Story Break: Short Trips

Story Break

Short Trips

Reinhold Pudzer

OK, Mr. Boone, Dan’l sir, lets us get started here, if you dont mind. Your still in your bunny slippers and you havent ever stepped into the woods yet. Hiking let alone backpacking is over the horizon yet like a dream thats only penciled you in.

They call you tenderfoot because without them slippers you cant even make it out to your car and back. But neither can I come to think of it, I never did any barefoot and theres no reason for it as far as I can tell, but thats the term for it and it fits, so your a tenderfoot.

Now your first step with or without slippers is to decide if you want to do it, hiking or backpacking. Lets say you know deep inside your one of us and you say yes. Your talking to yourself now of course but we’ll overlook that for the moment and just give you a big welcome aboard and a howdy pardner handshake.

Now get dressed. Were not fancy but we got some standards, so make sure you got on a pair of pants at least. Lets try making a cup of coffee first. Or whatever suits you. You need a stove with fuel, a pot and a cup of some kind, and water. Keep it simple.

Your First Trip

Make your first trip real short. Go out the back door into the yard. A concrete patio is a good place to set up, a driveway, a flat rock, anything that wont burn. If this trip looks too scary, tie a string to the back door and the other end to your pants. Thats another reason to wear pants. So you can find your way back home again. Tie the string onto a belt loop. Allay those fears.

Now your out in the boonies so to speak. Lets say your out there so far you cant even hear the TV set any more. You got no running water (no hoses allowed now!!!) and your on your own, except maybe the cat came along for its own amusement. This is your first survival mission, to make a cup of coffee before the wildlife gets you, and then hightail it back again with all your fingers and toes, no charred spots on your hide, still wearing those pants. The cat can stand in for a pack of wolves. Stay up close to the house if you start feeling scared or dizzy. If you have been out before and you can navigate OK, then head for the back fence and make it an expedition. Never turn your back on the wolves. You dont know for sure what there thinking.

Lay everything out, take it easy, and dont set yourself on fire.

When you get back home again, take stock. What did you forget to take? Did you get things done in the right order? Does it work to lay everything out first and then rig it all up, or should you pull things out as you need them? Have trouble losing things? Like your matches? Spill all your fuel? Whatever. Evaluate. How did it go with the wolves? Are they still amused?

Once you survive this you have some confidence. If you still feel partly ignorant your right on track. The ignorant part of you will get smarter, and the smart end of you will welcome some company. Those two parts of you will eventually run together and become one competent person and things will improve, as long as you dont kill yourself first, so take care. If you have more than two parts, then have a conference, negotiate. Dont let anyone walk out, you need to hold all of them together or it wont work.

Ignorance is natural, nothing to be ashamed of. Everybodys pretty near 100 per cent ignorant about everything, but its curable in spots, you just keep at it. Not stupidity. You never know when or how a stupid person is going to spook and charge around, so give him a wide berth and go around, and dont join there ranks or your done for.

Now you got this far, you have proved your not stupid, and if you got in here by mistake somehow, you have our best wishes and just turn around, please. And leave right now, OK? The exit is right behind you.

Next, Your Foray Into The Neighborhood

Got a small park or a school playground nearby? Shoot for that. Take your stove, your fuel, etc. Take a friend, take your girlfriend or boyfriend, or your husband or wife, or one of your kids, somebody. Thats your cover. You need it these days. Single guys especially. Your gonna look like a suspicious weirdo now, no getting around it, because you are one. In the park playing with some gizmo, setting fires, doing unauthorized things, you need cover. Take someone. Look harmless. Have a alibi.

Do your thing, practice with the stove, learn your way into it. This is your second short step, one more easy step from home. Keep on keeping it simple. Heat some water, make some soup. Try it on a weekend, in the afternoon when people are relaxed and its nice out. Maintain your cover. Playing a genial idiot usually works, especially alongside your normal looking companion.

Now, again review the experience once its over. Did you set the park on fire? Did the police come by for a little talk? How many fire trucks were there? Still having difficulty boiling water? If your confused, then go back home and do some figuring – is this really for you? Your call, but it gets harder from here, a little at a time, sure, but it does get harder. Its a gentle slope uphill all the way. Start over with step one if needed but take it easy. Never forget to wear pants. A bunny suit is OK in your back yard, but you have to keep the pants on, and no bunny suits at the park. Bunny suits at home only, please, indoors if you can.

