Stove Maintenance
Butane stoves require no routine maintenance. On expeditions, I've always carried an orifice-cleaning tool (a stiff, tiny wire attached to a handle) to clean the orifice where the butane gas emerges, but I've never needed to use it.

The orifices on white-gas and multi-fuel stoves, on the other hand, do need periodic cleaning, particularly if you're burning kerosene. The second most common failure point for white-gas stoves is the pump cup, which needs oiling periodically with two or three drops of a lightweight oil. In addition, white-gas stoves have a variety of rubber seals and gaskets, which need replacing on occasion. MSR and Coleman both sell spare parts for their stoves, which should be considered as essential as the stove itself. One final tip: Don't store fuel in the stove's tank. It can become gummy if the stove sits around unused for several months. Instead, light the stove and burn off the remaining fuel before storing the stove at the end of the season. Don't pour unused fuel down the drain or into the gutter, where it will become a highly toxic pollutant.

Selecting the rest of your kitchen kit is easy if you backpack in the style that Cora and I do. We like to spend our time hiking, searching for subjects to photograph and watching the marmots pout and the pikas scold, rather than slaving over a stove in camp trying to prepare a gourmet meal. We bring just one five-cup pot. In addition, we each carry a metal spoon, a plastic mug with a lid and a plastic bowl, which in its former incarnation was a margarine container. A pair of sturdy pot grips, available in backpacking shops, is another essential. To be sure, some backpackers choose to make the preparation and consumption of delicacies the central point of their trip. They bring a Teflon frying pan for the trout they hope to catch and a griddle to bake their pancakes. They buy a lightweight, collapsible oven that uses a backpacking stove as the heat source, and turn out miniature pizzas and brownies alongside the shores of high-country lakes. We choose to burden ourselves with extra lenses instead of pots and pans, but that's the beauty of backpacking: There's room out there for fanatics of every persuasion. Room, too, for those sane souls who can shrug off their city obsessions and just enjoy the wilderness for what it is.

Site Map  - 

Copyright © 2006 Beginner's Guide. All content rights reserved.
Trademarks and brands mentioned are property of their respective copyright owners.