Ranger Review: Mountain House Homestyle Turkey Dinner Casserole at Pinal Campground
Campground Review
Pinal Campground is a great little campground. We were shocked to arrive on a Saturday in March to find it completely empty. The roads to the campsites were heavily covered in pine needles and I could see it getting a bit tricky to determine where the tents were supposed to go versus where someone would need to drive to get through if there were a lot of people there. Of course, a lot of people is a relative term as there are only 13 camp sites. Majority of the sites are on the South side of the road with two independent bathroom buildings but there were a few on the North side of the road with another bathroom building. The bathrooms were nothing amazing and didn’t look to be regularly maintained but they were a welcome amenity with as cold and windy as our trip was.
While you are less than 10 miles as the crow flies from a major town the drive from town is about an hour. This was due to it being a single lane road with a lot of switchbacks and blind corners. According to the US Forestry Service FR 651 is a narrow winding mountain gravel road suitable for sedans under dry conditions and I would completely agree. I wouldn’t suggest making the trip without a high ground clearance vehicle. The forestry limits the campground to trailers under 20 feet and I’d be willing to bet that’s large because of the nature of the road. As a side note, when we left the campground after the snow had started to melt the roads did get very sloshy and slick. If you plan to see any type of wet weather make sure you have 4 wheel drive.
Most of the sites have excellent tree coverage. Each numbered campsite has a metal ring fire pit with a fold over grill grate and a picnic table (some were metal and some were concrete). We had our small pop-up trailer (under 13 feet) and found a place to put it between the trees but I wouldn’t imagine that a 5th wheel or even a larger pop-up (under the 20 foot restriction) would be able to navigate through the layout.
There are a lot of pine needles and small sticks to start a fire but as far as larger logs the campground seems to have been picked clean. There were a lot of downed trees around though so if you have an axe or chainsaw you’d have plenty of options. We were able to drive about a half mile in either direction from camp and find more than enough firewood to last through the trip.
If you’ve read this far then let me tell you how beautiful the area is. The campground is towards the top of the mountain but you can’t really look out over the valley because of the trees. There are a few places you can catch a glimpse but the drive up has some stunning views. Even with the tree coverage, the sunset through the trees was incredible.
The night we stayed, there was a lot of wind. In fact, we went to bed with clear skies and woke up to a blanket of snow. This is why the pictures look like two different places.
Product Review
As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time – on this trip I tested the Mountain House Homestyle Turkey Dinner Casserole. This wasn’t my first freeze dried meal but it was definitely my favorite! While I myself have not started backpacking yet I will be defaulting to the Mountain House meals when I do. Before preparation, the bag weighed about as much as a slice of bread and all it required for prep was some boiling water. This trip was very windy and it was hard to get the water hot enough to boil but once it did I followed the directions to add it in, zip it up, and wait. After 9 minutes (including a half time stir) I opened the bag and it smelled like Thanksgiving.
With it being a 2 serving size I scooped half out into a bowl to share with my husband and I ate mine straight from the bag. I had the better end of the deal, with as windy as it was the bag helped keep the heat in and it was hot until the very last bite. I was really surprised that the bag didn’t burn my hand at all even though we had used boiling water in it 10 minutes prior.
The food itself was very well flavored and needed no additional seasoning. The turkey chunks were moist and you could have fooled me that they weren’t’ freshly carved from an oven roasted turkey. The amount of turkey and veggies to the amount of stuffing was perfect. I definitely didn’t feel like I got shorted on the good stuff.
We opened up a can of cranberry sauce to eat on the side and it felt like a genuine Thanksgiving dinner. I am super impressed by the ease of preparation and how good it was. Maybe I will host Thanksgiving freeze dried style this year!