Advance To The Bush

Now your going to stay out over night like a real camper. This is your first giant step. Everybody has some place they can go, a real campground, a place down by the river, a safe empty lot that your friend owns. Somewhere. This is one more step up. Your significant otherwise will likely peel off at about this stage, but one of your kids might tag along, if you got one, to look after you (but limit yourself to one at a time). Assuming you know how to work a tent, take that, a sleeping bag, a little food, and your cook kit. Sleep out overnight and make breakfast the next morning.

One small giant step into backpacker kind.

This trip will teach you self-reliance, endurance, patience, how to fend off stray pets (and maybe other stuff, depending on where you end up), how to blend in (if you camped somewhere sketchy).

If you pay for a campsite your probably safest. Otherwise, practice your genial idiot act if you end up where you might not have full rights to, and dont blame me. Your an adult and you need to make your own decisions. Your life. We have to use what we got, but a real campground is best – your legal, people expect you to be camping there, and maybe you can learn some from watching out the corner of your eye.

Practice the tent in your yard first. Put the tent up, lay out the sleeping bag. Maybe spend the night out there once or twice. Then do it away from home.

Try To Stay Legal

Maybe you got a public park thats wooded. Maybe its a daytime-only park, with picnic tables and little loop trails but its got a brushy back lot full of trees. Got one like that here, where a guy could get familiar with the place, then ease in toward dusk, keep a low profile, and spend one night. If thats all you got, thats all you got, a first introduction to stealth camping, which is another subject however.

Litz, a friend of mine did this once, slid in under the radar, took his gear in a small pack. Plan was to stay overnight, make breakfast the next morning, just like a real backpacker, and walk out. That was the plan. The sheriff wont understand, the police wont be kindly, and the park staff will stampede from someone creeping around, and then your in trouble. A person has to be cool. Litz was, he thought. Staying close to home and keeping it simple, doing it on the cheap, being illegal but technically innocent, just this one time.

A first night out will feel funny, though some harmless fear is good for a person, being out in the woods where you never know who your neighbors are, or what they want to eat.

Meet Your Local Predators

Like your park squirrel, as Litz found out. Officer Nightstick isn’t always the biggest worry. A looming worry, true, at least in your head, but there are worse problems to be found, ones with beady black eyes and scratchy claws mounted all over. So ask yourself what squirrels eat, then ask yourself whats a word for completely crazed.

Nuts.

Litz was in the wrong territory, Squirrel Land, and mistaken for something else. Maybe the scent of supper was still on him, or maybe in that sleeping bag he looked like the worlds biggest peanut, or both. Hows a squirrel gonna react?

A squirrel could lose control and try to take a guy out, thats how. So thats how it was, man against squirrel, or vice versa, and no warning to speak of.

At dawn, there was Litz, on the ground, all wrapped up in his poofy new down bag, hiding under some friendly bush in the park, tingling with his new sense of adventure as daylight came on, thinking how he did it, made it through his first night in the woods safe and sound, without any fuss. And how all he had to do was get up, make some breakfast with his new ultralight stove, and walk out like anybody else because he was legal now, with daylight, and then heres this thing coming at him real sudden, with an appetite and an attitude. It was also headed for breakfast and Litz figured he must be it.

Dont underestimate your park squirrel, not even once. He knows his home turf. He has a hard life, scuffing all over for bites of this and that, never enough to eat. And now a miracle, theres you, the jackpot, a giant Mr. Peanut right on Mr. Squirrel’s front lawn. In this case the lucky target was a Mr. Bill Litz, about to have his opening encounter with wild life. He parted his eyelids and what was he looking at? Food lust, looking him right back in the face, thats what. Litz the nut of a lifetime and Mr. Squirrel planning to take him down, chop him up and haul him back home in pieces, no negotiating. And Litz was already horizontal.

The hand is quicker than the eye, and the squirrel is quicker than the hand. A lot quicker than me and you put together. A squirrel has sharper teeth and claws than you or me. Mr. Squirrel can twist and jump every whichway up and down trees like magic, here, there, everywhere, blink, blink, faster than you can follow.

Litz was in his poofy cocoon on the ground and nothing free but his face, which was his only weapon, arms and legs being trapped inside with the rest of him. He couldnt move, just his nose and eyebrows. Thats what he had to fight with. Him in one corner of the ring and a furry buzz saw in the other, moving out at a full gallop.

