I eventually did a comparison test using aluminum, stainless steel, and Inoxal 1.5-quart pans. I wasn’t too surprised when the water took longer to boil in the stainless steel pan than in the Inoxal, though a third longer was more than I’d expected. The real surprise was that water also boiled faster in the Inoxal than in the aluminum pan—one-sixth faster, in fact. I did the test again to double-check, and the results were almost identical.
How much of this performance is due to the Inoxal material and how much to the black exterior (the other pans were shiny silver), I don’t know. Duossal pans aren’t black, so maybe they won’t be as efficient. Faster boiling time helps conserve stove fuel, and on long trips it would make a difference to the amount of fuel you had to carry. The difference would be more marked when boiling larger quantities, of course, and I suspect that while large groups might notice it, solo hikers wouldn’t. Certainly when I look at my fuel usage on solo hikes over the years when using aluminum, stainless steel, Inoxal, and titanium pans, it hardly varies. It also doesn’t vary whether the pans have been silver or black on the outside.
MSR DuraLite Mini Cookset is made with hard-anodized aluminum.
Titanium pan and mug: my favorites.
Titanium is my favorite material for pans. It doesn’t pit, scratch, or affect flavor, and it cleans easily. It’s much lighter than steel—45 percent lighter according to MSR—conducts heat better, and is more durable. I have a ten-year-old 0.9-quart Evernew pan with foldout handles that weighs 5 ounces with lid. It’s my most-used pot by far and has had well over a year’s worth of use in total, during which it’s acquired just one small dent. The latest version of this pan has a nonstick coating, unfortunately from my point of view. However, there are plain titanium alternatives such as MSR’s Titan Mini Cookset with 1- and 1.5-quart pans, lid, and pot gripper at 10.9 ounces and Snow Peak’s Multi Compact Titanium Cook Set with 1- and 1.5-quart pans with foldout handles and lids at 11.5 ounces. MSR also makes a 30-ounce Titan Kettle that weighs just 4.2 ounces with lid that looks excellent for solo use. The only downside to titanium is the very high cost. But once you have a pot it will last a very long time.
Whatever they’re made from, pans should be simple. Fairly shallow ones with rounded edges are best, because food is less likely to burn in them and they’re easy to clean. They also conduct heat more efficiently from the stove to their contents due to their large base area. Rounded bottom edges are also more efficient in theory since heat can more easily travel up the sides of the pot. Tall, narrow pots conduct heat inefficiently. Very shallow, wide pots, such as those found in many traditional-style mess kits, aren’t very good for boiling water, though they’re OK for frying. Pans that nest are standard. Often, though, cooksets don’t contain the mix of pans you want. I like to make my own sets from different pans, checking that they nest together.
Although low weight is welcome, very thin pans can distort, making them hard to balance on stoves, and food tends to burn quickly in them.
Avoid attached handles on aluminum pans because they become very hot, but foldout handles on stainless steel and titanium pans stay reasonably cool unless you use the pan on an open fire. Bails that rise above the pan can get quite hot too. They’re useful for suspending a pan above a fire and with large pans that can be hard to lift when full with a side handle or a pot gripper. Check the welds of handles or bails. They can fail, leaving you with a pan that has holes in it and a useless handle.
How big a pan you need depends on how many you’re cooking for. I find a 1-quart size is easily large enough for solo cooking. For two I add a 2-quart pan; when I’ve cooked for ten I’ve found a 5-quart pot just big enough for cooking pasta or rice, with a 2-quart pan adequate for the sauce.
Lids are very important for faster boil times and lower fuel use. In strong winds water may not boil at all unless the pan is covered. Good lids should fit tightly. Many are designed to double as frying pans, but people who fry foods tell me that lids don’t work very well this way. They’re often relatively heavy—the lid for my 1-quart titanium pan weighs 1.5 ounces, the one for the 1-quart Inoxal pan, 3.5 ounces—so I sometimes substitute a piece of heavy-duty foil that weighs just 0.3 ounce.
Pot Grippers
For pans without handles, you need pot grippers, or pot grabs, that clamp firmly onto the rim. I used a 2-ounce Trangia pot grab on almost every trip for nearly twenty years. MSR makes excellent pot grippers too; the 1.6-ounce PanHandler will support up to ten pounds, and the 1-ounce LiteLifter will lift full 4-quart pots. Not all pot grippers are of this quality, though; some thin aluminum ones quickly twist out of shape. Now that I usually use the titanium pot with its fold-out handles and a lid with a knob on solo trips, I carry a pot grab only when I intend to cook over an open fire, where the handles get hot.
