Too much stuff

[mark]

For my last cycle tour (Tuscany-Corsica-Sardinia), and for warm weather use in general, Trangias are great. They're quiet, easy to use, and I can generally find something useful or pleasant to do while the water gets to a boil. French and Italian supermarkets all carry bottles of denatured alcohol, so finding fuel is easy.

For backpacking/mountaineering trips at high altitudes (2500m +), it's a different story. Mornings and evenings are cold, the water supply is usually freshly melted from a nearby snowfield or glacier, and cooking times can become ridiculously long. Plus, carrying all that fuel in a backpack is a nuisance. At this point I'm happy to put up with the noise and pumping/priming associated with an MSR or other white gas stove. Less fuel to carry, too. Plus, Coleman fuel is still easy to find in the US, and usually cheaper than alcohol.

[Charlotte]

I (personally) find Trangias dirty/sooty, and (like clarion) slow.

Although I've never found meths stoves dirty (particularly in comparison to solid fuel cookers!) there is a simple tip to avoid any sooting at all.  After I fill the burner with meths, I always add a tiny splash of water from the bottle on my bike. 

For reasons I don't really understand, this gives a totally clean flame and absolutely no dirty bottoms 

[Kim]

It runs even cleaner on laboratory-grade methanol

[Wowbagger]

Interesting stove there alexb.  Looking at the MSR website they have dire warnings that only MSR bottles should be used with it. Is this them protecting their sales of gas, or is there something different about the mix they use, or the fitting on the bottle?

I've just bought an MSR stove and yes, you would need an MSR bottle. It operates under pressure and the tube joining the bottle to the stove has a specifically shaped nozzle and fixing spring which, presumably (not having inspected any) other brands do differently. Instruction 3 and its diagrams show this: http://mediastaging.cascadedesigns.com/pdf/msr_xgk_ex_manual_en.pdf .

I must admit that I shared Kim's little moment over the laden Pino Hase.

[Kim]

Indeed, for example the otherwise excellent Trangia fuel bottles, while safe for carrying pretty much any fuel, come with dire warnings about not using them with stoves that pressurise the bottle.

Top tip: in the event of accidentally pressurising your Trangia fuel bottle (for example, by leaving it half full in a hot tent all day), don't peer through the nozzle while wondering why the plunger mechanism isn't releasing.  It will choose that moment to un-stick and squirt warm meths and vapour into your remaining eye.  DAHIKT.

[drossall]

I believe that Baden Powell (founder of the Scouts) told people, on returning from an expedition, to sort kit into three piles:

• Into the first goes the stuff you have to take, whether you used it or not (first aid kit, waterproofs...)
• Into the second goes the stuff you used
• Everything else gets left behind next time

Repeat next time. And so on.

Of course, labour-saving gadgets and comfy camping seats were almost unknown then, but would end up in pile 2 now.

[Kim]

And the fourth pile: things you're adding to pile 1 for next time (bogroll, etc)

[Arch]

And a fifth: sporks, woodburning stoves, titanium chopsticks, all things you saw other people on YACF buy and had to have yourself...

[Kim]

On that note, barakta and I decided that if we ever own a set^[1] of axes, we're going to name them 'X', 'Y', 'Z' etc...


_{[1] I believe we do have a small and extremely blunt one in a box of random camping gear somewhere.}

[tonyh]

A cunning plot?

[Cudzoziemiec]

I believe that Baden Powell (founder of the Scouts) told people, on returning from an expedition, to sort kit into three piles:

• Into the first goes the stuff you have to take, whether you used it or not (first aid kit, waterproofs...)
• Into the second goes the stuff you used
• Everything else gets left behind next time

Repeat next time. And so on.

Of course, labour-saving gadgets and comfy camping seats were almost unknown then, but would end up in pile 2 now.

The problem there is defining 'have to take'...

[Efrogwr]

H W Tilman said that it should be possible to plan an expedition on the back of an envelope.

[drossall]

And carry the kit in it?

[Efrogwr]

He didn't take a lot!

His trans-Africa bike trip must have been some undertaking; Kampala to Leopoldville on a roadster.