ADVENTUREinPROGRESS

This weekend was planned for months. Our family, along with John Sifferman and a host of other family and friends were supposed to be hiking up Mount Katahdin - Maine's highest peak. Unfortunately the weather didn't want to cooperate, so rather than risk taking a group above the treeline in potentially heavy rain and lightning, we decided to cancel :-( Now of course, it looks like tomorrow may have been OK, but oh well, we had a lot of factors and had to make a decision before the forecast changed. We will have to plan another attempt, as the first trip had thwarted our goals as well.

About a month ago I wrote a brief post highlighting GoLite's new BareTech line scheduled for release this summer. Perhaps it was the skepticism in my voice - I'm not sure - but whatever the reason GoLite contacted me and invited me to see what they they have cooking.

This coming Friday I will be heading to the New England Footwear headquarters in New Hampshire for a show-and-tell session on the GoLite BareTech line of shoes. I would like to go with a pile of questions from the minimalist footwear community, so that is where you guys come in. What do you want to know about GoLite's new barefoot line? Do you have any thoughts, suggestions, or special requests? If you do please put them in the comments of this post. I will bring them with me when I go on Friday and write a follow-up post with the answers.

Before you comment, be sure check out Peter's excellent summary of the new lineup at Runblogger.

The idea of using a wood stove for backpacking has appealed to me for quite some time now. Not having to carry fuel for a family of five has definite pack weight advantages when you are the dad.

About two months ago I decided to finally take the plunge - Evernew had just released their multi-fuel stove package called the Ti DX Set and it looked almost perfect (in theory anyway). After one weekend of backpacking with the DX, my excitement quickly turned to disappointment. Rather than re-iterate all of the issues I had with it, I will direct you to the thread I started on the BackpackingLight forums where I described my frustrations with the system.

What happened after that was something that I didn't at all expect. I was approched by two stove manufacturers who offered to send me a version of their wood stove to try out. Rather than shelling out more money for a new stove that may not meet my expectations, I gladly accepted with the hopes that I might find something that I would be happy with.

The first model to land on my doorstep was the Bushcooker LT III by Four Dog Stove. The Bushcooker LT III is the largest stove in their series (the LT I and LT II being the smaller versions) and is designed to cook for 3+ people. The specs are as follows:

• It is constructed out of titanium.
• On my scale the entire package weighs 5 oz, including the stove, heat shield, and priming pan.
• The stove has a diameter of 4.75" and a height of 5.5". It is designed to nest inside a Snow Peak Trek 1400 pot.
• It is multi-fuel: it burns wood, alcohol, fuel tablets, charcoal briquettes, etc.

The stove comes in three parts: The stove, a heat shield
and a tin pan for alcohol.

My primary criteria for selecting a family stove are as follows:

• It has to be able to support large pots.
• It has to be able to boil large quantities of water (at least 1.5 L) with relative ease.

The stove has the ability to burn multiple fuels. You can burn alcohol by putting it in the pan and then putting the stove over top and using it as a pot stand. You can also put an alcohol stove (such as a soda can stove or Trangia burner) in the firebox. The stove will also burn solid fuel tablets by placing them directly in the firebox.

Wood Burning

Most backpacking wood stoves require a little practice to get them lit properly, especially in damp conditions. The Bushcooker LT makes the lighting process very easy, thanks to a clever design. After putting some tinder in the stove, all one has to do is to lift it up and light it from underneath - through the air vent - using a lighter. If you don't have tinder or your wood is wet, another clever trick is to put some alcohol or chunk of fuel tablet in the priming pan, light it, and put the stove back over top. The primer will burn, dry the wood if it is damp, and then ignite the stove. What is cool about this design is that you can start in alcohol burning mode, and then if you need more fuel, add wood directly to the firebox to keep the stove going. When cooking larger quantities of food for groups, this might be a very helpful feature.

The tin pan is placed on the heat shield for alcohol
burning mode, or for enabling alcohol to be used
to light the wood.

For my wood burning test I filled the firebox with dry wood and put a little alcohol in the pan. I lit the alcohol and put the stove over top. Initially there was some smoke as the alcohol started to burn the wood from the bottom. Once the stove started to heat up, the secondary burn flared-up and the smoke disappeared. I put a 2L pot on the stove with 1.5L of cold water. In about 12 minutes I had a good hard boil. Part way through the burn I lifted the pot off the stove and added more wood but I don't know that it would have been necessary to achieve a boil.

The stove felt stable and hot. At no point during the process did I feel the stove was underpowered for the job, I felt like there was still headroom to spare, and would feel confident with even bigger pots and larger quantities of water.

In my tests, I filled the firebox with wood and used
alcohol to light the stove. More traditional methods
using tinder can of course also be used.

Smoke starts to rise as the alcohol begins to ignite
the wood.

The wood ignites and the firebox begins to heat up.

Once the firebox is fully heated, the smoke is
ignited in a secondary burn. Note the smoke in
the stove, but none going beyond the top of the stove.

My 2L Snow Peak pot with 1.5L of cold water.

12 minutes later we have a solid boil.

Still plenty of fuel left after the water has boiled.

In breezy conditions, this stove needs a windscreen. For my tests I used an MSR aluminum windscreen which wasn't quite high enough on it's own to be effective. I propped the windscreen up on a couple of pieces of wood to get the proper coverage. If I had one suggestion for this stove, it would be for Four Dog Stoves to design some slip-in tabs (they could be made of various lengths) that would stick out, allowing a shorter windscreen to be raised off the ground (similar to those found on the Clikstand). I tried using some tent stakes through the vent holes, but this was ineffective as my pot diameter was wider than the stakes could handle.

One other thing to note is that when using this stove, make sure that whatever you set it on is non-combustible. When performing a test on my picnic table, even with the heat shield in place, my table got seriously scorched.

Take care when selecting the surface on which you
will place the stove, it gets hot!

For fun, on our family camping trip to the Gaspe Peninsula, I decided to try the stove with briquettes. It actually worked surprisingly well, and I wouldn't hesitate to use that as a form of fuel for family car camping trips.

Testing the stove using charcoal
briquettes. I didn't have a windscreen
so I improvised with some aluminum foil.

Celine pan-frying onions over the
charcoal briquettes.

Overall, I have to say that the stove has exceeded all of my expectations as a light-weight backpacking stove for group cooking: it supports big pots very well and has no problems boiling large quantities of water. In terms of versatility, ease of use, and effectiveness, I would say it probably doesn't get much better than this. For more details of how the stove works and to see it in action, Four Dog Stove has a YouTube channel with some good informational videos. Jason Klass of Gear Talk has a good video review of the LT 1. Hendrik of Hiking in Finland has a good video of using the LT 2 in winter.

The only downside for me has really nothing to do with this stove in particular, but with all backpacking wood stoves. I still haven't gotten used to the black creosote build-up that forms on the bottom of the pots. It tends to get a little messy and is very difficult to clean off. Those of you out there that use a wood stove regularly, what do you do about that? Do you just let it continue to build-up on the bottom of your pots? Do you ever clean it off? How? For me to really get comfortable with wood stove use, I am going to have to learn how to deal with it. Any suggestions and/or words of wisdom are welcome!