[pct-l] wood burning stove

[Sean 'Miner' Nordeen]

>>saw the recent thread on using stoves along the pct.  hadn't seen this wood
>>burning system discussed: http://bushbuddy.ca/
>>thoughts on this type of system with regard to its merits over alcohol or
>>white gas?

I own this stove and I enoy playing with it as it burns very efficiently and all
the wood burns down into a very fine ash.  There is something comforting
about playing with a wood fire.  Howver, it takes a surprising amount of time
collecting enough fuel.  You have to constantly feed fuel so leaving it alone for
very long while you go out and collect more isn't really going to work. The
advantage is you can boil as much water as you want with no worries having
to conserve fuel so you can have more hot drinks then you might otherwise
do.  You can simmer on this stove once you get a feel for feeding the fire
so that it burns less intently.

I've heard of people using wood stoves to hike the PCT (but I can only think of
one guy whom I actually know who did).  I ruled it out this year as it wouldn't be
legal in some places.  Most  districts don't treat a wood stove any different
then an open wood cooking fire.  So the same restrictions apply. So if fires
are not allowed in the High Sierra over 9000ft, then you legally can't use a
wood stove.  If fires are illegal, then using a wood stove isn't allowed.  Others
and I have asked Rangers this question and haven't been satisfied with the
resulting response.

Finding fuel isn't a problem even in the deserts of SoCAL.  But there are many
places there where using one maybe isn't safe.  Say when you are fighting 30MPH
wind gusts (often happens) and the idea of a spark released from your sove
drifting up and being caught by this sort of wind is a scary idea.  Also these
types of stoves don't work very efficiently in high winds anyway.

If you are in several days of rain, finding burnable fuel becomes more challenging
and needs some skill to find.  You normally need to be collecting through out the
day inorder to have enough semi-dry fuel by nightime in bad weather (having
some fire starter helps too).  But the reality is you really should be carrying
somesort of backup.  We have discussed this on Backpackinglight.com and
most carry some esbit solid fuel tablets to use as a backup. There is alot of 
discussion about the Bushbuddy stove on their forums since they
sell this stove so you might want to do some research there.

I might consider taking my bushbuddy on part of the CDT since you can even
burn dried dung and you are often in the middle of nowhere.  But if I did the PCT
again, I think I'd stick with alcohol stoves since I found the fuel abundant in every
place I looked (even places Yogi's GUide warned I might not) as it ended up
being less hassle.

-Sean "Miner" Nordeen

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Check my 2009 PCT Journal out at www.postholer.com/Miner