ErnieW
Trail Wise!
I want to backpack
Posts: 9,928
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Post by ErnieW on Mar 25, 2024 20:46:12 GMT -8
For solo hiking my Pocket Rocket with the small MSR can has been working for me even in cold weather. Down in the teens even. I just use body heat to warm the canister before cooking. At least 10 minutes. More is better. Then it seems to run fine for the few minutes to get the water hot enough to make a FD meal.
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rebeccad
Trail Wise!
Writing like a maniac
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Post by rebeccad on Mar 26, 2024 6:31:15 GMT -8
I haven't used my Whisperlite Internationale in a decade or two, but just can't bring myself to get rid of it. It was a gift from some dear friends back in the late '80s, one of my first real pieces of backpacking gear. I still have mine, too. During the Sandy-related power outage, it did all of our cooking for two weeks. That just about doubled its cumulative use over a 20 year period. A good use for it, but I have a 2-burner propane car-camping stove, so that seems more than adequate It was moving that did it—we shed a lot of old gear when we were looking at moving everything into storage for a year, then into a new house.
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Post by cweston on Mar 26, 2024 6:50:41 GMT -8
A good use for it, but I have a 2-burner propane car-camping stove, so that seems more than adequate It was moving that did it—we shed a lot of old gear when we were looking at moving everything into storage for a year, then into a new house. Our Coleman 2-burner propane car-camping stove was one of the very first things we bought as married adults, 35+ years ago. I'm amazed every time that it still works. I don't recall what the cost was back then, but I'm sure it was a pretty big deal for us. Turns out to have been money well spent. It might be the one piece of gear in my camping/backpacking kit that has never been replaced.
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rebeccad
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Writing like a maniac
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Post by rebeccad on Mar 26, 2024 6:56:26 GMT -8
cweston, we only replaced ours because when we downsized we needed a smaller version. I replaced that smaller stove las year, but only because I gave the old one to my son .Those old-school Coleman stoves had very few moving parts, so very little to break or wear out. And I agree—can’t think of anything else in the whole kit that hasn’t been replaced/upgraded. Of course, with the BP gear it has a lot to do with being able to get lighter and lighter gear as the ability to haul big loads has diminished :D
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Post by cweston on Mar 26, 2024 7:06:28 GMT -8
Right...I've thought about this some (because I over-think everything). There are some specific reasons we replace BPing gear more frequently than car-camping gear: 1. The tolerance for failure is so much lower: a stove, tent, water filter that fails in the field may very well mean a trip aborted. 2. Durability is kind-of assumed for car-camping gear, but tends to come only with great cost (in weight or price) in BPing gear. 3. The physical desire/need to reduce our pack weight as we age, as rebeccad mentions. 4. There's no pressure (social, commercial) to be one of the "cool kids" and spend thousands of dollars gram-weenifying your car-camping gear
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BigLoad
Trail Wise!
Pancakes!
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Post by BigLoad on Mar 26, 2024 8:59:28 GMT -8
I still have mine, too. During the Sandy-related power outage, it did all of our cooking for two weeks. That just about doubled its cumulative use over a 20 year period. A good use for it, but I have a 2-burner propane car-camping stove, so that seems more than adequate It was moving that did it—we shed a lot of old gear when we were looking at moving everything into storage for a year, then into a new house. During Sandy, there was no propane available anywhere. No gas either, but I had a gallon of white gas in the garage. That brings back sad memories. It was two weeks before we could get gas for the car, and when we did it was 100 miles from home. Roughly 1/3 of businesses in our county went extinct in those two weeks, mostly gas stations and restaurants. The pandemic had less impact.
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gabby
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Post by gabby on Mar 26, 2024 9:32:30 GMT -8
FYI, I just bought a Soto Windmaster. I think you made a good choice. I don't have one (that's probably a surprise to many of you), but I've seen a lot of them in vlogs "ontrail". Very popular because the removable pot stand apparently makes them compact to carry - and they perform well. alky stove (mostly also a thing of the past, too, as fire restrictions mean it’s often not legal) Alkies and wood stoves are a huge regret on my part, even though it's probably for the best. Some people apparently don't even know how to find a trash can at the trailhead and wouldn't even give a thought to taking a trashbag with them. My personal opinion is that most of those I've seen about shouldn't be allowed to drive (or maybe even walk) on their own. I haven't used my Whisperlite Internationale in a decade or two, but just can't bring myself to get rid of it. It was a gift from some dear friends back in the late '80s, one of my first real pieces of backpacking gear. I have the same "disease": I have 4 (yeah, four) XGKs of varying vintage. I've thought about throwing them out, but I can't get the memories off 'em first, so they sit in a box on a shelf in the garage. Wife will be forced to deal with them when I finally "expire". FYI: I keep a Eureka (RIP) SPRK butane stove in a closet for "outage problems", of which we've had a few in recent years. I originally bought the thing to take with me on a planned roadtrip (that didn't materialize -- a recurrent theme in my life lately). A lot easier to use for those not familiar with the usual bp stuff (wife, daughter).
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Post by trinity on Mar 26, 2024 13:35:41 GMT -8
We also have a 2-burner Coleman, but ours burns white gas. I'd prefer propane, but as has been said here, these old stoves are practically bombproof, so this one will probably last my lifetime. It is the stove we used on our family camping trips when I was a kid, probably dates back to the mid 70s. Another rarely-used piece of gear I can't bear to part with....
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on Mar 26, 2024 17:53:20 GMT -8
Regarding BigLoad’s comment on the difficulty of getting propane during a crisis, I also have a gas grill, with a 20 lb tank, and last year bought a 5lb tank for the car stove (refillable—getting rid of the disposable 1-lb bottles). As long as I haven’t let those both get too empty, it’s plenty to keep my daughter and me eating for a long time. ANything I can think of that would hit this area and keep us without power for more than a few days is the sort of thing that makes boiling my dinner a moot point—Mt. Rainier erupting, the Cascadia Subduction Zone giving way in a massive earthquake… that sort of thing.
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