Likely This Wont Happen To You, Maybe

Likely you wont have to roll over on your belly when a squirrel leaps for you, you being like some big worm starting to hump through the brush to outrun a hungry beast. The beast on your topside, the one thats ripping into your shell to get at the nut inside. Likely you wont be hollering and clawing around in there, trying to get out, and not making it, terrorized by this demon. Knowing that somehow it might get inside with you, in this place that you thought was so warm and cozy and safe a second ago.

Likely this wont happen. You wont be bumping and rolling along the ground, getting muddy and wet with dew and thrashing around, crashing into bushes and over mossy logs, and hit the edge of a slope, the one that will roll you down into that creek where your now afraid of drowning as well, with this beast still on your back. Likely you arnt strong enough to rip the seams of your sleeping bag somehow, and get up and go wailing into the picnic area in your underwear chased by a furry demon, one thats after the big nut that hes not going to lose, not by any means whatsoever.

Well, likely not. You will avoid this embarrassment. You will be more careful. But if your gonna be a backpacker you will see lots of strange things, some of them crawling on you some of them coming at you, and you need to be prepared.

Practice!

Thats why you need practice. It gives you experience and perspective. Ease into it with short trips, one at a time, and deal with the real simple stuff first. Get used to night sounds, sleeping out, bugs, knocked-over cook pots. Learn how to handle the unexpected and your own mistakes, then get more adventurous and go farther and longer and face bigger challenges as you feel you can.

As your confidence improves, make it more complicated. Travel with a group. Plan ahead. Cook several meals a day. Clean up afterward. Stay out for two nights, or three. Learn how to camp and carry things in a pack and get around on foot rather than being dropped off at a campsite with a ride back home again. You can do it. One step at a time.

Dont worry about squirrels. They wont hurt you. Squirrels are totally harmless, aside from sitting in a tree and cheeping at you. This didnt really happen like this. It wasnt a squirrel, I threw that in because everybody knows squirrels, it was mice. Its mice you got to fear. They come in waves. And they will eat you alive.

Using for Short Trips

Using for Short Trips

Typical short trip complaints which the US Forest Service received from backpackers in 1998
(from the AmericanTrails.org humor section.):

• Too many bugs and spiders. Please spray the area to get rid of these pests.
• Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.
• Chairlifts are needed so we can get to the wonderful views without having to hike to them.
• A McDonald’s would be nice at trailhead.
• Too many rocks in the mountains.
• The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.

L et’s face it, folks, most backpackers go out for a weekend every now and then. Sometimes a long weekend. Maybe two or three times a summer. That really isn’t much. It may be what you like. It may be just right for you, but it isn’t that much.

Maybe every other year you’ll go out for four nights and five days, or push it and go even one day longer. If you get only one week of vacation time a year you may not want to spend it all in one place. Even if you get more vacation time, a week in the woods is a lot of time out there for most people.

As with weather though, where good weather represents an extreme, short trips represent an extreme. On a short trip you don’t need much. On a short trip in good weather during the middle of summer you really don’t need much at all. That’s where the idea of ultralight comes into its own.

If you’re hiking somewhere between five and 50 miles over a three-day weekend when you know the temperatures will be warm, the winds calm, and the chance of rain less than getting hit by a falling asteroid on your birthday right after winning the lottery, you can pare your equipment, food, and safety margin right down to bare, shiny metal. Do you really need to carry a two-person, six pound, double-wall tent just for yourself? Do you need that winter-weight sleeping bag? Or that six pound internal frame pack?

Naw.

Likewise, do you need your white gas stove and a liter of fuel? Hmmm.

How about a quarter-ounce alcohol stove and six ounces of Everclear? (To burn in the stove, of course.) With an aluminum cup to heat water in, an aluminum foil wind screen, a wire pot stand and some matches, your cooking kit might total eight ounces or less (227g). Total cost, between zero and maybe six or seven dollars. Compare that to $100 for a manufactured stove weighing a pound, and a pound or two more for the fuel bottle and fuel, plus another pound for a big cook set, and so on. You see the difference, I know you do.

