• lightweight backpacking stove
    Articles,  Equipment

    Lightweight Stoves: Rated for Ease of Use and Weight

    Over the years, I’ve used all kinds of backpacking stoves for my kayaking and canoe trips. Those stoves have burned a variety of fuels, including white gas, alcohol, wood, propane, isobutane and esbit — I’m probably missing a few. I’ve used different configurations of stoves from systems designed specifically to work with one stove and one pot, such as Jetboil’s stove to systems that I pieced together to systems that I built myself. After spending a weekend using a stove that just wouldn’t work, I decided it was time to stop messing around with my stove systems and just pick one variety and stick with it. Life is too short to…

  • sub-5 ounce cook kit components
    Articles,  Equipment

    Lightweight Sub-5 Ounce Cook Kit

    My friend Jeff Scott, who is an ultralight backpacker, sent me his most recent sub-5 ounce cook kit list. It weighs in at an astonishing 4.62 oz., and it features everything you’d need without skimping on anything. He uses it for on solo backpacking trips, but there’s no reason why this wouldn’t work on a paddling trip. The stove burns alcohol, so you need a supply of denatured alcohol or you can use HEET in the yellow bottle, which you can purchase from almost any gas station. Sub-5 Ounce Cook Kit List T’s B Side Burner Stove – 0.33 Spark Lite Fire Starter – 0.17 Snowpeak 600 Mug – 2.8…

  • Lightweight kayak camping cook gear
    Equipment

    Lightweight Cooking Gear

    A great lightweight cooking system should quickly and efficiently boil water, set up easily, and pack up into the system’s largest pot. Lately, because I’m preparing for a seven-day two-person canoe trip, I’ve been looking for cooking gear that meets this criteria. I’ve looked into lightweight commercial cooking gear, like the Caldera Cone and the Jetboil (which I love for solo travel), but everything I’ve looked at seems lacking in some aspect. For example, the Cone doesn’t pack into a pot, and once you add all the accessories to make a Jetboil convenient for two, it ends up weighing significantly more than other options. I also wanted something that used…