[cdt-l] An alcohol stove for two

[Ken Powers]

Slight correction, Sly. We have carried the same stove since we started the PCT. It now has 4 long trails and nearly 13,000 miles on it. We looked at the Jetboil, but didn't think we could boil enough water for both of us in it.

We have mailed canisters all along all the trails. The only problem we have had was in Nevada on the ADT. For some reason the US Postal System in Nevada stopped delivery on all our packages that were marked ORM-D. The packages just disappeared. They never arrived in the destination post office and they never returned. The only ORM-D package we received in Nevada was addressed to Duckwater Indian Reservation. I have always wondered about the reasoning of that one delivery.

I am going to change my webpage on shipping fuel (http://www.gottawalk.com/shipping_fuel.htm) to recommend shipping fuel in a separate package. That helps get the food and maps to the destination faster and more surely.

Nobody talked about canisters. We find that canisters are faster to boil water than any of the other stoves, they can simmer, and the overall weight for a 4-5 day carry is about the same for 2 people. We carry the small (110 gram net wt)  canisters. We boil 2 cups of water in the morning and 4 cups at night. Rarely do we simmer. We get 4+ days of fuel out of each canister. That usually means carrying 1 full and 1 partial canister. But if we have a real low canister in town we may just burn it off. 

If I could figure out the weights the other fuels maybe I would build a spreadsheet to compare the different options. The varying amount of fuel usage makes that hard to do.

Now really off-topic. The reason we didn't hike last summer is we remodeled our kitchen. We got the flavor of hiking by using our hiking gear at home. We installed an induction cooktop. It was more expensive, but more efficient and faster than either gas or electric cooktops. We finally did our boil comparison last week.
We boiled 2 cups of tap water to full rolling boil over both stoves plus the microwave. 
Induction 1 min 50 sec; Gigapower canister stove 2 min 53 sec; microwave 6 min. Now if that burner wasn't so heavy and I could plug it into the currant bush that is what I would use.

Ken

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Slyatpct at aol.com 
  To: cdt-l at backcountry.net 
  Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:36 AM
  Subject: Re: [cdt-l] An alcohol stove for two


  In a message dated 12/25/2006 10:49:09 PM Eastern Standard Time, kborski at yahoo.com writes:
    This brings up a topic that I am have a question
    about......I'm looking for a two-person alcohol stove.

  Here's another option worth consideration, the Jetboil Group System.

  http://www.jetboil.com/Products/Cooking-Systems/Group-(GCS)

  I know Ken and Marcia have mailed canisters on most all of their hikes and if I'm not mistaken continue to do so.

  Sly




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