For short trips in good weather you can choose your equipment carefully and head out with a base pack weight of nine to 12 pounds (4 - 5kg). Add some food, fuel and water, and you might hit 14 to 20 pounds at the start of the trip (6 - 9kg). Compare this to the 35 to 50 pounds (16 - 23kg) that you might be carrying now. Some people, thinking long and hard, choosing their gear carefully, and having gained enough experience to work it all out, have set out with base pack weights of under five pounds (2.3kg).

These are the times that alcohol or solid fuel tablet stoves really shine. And of course a four-ounce (113g) wood-burning stove fits right into the picture as well.

Exercises

1. Try a really short backpacking trip. If you’ve gone out for a week, try a day. If you’ve gone out for a day, try an hour. If you’ve hiked 20 miles in from a trailhead, try camping in your back yard, and then on your back porch. Next, try going ultralight. Walk around the house naked for an entire weekend. Longer, if you have a good bod and big picture windows.
2. Calculate the probability of getting hit by a falling asteroid on your birthday right after winning the lottery. If the chance seems significant at all, then please put me in your will. Please, please, please, please.

Story Break: Bad Conditions

Story Break

Bad Conditions

Reinhold Pudzer

Some of your worst hiking is going to be because of who your with on the trail. Some thoughts here about handling those situations, starting with insects.

The Single Bee

We’ll start small, so you city people can follow along. The second letter of the alphabet is B, but the first thing you got to look out for is a bee. Some of you have seen a bee, but we are not taking too much for granted here, so lets talk about one bee at a time. Try to follow along. The thing about bees, now, is you never see just one. Bees dont do that. Think of a shotgun shell. Its full of BBs. Not one. Lots. Like bees. Think bees bees, like the sound they make – beezzz beezzz. If you see one that means the place is full of them and most of them are behind you somewhere or right overhead. They know which side of you your eyes are on, and they can see you, even with those little specky eyes they got. The most important thing is they arnt too bright. Not deep thinkers, most of them. They fly around and suck flowers all day, for crying out loud, so dont plan on negotiating. If a bee stings you it will die because it cant get its stinger back out again. It stays with you. Thats kinda bad for both parties. Whether a bee knows this or not I am not aware, but they dont go around stinging people for fun. If you have a bee come and buzz around you or butt you with its head, then its time to make like a tree and leaf. Pronto, though personally I have never seen that head butt thing. Some fancy writer made that up I think. Anyhow, if you see one, theres more of them waiting in the bushes, thats the important thing. They dont want to give up the flower sucking to work on you unless they got a good reason, so take the hint. Othern that, maybe you smell too good. If your really a hiker then this isnt very likely, but who knows what the hell things smell like to a bee? If your a guy and you smell like flowers then tell me which trail your gonna be on so I can go somewhere else. I will leave you and the bees in peace. Dont let the buzzing sounds surprise you.

The Bee Hive

This is where the bees live. Its like a big apartment house in the wrong neighborhood. You can tell if your near a hive if you cant hear to keep up your conversation. There will be lots of buzzing coming from each direction, lots of bees flying around. You will see them. This here is a real strong clue. Time for a change of scenery. Bees can fly as fast as you can run. You can run, right?

The Bee Attack

Even one of these can ruin most days. When you feel that first suicidal bee ramming his stinger into your hide and hear thousands more right behind him, then you know you have hit paydirt and its about to hit back. Pretty soon you will be covered in bees, all butt-end down against some part of you, shoving those stingers in. Maybe you have seen pictures. It aint pretty but it can be fun to watch from a distance, especially to the right person, but not you. All of these bees are female, by the way. Dont ask me I didnt make the rules, just try to live by them.

Chapter Two: The Snake

These guys give most people the willies. Maybe thats a good thing cause it keeps whole bunches of dumb hodknockers off the trails. My experience, I would rather spend a day inside a bag of snakes than around most people, nine days out of ten. Overall they keep to themselves and dont cause any trouble. They have smooth little bodies covered with clean dry scales, and little jewels for eyes. They dont bark. Never once did I lay in bed and listen to my neighbors snake bark all night. Not once, ever.

The Poisonous Snake

Same as the above, but with that special blend of spices. A snake wont bite unless you scare the piss out of it. They need that venom to buy lunch with. Any snake knows your too big to eat and the last thing a snake wants to see is your big heavy boots coming its way. Its down on the ground with no legs to run with, so what the heck would you do? You act nice, the snake will too, but if not it will bite as a last resort.

