Coleman's Nova Lantern will light up your base camp!/Patrick Cone

Talk about a bright propane lantern, this one is it. With variable controls, the Northern Nova will put out 3,000 lumens that will light up the entire neighborhood.

We took this lantern camping into the Escalante River country of Utah, and soon put it to work as a series of rainstorms rolled in. Camped on a ridge well away from the slot canyons, we were super snug in my truck’s camper shell with this thing blazing both light and warmth. The rain got fairly intense, and in the morning there was about three inches of snow around, but when we fired up the lantern it warmed us up in a hurry.

Its dual mantles are connected top and bottom, which will hopefully keep them from breaking on some rough roads. Once in camp, we screwed a 16-ounce propane tank onto the bottom, swiveled the three legs down, turned it on and hit the red igniter. Instant light and heat.

We ended up folding up the legs, and hanging it from a tree branch the next morning. I’m going to keep an eye on these folding legs, though, in case they fold by themselves: the locking mechanism is pretty loose. Also, the lantern rattled around in the accompanying case a bit when we were in 4WD, so I ended up padding it with a small towel.

But, this is really well designed and made, and runs around $150.