Using for Long Trips
The westerner, normally, walks to get somewhere that he cannot get in an automobile or on horseback. Hiking for its own sake, for the sheer animal pleasure of good condition and brisk exercise, is not an easy thing for him to comprehend. – The WPA Guide to Utah
For some people a long backpacking trip is a four-day weekend. For others it’s a 7800-mile (12,558 km) walk across the United States on the Sea to Sea Trail. Just between you and me and just for right now let’s call it a trip between seven and 14 days. That’s about as far as a person can go without resupply. In other words, if you travel longer than that you won’t be able to carry all the food and fuel you need, and you’ll have to resupply.
That seems like a nice cutoff.
Think of time as distance. We don’t really care if you hike 300 miles in 14 days or just 25 miles. You’ll still be carrying your food and fuel. You’ll need to eat more if you really hoof it out there, but not a huge amount more, so the weights will be roughly equivalent. For most people food weight amounts to maybe one and a half pounds a day way on the low end to about two pounds per day (of dry food – zero water content). Given 14 days, you’ll be carrying roughly 21 to 35 pounds of food (10 - 16kg).
Assume that you use an alcohol stove and are frugal with it. You just heat water and add that hot water to your food. You heat some more water for tea or instant coffee. We’ll call it one ounce of fuel per day, with a quarter-ounce safety margin. For a 14 day trip we’ll round this off to 18 fluid ounces. A fluid ounce of denatured alcohol weighs 0.8 ounces, so this gives us 14.5 ounces of weight. Compare that to a three-ounce compressed gas stove with a four-fluid-ounce fuel container weighing eight ounces, for a total of 11 ounces. Throw in a quarter ounce for the alcohol stove and a hair for a pot support and you’ve got 15 ounces for alcohol versus 11 ounces for the canister stove.
Pretty close overall, with the advantage obviously going to the canister stove. It’s more convenient but larger. It has moving parts. Carrying a spare stove would add another three ounces and from $50 to $150 for cost. If the fuel canister isn’t full, you either leave it at home, or take it plus a full one, or two or three partially-full ones.
Take another alcohol stove as a spare, and add another quarter ounce. For a solid fuel tablet setup, you can throw in a few more tabs, and use rocks to support your cooking pot – no pot support needed. Wood fires serve as a safety backup for any kind of stove.
Speaking of wood, you can make a four or five ounce wood burning stove, or go all the way with one of Nimblewill Nomad’s Little Dandy stoves, at about six ounces, folds flat, too). Once more, the weight of fuel is nonexistent. You can burn as much as you want and don’t have to carry any fuel at all.
Any commercially-made stove with moving parts is subject to repair or adjustment, in case you need to be reminded again. If you have to field strip it and fiddle with anything, there is always the chance of losing a part or two. This isn’t likely, and it’s not common, but there is a chance there. This is yet one more reason why simplicity might pay off.
OK, going for two weeks with an alcohol stove requires a relatively large amount of fuel. One way to manage this is to divide the fuel between two bottles, so if one spills or gets punctured, the other is still intact. You will remain short of fuel, but you won’t lose all of it all at once. Since the fuel (for grain alcohol or ethanol, anyway) is almost totally non-toxic, a leak isn’t a health threat on top of an accident, and the fuel won’t explode. Methanol (wood alcohol) is a little pricklier but still relatively benign, especially compared to white gas.
Here’s the final point. Say you compare an alcohol setup with a canister stove using the numbers above. You have a total 15 ounce weight for alcohol and 11 ounces for the canister stove, as stated (425 v. 312g). But that isn’t the whole picture, because you’ll be using up fuel as you go. That picture is only a snapshot for the first day. By the end of your trip you can expect to be just about out of alcohol.
Say you have one ounce of alcohol left. The weight will be 0.25 ounces for the stove, maybe one ounce for the pot support, and 0.75 ounces for the fuel bladder, plus 0.8 ounces for the leftover fuel. Total: 2.8 ounces (79g).
Now the canister stove: starting weight, 11 ounces. Using 0.2 ounces of fuel per day, you cut off a total of 2.8 ounces over 14 days, leaving you with 8.2 ounces (232g) to carry all the way to the end. It’s a 5.4 ounce (153g) difference.Thinking in rough practical terms, it’s a half pound difference.
Big snorking deal, right?
But here’s another way to look at it. The 5.4-ounce difference is about half the weight of the canister stove/fuel combination, or about a 50% weight reduction. Apply that to some of your other gear, say shelters, for example. Instead of carrying a six pound tent you’re suddenly carrying a three-pounder. Same with your pack, or sleeping bag. Cut the four pound pack back to a two pound pack. Ditch your three pound synthetic-fill sleeping bag for a much warmer 1 ½ pound down bag.
Apply this thinking all the way through, and compare starting a long trip with a pack of 30 pounds base weight and 25 pounds of consumables (55 pounds total) to a 15 pound pack plus 25 pounds of consumables (40 pounds total). That’s a real difference. After learning your way into ultralight backpacking and making some careful food choices you could start with a 10 pound pack and 20 pounds of food, for a total pack weight of 30 pounds. Anyone can feel the difference between a 30 pound pack and a 55 pound pack. Even dead people. It’s a real difference. And it is possible. It might even mean the difference between going backpacking and not.
Is that not inspiring?
Exercises
- Think about hiking the Sea To Sea Trail, 7800 miles east to west across the United States, or about the Appalachian Trail, or the Continental Divide Trail, or the Pacific Crest Trail. Buy a couple of Lynne Whelden’s videos. Read some books. Try not to sell your house and take off immediately.
- Take a longer trip than you have before. Be careful. Plan ahead. Think. Get good maps, and preferably travel with some friends. Go light.
- Weigh all your gear. Once you do that you’ll know where you are. You can’t improve unless you know you know where you’re starting from.
- Take care, be kind, and try to live a good life. We’re in your corner. Don’t forget to buy a lottery ticket and put us in your will, just in case that asteroid comes visiting this weekend.