The Swarm Of Snakes

You see one of these your damn lucky, unlike a swarm of bees. A swarm of snakes is a ball of snakes all wiggling together with a female inside somewhere that everybodys trying to mate with. Similar to what you can see down at the bar on a Saturday night, but quieter and less likely to explode.

The Mountain Lion

You see one of these, your damn lucky too, because somebody made a mistake and it wasnt you. The big cats can hear a human coming for about six miles, more if you have got your mouth open and have a bunch of words falling out. You see one its a special day. Maybe it wants you to come over for lunch, or its trying to figure out what the heck you are, or it just plain wasnt paying attention. Now which one of these is appealing to you? The good news is mountain lions dont much like the way we taste, though they do play with their food. If you noticed, lions are cats. Cats like to chase things, so think of yourself as a big catnip mouse and good luck there.

The Swarm Of Poisonous Mountain Lions

If you see one of these coming, its time to lift up your tail and kiss your butt goodbye. They got teeth sticking out every whichway, and exactly every one of them is just dripping with the worst kind of poison you can think of. Just try to imagine that for a second. Well, its worse than that, lots worse when theres a whole swarm of these things coming down the mountain at you. They dont swarm often, and those that have seen it didnt live to tell about it, mostly, so you got an experience on your hands here, might as well enjoy it. You will see a big cloud of dust and hear a sound like a runaway freight train, like a tornado coming at you, as people say. Only this one has fur on it, and a point of view. You cant tell for sure which way the swarm will go, so its your choice where to run and hide, or stand and fight, or stand and enjoy the sight for your last few moments. Either way its likely to ruin your week. Probably best if you can make yourself look like a big puddle of water because you know about cats and water. That might work. As you have found out if you ever tried to drop Fluffy in the bathtub just to see what would happen. Likely Fluffy didnt talk to you for a spell, until you were pretty near healed again. I never did figure out how a cat will never actually contact the surface of any amount of water, but sort of always bounces up right back at your face. Anyway, if your standing in a puddle already, you might have a chance. Try to get real flat. Go with the flow. Nice knowing you.

Bears

These are big dumpy things with more fur than most other things. Big teeth. Big paws. All that. Like all big wild things they pretty much leave you alone, except for the ones that like to surprise people and eat them. You have heard this. Black bears are smaller and grizzlies arnt. Bears sleep a lot in the winter and eat the rest of the time. By and large they go their own way unless you smell really delicious. One hungry bear equals one swarm of poisonous mountain lions. One hungry grizzly equals two swarms.

Finally, The Idiot

By far worse than being sucked dry by mosquitoes or dismantled by horseflies is having some idiot glom onto you for a week or so. You might find one of these wandering around alone up in the mountains with a pack the size of a boxcar, and he’s lonely. He will follow you like a rubber balloon stuck on a cat with static electricity and you cant shake him and he’s looking for friendship. He will tell you how good it is out in the open away from his job and all his problems, in the backcountry where a man can breathe free and be alone, and if you so much as blink you will see the look of fear in his eyes that you might sneak off leave him alone again. So if your too nice to kill him outright, or just afraid of being caught afterwards you will have a buddy for a while and you will learn all about his life and his family and what he liked best about third grade and what his favorite school lunch was, and why his stuff is better than yours, and meanwhile your looking up in the trees for any sign of a wasp nest you can whack with a stick in hopes of a restful distraction. If you cant shake him you will have him twitching and snoring all night next door to you, thrashing around like some crazy inmate, and then coming over at breakfast and leering down into your food and asking you how you slept and giving you this creeping feeling all over your skin. And then the seconds will start to drag something fierce. You will think about that time you set your shirt on fire and smile at the memory and look over to your new friend and wonder how fire would look on him. And all the while he’s telling you stuff you dont want to know, about people you dont want to hear about, and your getting desperate for someplace to scrape this guy off your hide, and maybe you do it and maybe you dont but whatever happens, its an experience that stays with you for life. Happy trails.

Using In Bad Conditions

Using In Bad Conditions

When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble. – Dr. James Boren

Bad conditions make everything more interesting, including cooking and eating. (Hey, we’re assuming a positive attitude here. Everything short of dismemberment or immolation is hereby defined as “interesting”.)