Outback Oven with Pot Parka, which can be used on its own to keep pots warm.
A selection of pot grippers for pots of different sizes. You’ll need the larger ones for pots that hold more than a quart.
Ovens and Baking Devices
When I first heard about ovens for backpackers I was highly dubious, suspecting they would be heavy and difficult to use. I couldn’t imagine baking anything on a small stove in the wild. However, my assumptions started to waver with reports that the Outback Oven really did work well, so I decided I had to try it. I wasn’t disappointed. (Back then the Outback Oven was made by Traveling Light; now it’s under the Backpacker’s Pantry umbrella—back packerspantry.com.)
If you’re the sort of backpacker who hates dehydrated food and dreams of pizza, fresh bread, or apple pie, you can have them all with one of these ovens, without too much hassle.
The Outback Oven comes in three versions: the 43-ounce 12-inch for large groups, the 26-ounce 10-inch for two to four people (both include a Teflon-coated baking pan), and the 7-ounce Ultralight for one or two. The Outback Oven consists of a foil reflector collar that fits under the burner of your stove and directs heat upward, a stainless steel riser bar and diffuser plate to spread the heat evenly and prevent scorching, a fiberglass convection dome that fits over your pan and concentrates the heat, and a simple thermometer. All the components can be packed inside a small pan.
To use the oven you need a stove with a controllable flame plus pan supports that the heat reflector can be fitted to and that will support the riser bar/diffuser plate unit. Most stoves meet these criteria, but check that the oven will fit your stove before buying one. A windscreen is essential unless it’s calm. The Ultralight oven is designed to be used with pans from 6 to 8 inches in diameter and 3 to 5 inches high, which includes most 1.5-and 2-quart pans but rules out smaller ones.
Simpler and lighter than the Outback Oven is the BakePacker. The standard version weighs 8 ounces and the ultralight one weighs 4 ounces. I’ve tried the latter, which is designed for pots 6 to 7 inches in diameter. The BakePacker consists of an aluminum grid of heat pipes that sits in the bottom of the pan and conducts heat up through its honeycomb. You put enough water in the pot to cover the grid, then place the food to be baked on top in a plastic freezer bag or oven-roasting bag and spread it out. You then close the bag loosely and put the lid on the pot. Once the water is boiling, medium heat is enough to steam bake the mix in the bag. Because the BakePacker cooks with steam it can’t produce crisp crusts, unlike the Outback Oven, and you need a supply of plastic bags. However, it’s light and easy to use.
BakePacker baking grid.
Having eaten freshly baked food on the trail, I can’t go back to living on dehydrated meals all the time—or so I thought when my dalliance with baking was new and exciting. For a short while I did bake in camp occasionally. I have to admit, though, that despite my intentions it’s now many years since I bothered baking in the wilds. I’ve discovered I can live on dried food after all.
Plates
I usually don’t bother with plates or bowls because I eat straight from the pot, but this is practical only for the solo hiker. Shallow plates spill easily
and don’t hold much. Deep bowls are a better choice; I carry one when I’m with a group. Plastic is the standard material, with Lexan the toughest type. Plastic bowls weigh 2 to 5 ounces, depending on size. Metal bowls and plates are also available, but are cold in freezing conditions. MSR’s steel Alpine Mountain Bowl holds 27 fluid ounces and weighs 3.6 ounces, the Mountain Plate has a 7.5-inch diameter and weighs 4.4 ounces, and Trangia’s aluminum 8.5-inch plate weighs 3.5 ounces. Many people eat out of their mugs, but you obviously can’t have a drink at the same time, which I like to do, unless you carry two mugs.
Selection of mugs. Clockwise from top left: Aladdin 12-ounce insulated, Aladdin 21-ounce insulated, GSI 32-ounce Fair Share Lexan, MSR double-wall stainless steel, Cascade Cup stainless steel, and polyethylene.
Mugs
A good mug can become a favorite item, perhaps not surprising when it provides that wake-up drink in the morning or warm-up drink after a long cold day. Plastic (usually polyethylene) is light and cheap but not very durable, and it soon develops scratches and cracks. Plastic also retains tastes—last night’s tomato soup will flavor the morning’s cup of coffee no matter how well you wash the mug. A typical half-pint plastic mug weighs 0.75 ounce. Lexan mugs are better; Lexan is unbreakable and doesn’t retain tastes. GSI’s 12-fluid-ounce Glacier Ice Lexan Mug weighs 2.9 ounces. If you like large drinks or use your mug for eating, GSI’s FairShare Lexan Mug is probably the largest around, with a capacity of 32 fluid ounces. It has a screw-on lid and weighs 7 ounces.
