[pct-l] Fw: Alcohol vs Canister stoves.

[AsABat]

I have had NO problems with any alcohol stove.  I have has several near misses with canister and gas stoves and of one person severely burned in a gas stove mishap. It's a matter of using any fire safely.

AsABat
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Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

"Edward Anderson" <mendoridered at yahoo.com> wrote:

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>For a very good reason open fires are prohibited by law in many parts
>of the 
>PCT. The flame of an alcohol stove is an open fire just as a wood fire
>is. Over 
>the years, many fires affecting the PCT have been started by those
>cooking on 
>wood campfires or alcohol stoves. There are several problems with
>alcohol 
>stoves. 1) Alcohol is a liquid that you must pour and it can spill and
>spread if 
>the burning stove is accidentally knocked over. 2) There is no shut-off
>valve - 
>you can't shut off or even adjust the flame - therefore you can't
>simmer either 
>- it's all or nothing. 3) The flame is invisible in daylight. I know,
>they are 
>lighter, and those who are very experienced can, and do, use them with 
>reasonable safety. What I am MORE concerned about is that people with
>little or 
>no experience, who are determined to go UL, will be influenced to use
>them and 
>might end up starting fires. Just one hiker-started fire can burn
>thousands of 
>acres and shut down the trail that we all love. This happened once
>during my 
>2008 ride.
>
>As for canister stoves:  I used a Jetboil during both 2008 & 2009.  It
>was very 
>easy and convenient to use and turned out to be trouble-free for about
>five 
>months on the trail - and I lived on the trail - did not go into towns
>for "0" 
>days as most hikers do. So I cooked more often. I never had a flare-up.
>The 
>flame was fully adjustable allowing me to simmer when I wanted to. And
>I could 
>simply turn the valve to shut off the flame. It was very
>fuel-efficient; cooking 
>two meals a day, I could get six or even seven days on the 7 ounce
>canister. I 
>also carried a four ounce canister as a back-up, and rarely used it. By
>the time 
>I got to Washington in 2009 I had become so confident of safely using
>that stove 
>that I was able to cook inside the vestibule of my tent when it was
>raining 
>outside. I notice in the latest REI catalog that the Jetboil "Green
>Edition" 
>includes a "crunchit" tool allowing you to safely empty the canister
>and 
>puncture it for recycling. I'm going to get one of those small tools
>for my 2011 
>ride.
>
>As for safety, it is best to not cook at all, as Steel-Eye suggests,
>especially 
>in some fire-hazard areas. And you save even more weight and eliminate
>a lot of 
>clean-up time. I have one friend, a Canadian, who did the entire PCT
>without 
>cooking. She simplified eating. No stove. No cooking utinsils to
>clean. She was 
>a slow, but steady, hiker. She said that she mostly ate while hiking. 
>
>
>MendoRider
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>      
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