Here are some things you might define as “bad”:

Wind: Makes stoves hard to light and hard to keep lit. Sucks the heat out of the flame and away from the pot. If strong enough, can remove your toupee.

Rain: Need we go into this? Makes absolutely everything harder. Stay out in the rain long enough and you and everything you have with you will eventually get wet, no matter what you do. It’s messy, just messy. And inconvenient.

Cold: Sucks heat like the wind does. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but who’s comparing? Makes stoves hard to light, and uses more fuel.

Heat: Not really much problem most of the time, though you may want to protect your bulk fuel container from getting too hot. Cooked food cools more slowly, so you have to wait around for it. Or get a burned tongue. Quit whining. It’s called “summer”. It’s what you’ve patiently waited all year for. Enjoy once.

High altitude: This is a combination threat – usually windy and cold, but may have precipitation thrown in for extra fun, and the precipitation could be stinging ice pellets, combined with lightning. Keep your eyeballs peeled for large mythical gods throwing things around and remember to duck. Bring along someone you don’t like all that much, in case an emergency human sacrifice is needed.

Fuel hard to get: Not weather-related but can really spoil your fun it if happens. A bigger problem on long trips over 14 days or so.

So where does this leave us?

Stoves burning hydrocarbons have some advantages here, but maybe not all that much. Hydrocarbons have a lot more energy to give than carbohydrate-like fuels such as alcohol and wood. Fuel tablets have a different composition, but fall into the latter category because they just don’t put out all that much heat.

A relatively small amount of white gas or compressed, liquefied petroleum fuel goes a very long way, so you can have a larger safety margin with only a little more weight or bulk. The average amount of fuel used under good conditions is about 0.2 ounces (6ml) per hiker per day, by weight, which is about the tiniest of tiny amounts.

But again, manufactured stoves just cost more, are heavier and more complicated to set up, and require maintenance. Where have we heard that before?

Alcohol stoves become difficult to light when the temperature drops below 40°F (4.4°C). But not bad. They take a few seconds longer to come up to operating temperature, but since they’re so tiny they warm up really fast anyway, so that doesn’t matter much. And there is absolutely no fiddling, fine tuning, cleaning or repair needed. When in doubt, or if you have really big, clumsy feet, just carry a spare. Crunch your stove and it’s gone, sure, but you can carry another one as insurance without any real weight or space penalty.

Alcohol (or fuel tab) stoves are also a lot smaller (don’t we keep saying this?). And the fuel is much less toxic. That means that you can set one up in a smaller space. Get out of the wind. Hide from the rain. Huddle against the cold. Keep yourself protected from the elements while cooking, and also find a spot for your stove without as much fuss.

Exhaust from alcohol stoves is less dangerous. Not safe, but less dangerous. You still have to be careful about carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide buildup, and unintended things catching on fire. But if you’re under a tarp or in a tent with an open door, sitting inside and cooking with the stove just outside, with the door open, you don’t have to worry about that. You also don’t have to worry about a big flareup that will melt your tent or eat your face.

Cold weather and high altitudes (more cold piled on top of the regular cold) are especially hard for canister stoves. Special fuel blends can help (isobutane mixed with butane is better than butane alone, as is a propane/butane or a propane/butane/isobutane mix). White gas stoves do pretty well all around, but no matter what, they’re expensive, noisy, and burn explosive, toxic fuel.

Wood, of course, is still free and available in infinite supplies wherever trees are found. Where wood-burning is allowed you can carry a one or two-day supply with you, if going above treeline, but gathering wet wood in a rainstorm is just not a fun way to spend your vacation time. And if you do bite the bullet and go out to gather armloads of wet wood, just what do you think you’ll be doing with it anyway?

For the most extreme conditions, such as arctic travel, or expeditions during winter months, take a look at white gas or kerosene stoves. When talking about ultralight backpacking though, we may be talking about individually long days in the context of a long trip, but not so much about severe conditions, so the really bad weather conditions kind of take care of themselves by falling outside the scope of our subject. How cool is that?

Neat coincidence, huh?

Fuel availability stands apart from weather considerations. Fuel availability is more a cultural situation. White gas, also commonly known as Coleman Fuel (or by other names worldwide for similar formulations) may be hard to find outside the United States. Kerosene may be easier to find elsewhere than it is inside the United States. Canisters for canister stoves are mostly brand-specific (you can’t just stick ANY canister onto ANY stove whatsoever), and a specific brand might not be available in every country, or even every state, and certainly not in every store you come to. Ever.

