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
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- Try not to inhale anything toxic for an entire week.