Drinks cool down fairly quickly in a single-walled polyethylene mug, which is fine on a hot summer day but not so good on a frosty morning. The classic foam-insulated mug is the answer. This keeps drinks warm for a long time in the cold, even if you leave the lid off. The main brands are Aladdin and Whirley, which offer a large array of shapes and sizes and also make own-brand mugs for other companies. The nearest to a standard size is probably the 12-fluid-ounce mug. The Aladdin model weighs 5 ounces, including a half-ounce lid. If you want a larger mug there’s a 21-fluid-ounce one that weighs 7 ounces. I use the 12-fluid-ounce mug for cold-weather trips. In summer I find it keeps drinks too hot for too long. If you want your drink to stay really hot for a long time, leave the lid on the mug. This really does make a huge difference.
Insulated plastic mugs still hold tastes, though not as badly as polyethylene ones. Metal doesn’t. But to drink hot liquids out of aluminum or enamel mugs you need asbestos lips. This means that, except for cold drinks, the cup that comes with the Svea 123R stove and doubles as a burner cover is useless. However, stainless steel and titanium mugs are fine: they don’t burn your lips or get scratched and are very durable. I have a pint mug, REI’s Cascade Cup, that I bought many years ago; it can be used as a pan on any stove because it has a wide base. It weighs 4 ounces and has a clip-off handle that folds away under the cup. Because I can boil water in it for a drink while I’m eating out of my larger pan, it’s my favorite of the ten camping mugs that I’m somewhat surprised to discover I own. It nests neatly inside my 0.9-quart pan. The Cascade Cup is a larger version of the classic Sierra Cup, which holds 10 fluid ounces and weighs 3 ounces. I find the Sierra Cup a little unstable, since the top is much wider than the base. Drinks cool down in it very quickly, too, but many people like it. Olicamp makes a titanium Sierra Cup weighing 1.5 ounces.
To save an ounce, I’ve sometimes used a 3-ounce MSR 23-fluid-ounce titanium pan with foldout handles as a mug. It’s not quite as easy to drink from as the Cascade Cup because liquid can dribble down the sides, though it’s fine as a pan. MSR doesn’t make this model anymore, but the 23-fluid-ounce pan in Snow Peak’s Multi Compact Titanium Cook Set seems effectively the same.
There are conventional tall, narrow stainless steel mugs; I have a pint one that weighs 4 ounces. It can just about be used as a pan on stoves with closely spaced pot supports, such as the Svea 123R, but it’s not really the right shape for this. Titanium mugs weigh less (and cost much more). Snow Peak’s 21-fluid-ounce single-walled mug weighs 2.9 ounces.
Double-walled stainless steel mugs come in 10-and 12-fluid-ounce sizes if you want to keep drinks hot in a metal mug. They’re heavy though,—the 10-fluid-ounce Markill mug weighs 11.5 ounces. Titanium ones are again much lighter and much more expensive. Snow Peak’s double-walled 16-fluid-ounce titanium mug weighs 4.2 ounces.
Eating Implements
Lexan plastic works well for cutlery and is very strong. It can be broken, despite claims to the contrary, though this has happened to me only once, and the GSI spoons I now have are over a decade old. A tablespoon and teaspoon together weigh 0.8 ounce. Other plastic spoons break under the weight of a baked bean. If I carried them, I’d take several. Stainless steel cutlery is durable but heavy. Titanium is lighter but pricey. MSR’s Titan Spoon weighs half an ounce. Special clip-together camping cutlery seems unnecessarily fussy and always includes forks, which aren’t needed in the wilds. Everything can be eaten with fingers or a spoon. If you do want a fork occasionally, you could try a spork—a spoon with tines on the top edge. Snow Peak makes a titanium spork weighing half an ounce. A knife is useful, but I don’t bother with a cutlery knife when I have a pocketknife anyway. Knives are discussed in the next chapter.
Wash pots well away from water and pour wash water into thick vegetation or onto bare ground.
Forest kitchen with the stove on a rock to prevent it from scorching the ground or setting the pine needles alight.