Fuel tablets are definitely a kinky specialty item, available (usually by mail order) only from specific vendors. Not available in every hardware store, or even one as far as I can tell.

That leaves two fuels: alcohol and wood. Both are available worldwide. If you can’t find methanol (wood alcohol), you can find ethanol (grain alcohol), and vice versa. Almost every gas station or convenience store in the United States sells Heet brand fuel line de-icer. The stuff in the yellow plastic bottle is methanol, or mostly methanol, and will keep your stove happy. The stuff in the red bottle is isopropyl alcohol, and will serve in a pinch, but it’s yucky and sooty, and better avoided.

There isn’t much need to talk about wood, is there? Look down at the ground. Check out the nearest tree. Done.

Exercises

1. Write in and tell us about a really bad day you had. Preferably about backpacking, or hiking, or even camping, but as long as it’s a good story, you can write about anything. Email it to wedontcare@nowhere.com. Don’t wait up for an answer. Have a nice day!
2. Go to bed early. Get a good night’s sleep. Wake up early and go for a walk. Get over it, already. We don’t care if today sucks. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. Go home and wait for it.
3. Relive the ten dumbest things you ever did. This is the most fun if you do it in the middle of the night. In the dark. All alone. You get extra credit for doing this while you’re on the road, in a cheap motel far from home, right after your divorce/breakup/breakdown or whatever, and aided by indigestion. Then realize that you’re not backpacking in the rain, and start feeling good about yourself again, if possible. Remember, the rest of us may still think of you as a loser, but at least you’re not shivering in a cold rain miles and miles and miles from nowhere because your tent just blew away.
4. Try not to inhale anything toxic for an entire week.

Story Break: Good Conditions

Story Break

Good Conditions

Lydia Pudzer

Now I want you to know right off the bat I never went out there and did any of that packbacking stuff. Nor any hiking, neither. Where I’m from they worked on the farm, and they worked hard and that was it. When they wasn’t working they went to church, or sat on the porch and watched the sun go down, and every now and then there would be a funeral or something, or a wedding, at the church, and that would be it.

It don’t make no sense that I can see to go anywhere all alone and act like an animal. I keep saying this but nobody listens to me anymore. I mean it.

Now here we’re talking about going packbacking and how to use a stove to make a little grubby wad of something and try to eat it, on a good day. Most of the time you should be working. You shouldn’t have time to go out somewhere and stumble around and try to sleep under a little piece of cloth and all that.

Who cares how one of those stoves works on a good day. On a good day you’re out plowing, or planting, or harrowing, or you’re cutting hay, or you’re harvesting. On a bad day when you can’t work in the fields then you’re in out of the rain fixing things that got broke, but you never have time to just lay around and think well laa-dee-dah I wonder what I should do today, maybe I should go wander around in the hills for a while and see if I can bump into myself out there or something.

When you’re retired is when you got time to sit around and do nothing, and that’s exactly how much you want to do then, after a good life full of hard work, nothing, because you’re wore out.

You talk about which of those little toy stoves is the best, and how to use them, and which one to take with you, and special things you should remember to do when the weather is nice and other things when it isn’t, and it’s all a waste of time.

If you had to work for a living you would know better. If you were lucky and you even had a day off, and it was a good day, good weather and nothing going on, your responsibilities were all looked after already, then you’d be a real dumbhead if you didn’t just go and have a nice picnic in the park.

Everybody who knows anything at all would do that. If you have friends you could play a little softball, but mostly you relax and eat. That’s about it. Get your family together and your next door neighbors and make up a picnic lunch, and go to the park and sit around all day. No hiking, no sleeping in the dirt, no wearing filthy clothes or any of that, only acting like a normal responsible grown up person.

That’s all I got to say.

Using In Good Conditions

Using In Good Conditions

Good fortune lieth within bad, and bad fortune within good. — Lao-tzu.

Let’s first define a range we can call good conditions. Not much wind. No rain, or only a little drizzle or soft mist now and then. Cool or maybe almost-but-not-quite-cold, though still well above freezing. Warm or really warm but not baking. Lower elevations.

