Hungry Man Forest Campground

Dyrt Ranger Review of Grubstick cooking gear at Hungry Man Lake

Campground Review: Hungry Man Lake has a state forest campground just south of Itasca State Park. There are 14 primitive campsites, a boat launch, small beach with dock, and picnic area. You can also hike on several trails around the lake. The campsites are large and shaded by beautiful tall pines and spaced far apart. They each have a nice fire grill and picnic table. Great for tent camping! RVs and campers can fit in many of the sites, but note that there are no hookups of any kind. Facilities include outhouse and water pump. Site 11 is not officially a handicapped site but it is flat and has hard packed ground around the picnic table and has easy access to the outhouse which has a wide door and seems to be accessible. The sites were only half taken by families and quiet fisherman, so pretty pleasant! We stayed at site 14 which was nicely set back from the other sites, but further from the lake. Supposedly it has great fishing but we didnt try. The beach area is hardpacked white sand with crystal clear water, great for swimming! A good place to camp if you want to be near Itasca State Park but not camping among the crowds.

Product review: As a Dyrt Ranger, I sometimes have the chance to try new camping products and review them on The Dyrt. While at Hungry Man Lake, we tried out the new Grubstick cooking utensils which have telescoping steel handles with rubber grips and a variety of screw-on attachments such as hotdog grilling forks, sandwich and burger baskets, bacon roaster and pastry baker. We tried them all! See product listing here: https://grubstick.com/products/deluxe-kit

Pros: The hotdog griller is generous and holds three at a time, we tried a brat, a hotdog and a corndog. They didnt fall off the fork and grilled nicely. The sandwich basket makes great grilled cheese, and the burger basket did a great job grilling a hefty bacon burger. The separate bacon attachment worked ok, but only cooks one piece at a time; cooking bacon in a grill basket might work better for multiple pieces. I really loved the pastry cylinder: you wrap dough around the steel cylinder and turn over the coals, of course it bakes on the outside, but the cylinder also heats up and cooks the dough from the inside as well—no more dough boys with baked crust and raw insides! The baked pastry cup then sludes easily off the cylinder and you can fill it with all kinds of fillings, and eat it like an ice cream cone! Doesnt leak! Tastes great! We filled ours with yogurt, berries and nuts. All the attachments worked great, the handles are long and safe over the fire by the handles dont get hot and they telescope down to a small size, and everything fits in a nice canvas bag. Comes with silicon hot pads and implements to use while cooking with the utensils, and everything cleans up like a breeze. Well made and sturdy. We look forward to using them again!

Cons: the only minor problem was that the sandwich and burger baskets clip shut with a clip that could pop open if you dont close the basket clips firmly before use. We lost one burger when flipping the basket the first time, but did a better job pressing on the clip after that. Some kind of locking clasp on the clip might be a good addition. Otherwise, everything worked great!