Ultralight Hikers

[Bill Burk]

Sometimes when I read threads like this full of recomendations for titanium coffee presses and carbon fiber walking sticks, I wonder ... Cans of beans......

Well, if I truly was in it for the weight savings, I'd stop whining about the coffee and just take the caffeine pills. I tried out the Esbit tab stove today, because I just wanted a quick cup of coffee and thought it would be a good experiment. Little bit of steady wind... blew the flame sideways most of the burn time. Finally fashioned a little windscreen of aluminum foil and knocked the cup over trying to fit it around the stove and cup. By that time the tab was gone and the water was barely lukewarm. So heck with the Esbit. It's either the canister stove (because it WILL get the water hot), or nothing (because somebody else WILL have a stove)...

Cans? I think the old-timers carried sacks of beans. Me? I take cans of beans and dehydrate them. Pretty significant weight savings that way.

[StoneNYC]

Well, if I truly was in it for the weight savings, I'd stop whining about the coffee and just take the caffeine pills. I tried out the Esbit tab stove today, because I just wanted a quick cup of coffee and thought it would be a good experiment. Little bit of steady wind... blew the flame sideways most of the burn time. Finally fashioned a little windscreen of aluminum foil and knocked the cup over trying to fit it around the stove and cup. By that time the tab was gone and the water was barely lukewarm. So heck with the Esbit. It's either the canister stove (because it WILL get the water hot), or nothing (because somebody else WILL have a stove)...

Cans? I think the old-timers carried sacks of beans. Me? I take cans of beans and dehydrate them. Pretty significant weight savings that way.

Nothing like a good cup of coffee in the morning, when you're living in a harsh climate, it's nice to have a little civilization to start your morning, for some, it's more about the flavor and warm feeling, than about the caffeine bit.

If I met you on the trail, and you hiked without a stove expecting "someone else" to have one, I would politely explain that I've measured and estimate my fuel needs and that I didn't have any spare gas to cool your food. The privately mumble something unpleasant about you when you were gone LOL.

Dehydration is certainly a great plan.

[Bill Burk]

If I met you on the trail, and you hiked without a stove expecting "someone else" to have one, I would politely explain that I've measured and estimate my fuel needs and that I didn't have any spare gas to cook your food. The privately mumble something unpleasant about you when you were gone LOL.

Haa, no I don't mean bumming off strangers. These are the Boy Scouts I'll be out with - they WILL have stoves and enough fuel to share for my coffee...

An example of the absurdity of the Esbit stove... on the JMT when I last carried the little tab stove... my share of the community gear included the MSR Simmerlite and fuel. My buddy ribbed me about how stupid I was carrying the gas stove and the tab stove TOO. Anytime I wanted I could just pull out the main stove and make all the coffee I wanted.

[Stephen Willard]

Everything I just typed it got deleted, but basically I was saying that I don't think a swing system hanging from trees would be very convenient, I think no matter how much you tied it down, it would always have a lot of movement and be a pain in the butt.

You are probably correct, there could be a lot of movement causing everything inside to flop around. I do not think your table is practical either at 5.6 pounds.

Here is another idea that is based on what I do for my cook tent. On each corner of the Harrison film tents are loops for pulling the tent tight as you insert the aluminum poles and erect the tent. You would attach adjustable guidelines to the loops on each corner and include four aluminum stakes in the Harrison bag. That is all you need.

When you arrive at your intended camp site you would cut four legs for the table from small trees. The table legs can be as long or as short as you desire. You put a notch on one end of each leg for the guidelines to rest in close to the loop on the corner of the film tent. The other end of the legs is cut with a bevel so that they will stick into the ground and not slide around. This is how I make my poles for my cook tent. You then raise the film tent with the legs in place and synch it firmly down with the guidelines. You would still need the plastic corrugated board that I talked about earlier to create a solid floor inside the tent. And there you have it.....

I think this would do the job with the added weight of just four guidelines and four aluminum stakes. If making poles this way for my cook tent in the field works, then making legs for my film tent should work as well.

The only other thing that may need attention is the loops that come with the Harrison tent may not be strong enough for this application. You may have to either reinforce them with added stitching or sew some beefer loops on. I also would be very careful about how tight you synch the guidelines down. I do not know if the Harrison film tents can handle this kind of tension if the guidelines were too tight. The only thing we want to do with guidelines is make the table rigid and not the fabric flooring inside the tent. For that we will use the plastic corrugated board.

Any comments are welcome.

