Excerpt from Long Distance Hiking: Lessons from the Appalachian Trail

Hi Jim and All,

A great thread and some interesting comments. Im curious what a current survey would reveal. I'm sure there would be many MSR Pocket Rockets and homemade alcohol stoves on the list.

Like Doc, my #1 stove was a Coleman 400a and mine is also still operational. The flame seems a bit orange, but she still gets the job done. I recall that a selling point for the Coleman was that the fount was large enough to last a whole weekend. I'll have to comb through some old Backpacker Magazine to look for ads. It was also substantially cheaper than a 123, a big consideration for a 21 year old camp counselor. The later 400 series stoves don't have the awesome simmer lever of the original. The 400a passes the eggs easy over test!

Paul, I'm glad to see the photos of your VT trip. It looks like that Coleman Dakota did the job for you. It was just a wee bit small for a goon like myself.

I totally agree with Ed, I'll take a stove any day over a campfire for cooking. Campfires are wonderful for heat and ambiance, but a good camp stove makes cooking a pleasure.

Cheers,

Manny

 

When I started backpacking on my own, as I had no one to teach me or go with, a fire was the only way I knew of to cook on and no one showed me that either. Stoves were Coleman suitcases as I see they are called and you never gave it a thought to bring one of those, they were for camping (car camping) with.

 

Morning, HJ,

Yes, Grasshopper, you are definitely confused into the ways and means of stove life in our household!!

By the time we did the PCT, I had already been buying and collecting stoves for ELEVEN years, my Friend!! I had well over 100 stoves from which to choose when we did our PCT trip. The MSR Whisperlite did not come to live with us until we were 80 miles, or so, into the PCT, and realized that our pack weights, 90+lbs, and 65lbs, respectively, were killing us, and that we HAD to go back home and lighten our loads!! So, we hitch-hiked from Scissors Crossing, into Julian, and called my Mom to come and pick us up. We then went back to San Diego and spent one week seeking out gear that would keep us safe, but be lighter than what we had original planned to take.

Yes, you are right in that we did burn kerosene on our PCT adventure. But, we actually began the trip with our very first regular kero stove, an Optimus 00! My mistake in trying to use that stove was in not having practiced enough, AND in trying to use Mautz Firepaste for priming, which, IMHO, is absolute crap! It did not work well for us, and we had my Mom meet us in the small town up on the Sunrise Hwy, (Laguna?), and bring us my trusted X-GK to swap for the 00. We also got her to bring our snowshoes, but that's a completely different story!!

We only used the X-GK for a couple of nights, and then found we had to return to SD to lighten our loads. Whilst there, we bought a new tent, new sleeping bags, and pads, and a few other things that were lighter than what we had been carrying, including the Whisperlite Internationale. Just to give you a bit of scope on exactly how long the INTL lasted us before it's untimely "death", we used it between when we began again, at Scissor Crossing, until it failed us just West of Wrightwood!!! The fuel had been filtered, and stove very well maintained, and still it died, when asked to burn kerosene three times each day!!!

In our dire straights, we happened to be hiking with a fellow who had a Coleman 550 Multifuel, and was also burning kerosene. He very kindly allowed us to share his stove until we got to Agua Dulce, whereupon I called my Mom, who, by the way, was our trail support person, and had her go buy us a brand new Coleman Multifuel, and two spare kerosene generators, along with a few other things, and come to AD to swap gear with us, again. From the very first day, we loved the Coleman 550! It started easily, and cleanly, even using the crappy Mautz Firepaste, and did not produce tons of soot, as had the Intl. It worked like a champ for the entire rest of our trip, which was probably an additional 600+ miles that year, and never gave us even a hint of problems. It's STILL going strong, and has never required much of anything in the way of maintenance.

So, now you know "the rest of the story", Little Grasshopper!! Even in my wildest stretch of imagination (or yours!!), the Intl can NEVER be #1 for me, and that right, which was well earned, falls to our Coleman Model 400, the very first backpacking stove we ever bought!!

