking Club’ trip to Hercules Glades, so we signed up to go. The group is limited […]
More >Backpacking Trial Run – Weekend Camping at Berry Bend
This weekend we tried out our backpacking gear. Friday evening we took several kids to Kansas City for a church event. We needed to be on hand to collect them again Sunday afternoon, so we left Lanie in the capable hands of Ginger’s cousin, put Getzger in charge at home and once we’d dropped the […]
More >Gear Review: MSR Mutha Hubba tent
We spent a long time researching and looking at tents. Each time we thought we’d found the one we wanted we saw another we liked even more. A three season tent was essential for spring and fall camping, some useable vestibule space that would double as a wind break for cooking was also high on […]
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