Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Stove for cooking at Trail Camp

My main question is how the MSR fuel canisters perform at Trail Camp. I have a Gigapower canister top stove. Is it useless?


First post by me. So, sorry and thankyou.

James
San Diego

We used a Snowpeak cannister stove at Trail Camp. Stove worked fine when lit, but hard to light (I have a pezo lighter on my stove). My butane lighter also struggled, but we were able to generate at spark from the lighter to light the stove. Best to put the stove cannister in your sleeping bag to keep it warm, bring matches as backup for lighting the stove.

You'll be fine. I've used a gigapower stove snow camping up near trail crest in January with zero problems. Piezos can be finicky so bring a lighter and keep it warm and dry.

Anyone have any experience with "JetBoil" at high elevation in the cold?

I've used my jet boil at guitar lake (so not quite 'high' altitude, but some altitude nonetheless) with no problems whatsoever.

I've also seen it used in a podcast I've watched (Ski the Himalayas) of the climbers/skiers using it at high elevation there in the Himalayas. It appeared to be their only stove. I only saw it in the background in their tent - out and set up - but they didn't comment on it's actually functionality.

Thanks for the feedback.

Just realized too Guitar Lake isn't too far off from the altitude at Trail Camp - so yeah.

Thank you for responses....

Hikin' Jim has been posting very detailed discussions of camp stoves on the San Gabriel Wilderness Area BB. Here is a link to the summary post which also links to the posts on individual stoves. http://members.boardhost.com/sgva/msg/1307070798.html He discusses how cold affects different stoves. His info is based on his own research.

I have been monitoring the SGWA website for years and think that HJ is a trustworthy source.

BW

"If you submerge your canister in water while it is running, the water will keep it at or above freezing as well. I do this with my MSR Reactor when it is really cold by putting a chopped off plastic gallon jug ( maybe the bottom 2.5 inches of the jug ) under the canister, and filling it will water."


This is very easy to do with a jetboil as you already have the right sized little cup to use - the little 'measuring cup' bottom thingie works great if you put a bit of water in it, set the canister in it and run it from there.

The major factor for canister stoves is that:
Butane Boils at 31 degrees F.
Propane Boils at -43 degrees F.
Most canisters are a butane/propane mix.
If you keep you canister warm it will work anywhere, this means as you cook the canister needs to stay above 31 F, thats why the water bath works.
If the canister temp falls below this you burn off the propane leaving you with butane thats too cold to get out of the canister.
In winter I use liquid fuel stoves, heavy but no messing around.

I only use canister stoves. In winter I just use one that can use an upside down canister. Not quite responsive on the throttle control, but works without any warmup or fancy water baths. However, this time of year, even my 30 year old GAZ Bleuet will work just fine

My buddy used his Jetboil at Trailcamp and I had my Gigapower both with piezo lighters both of which failed. The temps weren't too cold (25-30 degrees) and both stoves did fine once lit. The canisters were too cold at first to work so we put them in our jackets for awhile to warm them up and started both stoves with matches. Now when there's snow I use a MSR Whisperlite that uses white gas and have had no problems since. It is heavy but it is pretty much bullet proof if taken care of properly. Also carry at least two lighters (three or four would be better) with you and one in your jacket pocket to stay warm.

It's not that dire a situation. Most of the canisters sold nowadays have isobutane in them which boils at around 11°F. But even if you are cooking below that temperature it doesn't mean that you're only using up the propane. The temperature doesn't have much of an effect on how fast you lose propane. As a practical matter it's easy to use canisters down to around 10°F with just a little TLC to keep them warm while running.

I used my MSR pocket-rocket (does not have auto-lighter) with iso-propane cannister and it worked fine at Trail camp. I could boil 500 ml of water in around 8 minutes.

It is a common misconception that canister stoves do not perform well at elevation. Any observed difference would only be attributed to the typically lower temperatures found at elevation, and has nothing to do with the gas itself. At any given temperature, the isobutane/propane mixture has a specific gas pressure that is only dependent on the temperature and the ratio between the propane and isobutane. The fact that the gas pressure is higher than the outside air pressure is what causes the gas to vent from the canister (through the stove burner). At elevation you actually have a slight advantage because the ambient air pressure is lower, which means that the gas in the canister will be at a higher relative pressure and vent better than it will at sea level at that temperature. On top of Whitney the air pressure is approximately 60% of sea level air pressure.

The canisters also behave differently depending on how full they are. The propane and isobutane exert different partial pressures, and the propane in the vented gas is at a higher percentage than it is in the canister itself because it has a higher partial pressure. As the canister is used, the percent propane drops until it is primarily isobutane left. That is when you will really notice a difference at low temperatures.

I have used canister stoves at a wide variety of elevations in the Sierras, from low to high, and the only difference I have seen in stove performance is related to two things: canister temperature, and how much remaining fuel is in the canister. With a full canister and typical summer temps at 11,000' and above, I have had no problem boiling a liter of water in just over three minutes with my Windpro/Jetboil GCS pot combination.