[Stephen Willard]

Well, if I truly was in it for the weight savings, I'd stop whining about the coffee and just take the caffeine pills. I tried out the Esbit tab stove today, because I just wanted a quick cup of coffee and thought it would be a good experiment. Little bit of steady wind... blew the flame sideways most of the burn time. Finally fashioned a little windscreen of aluminum foil and knocked the cup over trying to fit it around the stove and cup. By that time the tab was gone and the water was barely lukewarm. So heck with the Esbit. It's either the canister stove (because it WILL get the water hot), or nothing (because somebody else WILL have a stove)...

With my Trangia methanol/alcohol stove I always used a MSR aluminum wind break to minimize the heat loss from wind and drastically increase the efficiency of the stove.

[Stephen Willard]

Sometimes when I read threads like this full of recomendations for titanium coffee presses and carbon fiber walking sticks, I wonder what the ultralight hikers used 100 years ago? 1000 years ago?

At the time I bought the titanium coffee press, it was the only small camping press on the market. I think now there are other less expensive ones available. Lets face it, just about everything we do today is hi-tech. Who are you kidding. The synthetic cloths, the nylon tents, the camp stoves, the boots, the beacons, the GPS devices, the water filters, our nylon packs, the LF lenses, the LF cameras, and the list goes on is all state of the art stuff. They say the reason why so people today can climb Everest is because of the synthetic material we now have can make us impervious to the elements.

I am considering purchasing an 8x10 Ebony camera. It is the most versatile and rigid camera made, and guess what, all the metal parts are made from Titanium because that metal is incredible strong, incredible light, and never rusts or tarnishes.

If you want to make fire on top of a mountain rubbing two stick together to cook your dehydrated beans, then go for it. I on the other hand, will use a lighter.

[StoneNYC]

Stephen, you sparked a boyscout memory... I feel foolish not even thinking of this to begin with...

Why not just MAKE a table... Use some chord, and just build a table using traditional sync chording methods...

Here is one dependent on 2 trees being next to one another...

http://boyslife.org/hobbies-projects...-a-camp-table/

I was actually thinking of building one without any trees, but certainly at least one tree would stabilize the entire system a lot more, here are some basic cordage tying message that you would need to understand





And then you could build a platform of sticks and tripod legs.

Or use at least one tree and 2-3 tripod legs... Example 102 was more what I was thinking...



Of course you could also go really crazy and build a lookout tower! Haha



But you get the idea.

You could still bring the plastic corrugated, as additional flattening for the base, but would have a much more stable flat platform, and you wouldn't have to rely on the loops on the tent to support the tent itself, and would put less strain on those corners, also I think that it would be dangerous to start adding extra threating to the design as you may end up puncturing the light proof-ness of it...

So this I think is my final answer... Build one in the field.

Now normally regular guyline is just fine, as cordage, however I do know that that more natural fiber is going to be less flexible and better for building, as he doesn't have as much play, it's that crappy wiry stuff that's yellow in color but I suppose regular old guy line is good enough....

[tgtaylor]

Well, if I truly was in it for the weight savings, I'd stop whining about the coffee and just take the caffeine pills. I tried out the Esbit tab stove today, because I just wanted a quick cup of coffee and thought it would be a good experiment. Little bit of steady wind... blew the flame sideways most of the burn time. Finally fashioned a little windscreen of aluminum foil and knocked the cup over trying to fit it around the stove and cup. By that time the tab was gone and the water was barely lukewarm. So heck with the Esbit. It's either the canister stove (because it WILL get the water hot), or nothing (because somebody else WILL have a stove)...

Cans? I think the old-timers carried sacks of beans. Me? I take cans of beans and dehydrate them. Pretty significant weight savings that way.

I also did the JMT with an Esbit but found that it took several tabs to bring 16ozs of water to an almost boil because of the altitude. The idea appealed to me because I used a similar set-up in the army: you would cut holes around the bottom of a small can that cookies or crackers came in with a church key, and then around the top (upwards pointing) to hold the can. Worked pretty good but we were almost always around sea level.

Thomas

[Bill Burk]

With my Trangia methanol/alcohol stove I always used a MSR aluminum wind break to minimize the heat loss from wind and drastically increase the efficiency of the stove.

Of course! The MSR windscreen is in the bottom of my pack with the Simmerlite stove! Now I feel stupid for having something, bringing it, needing it AND forgetting to use it. That happens to me all the time!

[Bill Burk]

So this I think is my final answer... Build one in the field....

To give you an idea what to expect... built this at camp last summer... took better part of an afternoon and it is wobbly as all get-out...



So you don't blame the counselors, the class I took that week covered lashing... the day after I built the table.