[pct-l] Esbit stove

["Tom Simon" <simontom@cgocable.net>]

Hi Scot Conover,

Regarding your Esbit stove, an ounce of fuel to cook a meal is a lot of fuel. If you were out for let's say 6 days, cooked two meals a day, and wanted tea for two every other day, that comes to about fifteen meals. I think you could cook fifteen meals on an Alcohol stove  with about 8 oz. of fuel. The stove weight is about equal. But the alcohol costs pennies.

When I was too young to know better, before I learnt about all the fantastic stove available, I had a stove that burnt twigs of wood, was made from a free tomato juice can, used a renewable energy source, and I had to carry no fuel.

With all the restrictions on wood fires above 10,000 ft in the Sierras, I'm wondering if such a stove would be legal? It's not really a camp fire; it's a stove fire using wooden fuel. It never lets you down because of wet fuel. You can pick dead wood up ahead of time and dry it in your pack or use a fire starter. The only problem is all that soot that sticks to the bottom of the pot.