Winter Backpacking Stoves

I love my whisperlight International... even ran Military fuel in it when I was in the army. However I did have the flow valve gasket fail in Baxter this spring and I did not have the right replacement gasket in my kit... nothing you can do then (my own fault for not verifying my repair kit). Since this was the only gasket size I was missing in the kit, I decided not to buy a new MSR kit, but rather see what the hardware store had available. The guy at the store gave me 8 gaskets free of charge... cool.

Also... I replaced my pump after a "crush" injury to my old one some years ago. However, I didn't like the fact that MSR had replaced the leather pump gasket with a rubber one. I put my old leather one back in... plus I have two spares in the bag.

As for the XGK... that is what the All-Army Mountaineering team in Alaska used for years. I met a guy from the team. He told me that they had come across some dirty-nasty fuels in their travels, and that the XGK was the ONLY stove that would burn said fuel.

Basically, I don't think there is ONE best solution... but some of the most reliable models have been mentioned here. The super easy stoves are usually not reliable in a wide range of conditions. When it is cold, you want reliability. Bear in mind what some people call "headaches", others call "proper-planning" and "knowing your equipment". My wife didn't like my whisperlight at first, because she was used to a screw-on compressed-gas burner. Now she realizes that the whisperlight is definitely superior for quick boiling and melting snow. Also... I can get a flame with it almost as quick as she can with her easy-peasy version.... she won't let me forget it at home during a trip.

I would say that Primus is like the European equivalent of MSR. They make some very reliable stoves that you find all over the alps in guides packs.

But say you did want a "Plug -and-Play" stove for quick winter day-trips.... what would it be? I think this is what MindlessMirachi was getting at.

Anyone have ideas as to how you could improvise some of the smaller gaskets inside an MSR pump.. just in case I run into that again?

Unless I missed a page, there was not much info in the Chauvin Guides article. They say "Forget the conventional wisdom, gas canister stoves work fine in the cold!" Then they cite "experience and ingenuity" as the ways to keep the gas stove working fine in the cold. ? Are they using telekinesis? Or just being cute?

Of course we're all familiar with keeping the canister in the sleeping bag so it's warm in the morning; but it would be nice to know the other tricks that people might use, based on their "experience and ingenuity."

TCD said:

Unless I missed a page, there was not much info in the Chauvin Guides article. They say "Forget the conventional wisdom, gas canister stoves work fine in the cold!" Then they cite "experience and ingenuity" as the ways to keep the gas stove working fine in the cold. ? Are they using telekinesis? Or just being cute?

Of course we're all familiar with keeping the canister in the sleeping bag so it's warm in the morning; but it would be nice to know the other tricks that people might use, based on their "experience and ingenuity."

Click to expand...

Hanging stoves are generally used on multi-day technical climbs (where there may be no suitable place to put a stove) or for cooking in one's tent. (Chauvin's winter Presi traverse article talks about cooking in the tents.)

Part of the logic in that article (the bit about canister stoves are used in the Himalayas so they are good in the NE) is misleading. Cold reduces the vapor pressure in the canister (the pressure in the canister has to be greater than the ambient for the stove to work). The reduced atmospheric pressure at high altitude allows the stove to operate at colder temps than at low altitudes. From what I have read, kerosene is the most common fuel used at Himalayan base camps (cheap, effective, and readily available) and canister fuels are used only on the climbs because of their light weight and simple operation.

The physics of fuel canisters require that you either keep the fuel canister warm enough or reduce the ambient pressure to a low enough level. Evaporation of the fuel during operation also tends to cool the fuel... (There are a variety of schemes for transferring some of the heat from the burner to the canister, but they carry the risk of overheating the canister and causing an explosion.)

Note: the fuel in canisters is butane because it has a convenient pressure vs temp curve. Propane, which has a much higher vapor pressure, would work better at low temps but is not used because it requires a much heavier steel canister to contain the pressure. (In general propane stoves are limited to car-camping--there used to be a propane hiking stove called the Grasshopper, but it hasn't been available for many years.)

