[pct-l] Alcohol availability

[Bob Sartini]

Cooking Style is the whole story. I just do a boil and eat for dinner so a 
canister lasts over 30 days in the woods. So with town stops I doubt I would 
use 5 canisters for the entire PCT. does that make sense to anyone but me?

How many refills for alcohol obviously depends on your fuel bottle.  What's 
a typical fuel carry? 16 oz ? And how mant refills do you need? I rarely use 
my alcohol stove because I don't like to smell liquid fuel and people seem 
to spill it a lot. At least on the AT all those burn marks in shelters are 
from alcohol stoves. I guess burn marks aren't a problem on the PCT only 
forest fires.

Its not the end of the earth to eat cold food sometimes either.

"EVERYTHING is in walking distance,"
    ......Bamboo Bob
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Powers" <ken at gottawalk.com>
To: <pct-l at backcountry.net>; "jeff" <kinnaye at myway.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 2:11 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Alcohol availability


> Check my webpage on shipping fuel:
> http://www.gottawalk.com/shipping_fuel.htm . The webpage includes the text
> from the postal regs, so you can interpret them yourself.
>
> Both alcohol and fuel canisters can be shipped by  US mail - ground only.
> The packages must be labeled as ORM-D and meet other criteria. Postal 
> clerks
> frequently (and wrongly) tell hikers that flammables cannot be shipped in
> the mail. I suggest printing out the web page, or at least the portion 
> that
> applies to your fuel, and taking it to the post office with you. The 
> amount
> you can ship of either fuel is not conducive to shipping it a bounce box. 
> I
> would worry that shipping your bounce box by ground might be to slow.
>
> I believe alcohol in its various forms are more available on the PCT than
> canisters. For solo hikers alcohol seems to be slightly lighter. But for 
> two
> people I believe fuel canisters are lighter if the re-supply leg is 3 days
> or more. The comparison is highly dependent on your cooking style. YMMV
>
> If you are shipping fuel with your food, maps, etc., you should consider
> shipping the fuel separately. Post office ground transportation can be
> extremely slow.  If the fuel doesn't arrive you would at least have food 
> and
> maps.
>
> We have never had a problem with canisters at any altitude up to 13,00 
> feet.
> We have found that we need to warm the canister for early morning use at 
> any
> altitude. The canisters just burn much more efficiently at a "room"
> temperature. I don't have experience with alcohol stoves at altitude but I
> think they would be okay.
>
> Another consideration is that alcohol stoves are considered open flames. 
> As
> such they are not legal when fire restrictions are in put place by the
> Forest Service or BLM. This happens frequently on the dry western trails.
> Alcohol flames burn with no color, so if you spill your Pepsi stove while 
> it
> is lit the flame can be hard to contain.
>
> Ken