After that, came, in order:

-first SVEA 123

- Enders Baby Benzin, NIB

- US Army M1950

- 1938 Primus 71

- Sierra Zip Ztove

- Modern Sterno stove

- Our first X-GK!!

- Our first Optimus 111T

All this, of course, leading to the around 500+ stoves that currently live with us, crowded into every nook and cranny, and happy as a bunch of clams!!! So, you see, Little Grasshopper? All is revealed to he who waits!! 8) Take care, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc

P.S. Returned from my trip to Los Angeles and San Diego (eye exam and electrical work for my Mother in Law) to find heavy snow falling in our mountains. The drive up from SD was bumper to bumper, and I didn't get to San Bernardino until around 8PM. Drive up the mountain was inch by inch, as the Police were stopping every car and truck, to make sure they put on their chains. TOTAL gridlock!! Once I got the checkpoint, they let me go on up, as I had a Jeep, and had in possession two sets of chains. By the time I got to the Crestline turnoff, it was snowing heavily, and I had to chain up at Top Town. Slowly made my way home, to find the snow plow had left us a huge berm at the foot of our driveway!! Parked the Jeep as far to the right as I could get it, flashers on, and spent the next couple of hours snow pupping and shoveling the driveway, enough to get the Jeep parked safely in its normal place. Today, I see that we got 17" of snow last night, and it's still falling! From my cell phone, here is a photo of last night, Jeep parked in street:



I finally got to bed at a quarter to 1AM!! Slept until 8AM, when I took the following photos with the camera:



For camping in such snow and weather, our good old trusty X-GK surely looks good!! 8) 8)

Good thing we didn't plan to meet up last night, HJ. I would have been a bit late.....

 

Cool photos, Doc, and a most educational time line.

Even more interesting now that I know some of the background that you chose the Internationale. I guess if one were to consider the rock solid nature of the XGK, one might well assume that the rest of MSR's products were as good.

Nice snow depth! We got a little here -- about 0.5". More interesting here since we only get snow once every five years roughly.

HJ

 

Is this an old thread?
I've done a bit of the Appalachian Trail. As a crow flies it is 2.5 miles from our cabin.
And yes even in our age group we are still backpacking and have been for 36+ years.
That is one reason I have a collection of stoves.

My favorite when every milligram counts is now the Calder Cone and using Esbit.
I have many different Caldera Cones for different pots-they are made to fit the most
popular pots carried (like the MSR Tital 0,85L as an example).

Since my Caldera Cone is the Ti version I can burn sticks in or even charcoal if I choose.
The other advantages of the Cone system are-
1. It is the pot support
2. It is wonderful for blocking wind
3. It is a fuel optimizer

Now believe it or not you can bake in them, and dry bake at that, and it works quite well.

Why Esbit? I've seen the 'thru-hiker' accidentally knock over a bottle of alcohol.....hard to
spill Esbit.

 

Forgot maybe some here have never seen the above mentioned cone system. Here is what
they look lke-

 

All of the young thru-hikers on the AT either use alcohol or isobutane...those with money eat in town whenever possible. Shuttle vehicles from off-trail hostels and inns are a common sight at trailheads...they pick up hikers, bring them to the lodging establishment for a meal, shower, and a soft bed. The next day, the hiker is shuttled back to the trail ; they then complete that section carrying only a daypack and later retrieve their goods from the hostel. Some hikers carry only a fanny pack and run to the next town each day...they carry only Powerbars and a little water.

Liquid fuel stoves are mostly carried by old-timers...MSR Whisperlight is the most common. My 8r accompanies me in milder weather and the XGK EX is my go-to for the winter.

 

That’s been more-or-less my experience of long-distance hiking in Europe. Hike all day; sleep at an inn, hostel, rifugio or albergue at night; repeat.

We all have our own backgrounds, preferences and (dare I say) prejudices. Personally, I don’t consider the above way of through-hiking to be morally inferior - or superior - to camping out each night. Either way, you walk the same trail.

P.S. Sometimes those beds are not very soft!