[pct-l] Re: stoves

[goforth at cnw.com (Joanne Lennox)]

I think alcohol stoves are the safest available, but any fool can start a
fire with any stove, and  all of us have some mistakes. It took 30 years to
make my major two mistakes, without real reprocussions, and I do not have to
make them again.

In making the pepsi stoves you can simply take another can bottom which will
protect the stove top and innards and can be used as a snuffer to put out
the stove immediately.  I have seen butane and white gas stoves over
pressurized and leaking, and see them explode; this is unlikely with
alcohol - not pressurized and the fuel does not pack the same punch.

Over the last 35 years I have used every type of stove immagineable.  Did
testing of the MSR stoves 30 years ago.  I believe most other stoves are
much less forgiving then alcohol if you mismanage the stove or have an
accident.

> I didn't imply that others on this list were incaplable of doing this
> safely....... but the fire danger here is extreme and a number of fires
have
> been started by PCT hikers , generally ones from outside california, who
> apprently can't/don't fully appreciate the danger one minor error can
make.
>
This is a statement that relates to ALL stoves, I do not see that it is
relevant to alcohol stoves.  If you have more people using alchol stoves
than butane, it does not necessarily mean that the alchol is unsafe, just
more likelihood that somebody will have an error in the use of the stove.  I
also think that it is specious to imply that people from outside of CA do
not appreciate fire danger - looks to me right now that there are more fires
in OR and WA than CA.

THE BEST POSSIBLE SOLUTION IS NOT TO HAVE A STOVE AT ALL. Eating granola,
energy bars, dried fruit, cheese, etc would work also.

Goforth
>