Washing Dishes
Stainless steel and titanium clean much more easily than aluminum. Generally a wipe with a damp cloth is enough, although for hygienic reasons you should sterilize pans and utensils thoroughly every few days. I do this with boiling water.
I don’t carry detergent or dishwashing liquid—it’s unnecessary and a pollutant, even if it’s biodegradable. Nor do I wash dishes directly in a water source or tip food scraps into one. Dirty dishwater should always be poured onto a bare patch of ground or into thick vegetation. To make dishwashing easier, pour cold water into a pan once it’s empty to stop food residue from cementing itself to the inside. Some foods are worse than others—oatmeal is particularly bad. Hard-to-clean pans can be scoured with gravel or even snow to remove debris. Mostly I just use a soft dishcloth, which I rinse out regularly and hang on the pack to dry. Scourer sponges are an alternative but are harder to keep clean. A bandanna can be pressed into service if necessary, something I’ve done on trips where I’ve forgotten a dishcloth.
Packing
I generally pack my stove, pans, and utensils together in a small stuff sack. I don’t pack the stove inside the pans, since this tends to dirty them, although manufacturers tout this packing “convenience” as an advantage of many small stoves. I usually carry fuel bottles in outside pockets in case of leaks or stand them upright at the bottom of the main compartment below my food bag, which is where I keep fuel cartridges, too. The stove and pans also end up there, since I rarely use them during the day. If you cook at lunchtime, you’ll need to pack them somewhere accessible.
SITING THE KITCHEN
I like to site my kitchen next to my sleeping bag. That way I can have breakfast in bed—a good way to face a cold or wet morning, and nice any time. The stove needs to be placed on bare earth or on short, sparse vegetation so that the heat doesn’t cause any damage. If the plant growth is long and luxurious, I try to find a flat rock to place the stove on, to avoid singeing the vegetation. You must, of course, return the rock to its proper place when you’ve finished. I set up the stove, then sort out the food I need for the evening. When all the kitchen items are arranged near the stove and I know where everything is, I start cooking.
Kitchen dug out of snow.
Melting snow inside a floorless single-skin pyramid tent.
You have to modify this pattern anywhere bears are potential visitors. In this case it’s advisable to site the kitchen at least 100 yards downwind of where you sleep, because the smell of food might attract a bear during the night. I l
ook for a sheltered spot with a good view, and perhaps a log or tree stump to sit on or lean against. Clean utensils can be left in place overnight. Dirty ones should be hung with the food.
chapter eight
comfort and safety in camp and on the trail
MAN IS AN ANIMAL WHO MORE THAN ANY OTHER CAN ADAPT HIMSELF TO ALL CLIMATES AND CIRCUMSTANCES.
—Walden, Henry David Thoreau
To make any walk safe and enjoyable, numerous small items (and skills) are useful. Some are essential, some are never necessary, though they may enhance your stay in the wilderness. I’m always surprised at the number of odds and ends in my pack, yet not one of them is superfluous.
LIGHT
No one goes backpacking in the Far North—Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland—during midwinter because there’s little daylight—none at all if you’re north of the Arctic Circle. In midsummer, however, the Far North is light twenty-four hours a day—no artificial light is needed at “night.” Most places backpackers frequent are farther south, though, and some form of light is needed regardless of the time of year. How much you need depends on where you are and when. At Lake Louise in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, there are over sixteen and a half hours of daylight in mid-June, but only eight hours in mid-December; in Yosemite you’ll have fourteen and three-quarters hours in June but more than nine and a half in December.
The LED Revolution
The new millennium saw a revolution in lighting with the introduction of lights using LEDs (light emitting diodes) rather than incandescent bulbs. My old headlamps are gathering dust at the back of my gear shelves, since LED lights are lower in weight, are much more durable, and use far less battery power, which means batteries last much longer, also saving weight. An LED will last for up to ten years of constant use before burning out, so most people will never need to replace one. LEDs are tough, too, unlike standard bulbs; since there’s no thin glass to shatter or thin wires to snap, they’re almost unbreakable. There really is no need to carry a spare. Battery life is greatly extended because LEDs don’t give out heat, again unlike standard bulbs, so much less energy is needed to power a headlamp—some twenty times less, in fact. The Petzl Micro with standard incandescent bulb runs for five hours on two AA alkaline batteries; the Petzl Tikka with three LEDs runs for 150 hours on three AAA alkaline batteries. The Tikka is half the weight of the Micro, too. If an LED light is turned on accidentally in your pack, the batteries are unlikely to be dead when you need it.
Chris Townsend Page 47