[pct-l] Stoves, stoves and more stoves....

[Randy Godfrey]

Thank you all for taking the time to post information on the alcohol vs canister stove issue. It was nice to see the usage comparisons in the graph (I saved that ThruHiker site, thanks) and to get your collective thoughts.

You did crack me up, Steel-Eye, with the Svea stove story. I, too used a Svea from the late '60s to the mid '70s, when I graduated to a Coleman Peak 1 (gasp). What a heavy beast it was. I used that thing until the early '90s when I moved up to an MSR Whisperlight. I loved that stove, but finally made the move to the lightweight canister stove about 10 years ago. I still miss the performance of the Whisperlight (flame thrower) in high altitude/freezing conditions.

My own little Svea story: My dad and I did a winter climb of Longs Peak in Colorado in 1970. Camped in Boulderfield at 13,000 ft., it was -13 degrees F in the morning and my dad had this brilliant idea to just cook in the tent. The Svea stove exploded in the process ( I think it was the pressure relief valve), flames everywhere. what I remember well was my dad picking up that little metal fireball and hurling it out into the snow. There was some hissing and then, yes, the silence of the wilderness returned.

Randy





________________________________
 From: CHUCK CHELIN <steeleye at wildblue.net>
To: PCT listserve <pct-l at backcountry.net> 
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 6:42 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Stoves, stoves and more stoves....
 
Good morning, Randy,

You don’t have it wrong.  There’s less to see in the stove discussion than
meets the eye.  Hikers love to discuss stoves:  We compare specs in
nauseating detail.  We are thrilled at the trinketry.  We handle them and
play with them; all the while imagining ourselves using them.  We are each
certain we have the exact right answer.

For a while back in the ‘60s I hiked with an old SVEA-123 stove; it being
about the lightest gas stove available at the time.  That fussy little
bitch provided me with two of the best moments of the day: First, when it
actually decided to start, and finally when I shut off its incessant
hissing and once again could enjoy the peace and quiet of the wilderness.

Having tried most other stoves over the following years, I became convinced
that Lt. Gen. Michail Kalashnikov was correct:  “Things that are complex
are not useful.  Things that are useful are simple."

Finally, after I had moved down the technology scale to an item that had
exactly no moving parts and found that it still involved too much fussing,
I subscribed to a theory from another useful thinker, Peter Drucker, who
said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should
not be done at all.”

As a result I left the stove and pot at home and began eating cold food.

I suggest you use what you know works for you and “Sweetie”.

Steel-Eye

-Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 7:35 PM, Randy Godfrey <randy3833 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> PCT friends,
>
> There is so much discussion over and desire to use the alcohol stoves. I
> feel like I'm missing something here. Are the advantages of using an
> alcohol stove that great over using a canister stove? My sweetie and I take
> a few 8-9 day backpack trips in the North Cascades and Utah every year and
> use an MSR Pocket Rocket canister stove. The stove itself, along with its
> little plastic tube case weighs 3.9 oz. The canister, containing 8 oz of
> fuel weighs 13.1 oz and lasts Lori and I one full week. We only boil water
> for coffee and hot cereal in the morning, and for freeze dried dinners in
> foil envelopes (either home made or Mountain House) in the evening. For an
> 8 or 9 day trip we will take along an extra small 4 oz container that we
> sometime will need to use on the last day or so.
>
> Wouldn't this system be viable for a thru hike?I understand that shipping
> the canisters is an issue in that they must be surface shipped, taking a
> while longer to reach the resupply destination. Are there other things to
> consider when using a canister stove for a thru?
>
> Thanks everyone,
>
> Randy
>
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