Doug

BoulderBum said:

I would say that Primus is like the European equivalent of MSR. They make some very reliable stoves that you find all over the alps in guides packs.

Click to expand...

The reason I bought the Primus is that it was the closest relative of the Optimus 8r I was finally replacing. I still have 2 8r's. One has a bad tank cap gasket. I'll have to see if the other is still fully functioning when under pressure...could be fun !

FWIW: I still have the box one of them came in.

TCD said:

Of course we're all familiar with keeping the canister in the sleeping bag so it's warm in the morning; but it would be nice to know the other tricks that people might use, based on their "experience and ingenuity."

Click to expand...

Steve House has a little trick he mentions using with his canister stove on Nanga Parbat (@ 14:30):

http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/popup/media_gallery_video.jsp?OPTION=SAR&assetid=10171

They used the MSR Windpro, where you can flip the canister upside down.

Purely anecdotal - at 13K' I made water for 3 people (~7L) on less than one regular sized canister and my Jetboil. The canister was pre-heated beforehand but once we had it on the hanging kit it was not rewarmed. Temps were probably just under freezing inside the tent.

DougPaul said:

Note: the fuel in canisters is butane because it has a convenient pressure vs temp curve. Propane, which has a much higher vapor pressure, would work better at low temps but is not used because it requires a much heavier steel canister to contain the pressure. (In general propane stoves are limited to car-camping--there used to be a propane hiking stove called the Grasshopper, but it hasn't been available for many years.)

Click to expand...

Actually, there's a mix using propane in most, if not all of the gas cartridges these days. E.g., MSR Isopro. See Zen Canister Stoves for particulars on properties of canister fuels and the limitations of canister stoves at low temperatures.

DougPaul said:

there used to be a propane hiking stove called the Grasshopper, but it hasn't been available for many years.)

Doug

Click to expand...

I still have a vintage grasshopper, and use it ocasionally on shorter trips when I don't worry about the weight. After all, it only weighs a little more than my peak 1.

cbcbd said:

Steve House has a little trick he mentions using with his canister stove on Nanga Parbat (@ 14:30):

http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/popup/media_gallery_video.jsp?OPTION=SAR&assetid=10171

They used the MSR Windpro, where you can flip the canister upside down.

Click to expand...

This treats the butane as a liquid fuel and avoids the evaporative cooling of the canister. (The evaporation occurs in the burner instead of in the canister.)

In canisters that use fuel mixtures, the higher-vapor-pressure components will evaporate first if you run the canister right-side-up leaving you with the low-vapor-pressure components toward the end (with poorer low-temp performance). When you turn the canister upside down, all the components are used simultaneously in constant proportions. Both of these factors give better low-temp performance all the way until the canister is empty.

There are a number of stoves that can operate with an inverted canister.

Doug

sardog1 said:

Actually, there's a mix using propane in most, if not all of the gas cartridges these days. E.g., MSR Isopro. See Zen Canister Stoves for particulars on properties of canister fuels and the limitations of canister stoves at low temperatures.

Click to expand...

Yes, there are canisters available that contain mixtures of butane, isobutane, and/or propane. They attempt to create a middle ground between butane and propane to get better low-temp performance without needing the heavy canisters required by pure propane. However, they suffer from the problem described in my previous post unless you can use them inverted.

Doug

Nobody has mentioned the Optimus Nova. It's an awesome, dependable stove. I bought it the first year it came out, and haven't needed another stove. Well, I did buy a canister stove for its lightweight convenience in other seasons. The fuel pump on the Optimus Nova is all-aluminum, so you don't have to worry about any plastic pieces breaking off. It's also a multifuel stove, and easily field maintainable/repairable. Last winter, boiled a liter of water in under 10 minutes in single digit temps.

Aviarome