In other words we’re talking about a gentle day in late spring, in summer, or early fall. Not about trips into the Himalayas in January, or into Death Valley in August. These good conditions represent about 90% of the trips that 90% of us make 90% of the time. If not more. What you want from a stove under these conditions can be provided by almost any stove at all.

This is low-stress backpacking. You get up in the morning, sometime before noon let’s say. You stand and scratch, yawn for a while, and bump into things every now and then, in a pleasant and agreeable sort of way. You eventually fire up the stove and make breakfast. You are in no hurry. Life is good. This is what you want it to be like.

Later, you pause along the trail and make lunch, eating it while admiring the scenery and trying to decide just what about the rest of your life is keeping you from doing exactly this sort of thing for the rest of your life. Even later, after comfortably walking for several more hours you drift to a stop in late afternoon and make supper. Nothing has happened that would make a good movie, or a bad one. You have encountered nothing to write home about except the scenery and how good you feel, and you’re done with your chores in a few minutes, without any fuss at all.

In a way these are the most demanding conditions for ultralight backpacking stoves. They easily separate the light side (good) from the dark side (bad). Since you’ve got nothing else to use in discriminating between stoves, you can concentrate on just weight, heat output, cost, and ease of use. Or, all else being equal, only on weight.

This sort of use defines ultralight backpacking stoves. This is where ultralight backpacking stoves shine.

Let’s review what you have to do with a...

Liquid fuel stove: Unpack it. Set it up. Fill the tank or attach the fuel bottle. Pressurize it. Prime it. Light it. Wait for it to warm. Cook, while keeping an eye on the stove, lest it lunge at you like a dragon in heat.

Compressed gas stove: Unpack it. Attach fuel container to stove (for some stoves). Guess how much fuel is left, and whether it’s enough to cook your meal. If not, then unplug the canister and temporarily swap in a new one, if you can with your brand of stove, or otherwise plan on changing them halfway through cooking. Light the stove. Cook, while keeping an eye on it, because you still really never know with these things.

Alcohol stove: Remove it from your pot, where it snuggles conveniently. Fill it with fuel. Light it. Set pot on it, and set wind screen over it. Come back when the fuel burns out.

Wood burning stove: Hunt around for wood. Test each piece to see if it’s solid and crisp or soft and punky. Also test for dryness. Break wood into small pieces, possibly cutting your hands in the process. Unpack stove (a wood-burner will be too big to store inside your cooking pot). Put fuel in place. Light fuel. Set pot on it, and set wind screen around it (optional). Come back when the fuel burns out or when the cooking is done, or when your food begins to smoke and smolder, as appropriate.

Solid fuel tablet stove: Remove it from your pot (should be small enough to store inside your cooking pot). Put fuel in place. Light it. Set pot on it, and set wind screen over it. Come back when the fuel burns out.

What’s the difference?

Operationally not a whole heckuva lot. With canister (compressed gas) stoves it’s hard to tell just how much fuel you have, but other than that they’re pretty easy. Liquid fuel or white gas stoves require a little watching and tending, and may get clogged with soot, but they’re pretty dependable too.

The real differences are that with an alcohol or fuel tablet stove, you just set up, light, and wait. Wood burning stoves require more involvement, but the fuel is free, and you have an infinite amount of it available, more than you can possibly burn unless you are genuinely and unfortunately clumsy.

And these last three types of stove are dead simple, insanely light, and dirt cheap. Nothing to go wrong, no moving parts, no confusion. Operator error will not result in sudden, huge, and surprising accidental incineration. Of you and your companions. Stove weight ranges from one-sixteenth ounce to maybe one-half ounce (1.8 - 14g), with wood-burners coming in at three or four ounces (85 - 113g), and no penalty for the weight of fuel since you carry none.

All (practical) stoves involve open flame, so you have to be at least a little smart, but “think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” (George Carlin)

Exercises

1. Have a nice dream about a day without wind, a day with no rain. A pleasantly cool day, trending toward warmth later on. A day when you are out of doors, hiking, and having the time of your life, a day of low-stress backpacking, without a care in the world, with no decision to make except for which scenic overlook you’ll stop at for lunch, and when. Then get up and go to work.
2. Plan your escape. Get the details tattooed (upside down) on your belly so they’re always with you, and so you can read them without having to stick your head up between your legs while bending over backward and doing a 180-degree twist. Or put it on a piece of paper in your wallet. Whatever.