Live dispatches via satellite from an expedition in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness: Day 5 – Crossing the Crest
Day 5: July 13
Today we (attempt) to cross the Absaroka Crest to the Beartooth Plateau, where easier terrain and world class alpine lake fishing awaits.
The clear skies at dawn this morning make me hopeful for a high altitude traverse that is absent of the drama that comes with wind, cold, and rain.
Between the Beartooth Highway and the Stillwater River, there aren’t many places to cross the Absaroka-Beartooth Crest if you aren’t a backpacker with some mountaineering skills.
The two easiest spots, perhaps, are High Pass, which we would attempt today, and Sky Top Pass, which will be the key to our exit next week.
High Pass is visited occasionally by day hikers coming from the south via Donelson or Two Bits Lake. The terrain is mostly Class 1 with only a little bit of Class 2 talus here and there.
Far fewer backpackers traverse High Pass. The route north and east, the route we were ascending, poses difficult travel. So you have to want it.
We left camp “mid-morning” with rain jackets on as we walked into a weak storm system that would release intermittent bits of sleet and snow on us for the next few hours.
Our route took us through creekside willows and bogs before delivering us at the foot of a nasty glacial moraine strewn with sharp, car-sized talus.
We opted for the steeper terrain of grass, granite slabs, and snow flanking the moraine until we reached the beautiful Sky Pilot Lake. Here, we rested, ate, and hid behind our backpacks out of the bone-chilling wind while taking in the view of one of the Beartooth’s most dramatic, pyramidal peaks immediately above: the SE summit of Sky Pilot Mountain.
We skirted the south end of the lake, climbing loose scree and talus above steep snow that plunged sharply into Sky Pilot Lake’s icy blue waters. I can feel the fatigue in my legs and back, after several thousand feet of climbing over the past few days. I’m looking forward to easier days and more rest when we get to the Plateau, so I can recover a bit before attempting the difficult traverse of Sky Top Pass next week.
By mid-afternoon, we reached the first of High Pass’s passes. High Pass is a two-pass pass, with a lake in between (High Pass Lake). The gentle pass was covered in a flat talus and snow field, which was a welcome reprieve from the steep climbing required to get here.
We descended the pass and reached Maryott Lake by late afternoon.
We are camped on little tundra benches overlooking the lake, and surrounded by the jumbled topography of the Beartooth Plateau. It’s cold here (we are at 10,500 feet or so), with a bit of a breeze (just enough to numb hands and cause a chill if you’re not hiding behind a large rock), but beautiful. It feels only a little hostile, but very remote.
I tried to fish tonight into the headwind and managed to land a 13 or 14 inch cutthroat before retreating to our sheltered kitchen to warm up.
It’s been a cold trek. I’m burning a lot more calories than I’m consuming and I’m constantly hungry. I’m looking forward to sunshine and rising trout, soon!
Godspeed,
RJ
Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.
I woke up at 5:30 am noting an orange glow through the wispy fabric of my Cuben Fiber pyramid shelter.
Unzipping the door, I was elated to see the day dawning clear with the first fiery tinges of morning alpenglow descending from the summit of Whitetail Peak.
I brewed coffee from the warmth of my sleeping bag, not wanting to brave the crisp morning air quite yet. After journaling and reading for a little bit, I fell back asleep.
The warm morning sun invited us to lounge around in camp, where we felt the need to thaw out after the past 60 hours, which have been very cold and wet. As such, we got off to a lazy start, not hitting the trail until, well, let’s just call it “mid-morning”…
We might question our lack of intention, not knowing what would be ahead of us today.
The climb up and over 11,037-foot Sundance Pass was steep and beautiful. We were treated to expansive views of the snowy Whitetail-Castle cirque that made it difficult to keep our eyes on the rocky trail. Near the top of Sundance’s interminable switchbacks, a cold wind funneled through the pass. I climbed the remaining 100 vertical feet in a down vest and rain jacket just to stay warm, in spite of carrying a 45 pound pack up a steep incline.
After snacking at the top we made a hasty descent to September Morn Lake, where we veered off trail. It will likely be the last time we travel on a trail for the next 8 days.
A steep bushwhack down a forested slope, with a little small talus, brought us to First Rock Lake and our third major alpine valley of the trip.
We spent a little time here in the mid afternoon enjoying more snacks and the pleasant warmth of being alone and remote in the Beartooths.
More bushwhacking and Class 2 scrambling through giant talus led to the headwaters of Second Rock Lake, a hopeful camp for us. We spooked a young and curious bear, who ambled up the talus above us with grace and ease that made me both envious, and awe-inspired.
Unfortunately, the meadows around the inlet were still swamped and the woods were thick with blowdowns, so we soldiered on up the canyon. By now, it was past our dinner time.
More bushwhacking and a steep climb up moose and bear trails. Cooling temperatures. Dark clouds heading our way. Running out of daylight. And the ominous black granite of the 3,000-foot NW face of Beartooth Mountain rising above like a sentinel protecting the upper cirque. We were tired, out of trail snacks for the day, and just about bushwhacked out.
Finally, we stumbled across a dry grassy bench rimmed by subalpine fir, just barely big enough for our shelters, and called it a day in the waning daylight.
We celebrated with “pizzas” made in fry bakes (fried cheese on the bottom as a crust, with tomato paste, pepperoni, and tortilla bits layered on top), and were just finishing dinner when the heavens broke loose. I hastily cleaned up and made it to the shelter of my tent just as the peak of high winds and driving rain hit our camp.
We are at 9,400 feet. The sound of Lake Fork Creek rumbles below through a boulder garden. Beartooth Mountain rises vertically, directly above our camp. I’m camped among willows, with bear scat underneath my ground cloth.
And the cold and wet have returned again. Wind howls through the treetops and ridges above.
Tomorrow we continue up valley to its head, attempt to cross the Absaroka-Beartooth Crest, and begin a weeklong traverse of the Beartooth Plateau.
Godspeed,
RJ
Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.
Live dispatches via satellite from an expedition in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness: Day 3 – A Break in the Storm
Day 3: July 11
Temperatures plummeted last night as the full force of the storm hit. Sleet, graupel, and snow with the wind howling eerily across the ridges above.
We stayed in our tents well into morning to ride out the worst of it.
During a break in the storm, I got up and moved our fire pit (built atop a hearth of flat stones) and cooking area in a heavily forested hollow behind a large boulder to give us protection.
One by one our crew members showed up as we boiled water for breakfast and coffee. We spent the entire morning here feeding the fire and drying wet clothes as best as we could.
And then we saw something: our shadows!
The sun was not visible by any stretch of the imagination but it was clear that it was now a few degrees warmer and the clouds were a little thinner.
Expecting to ride out the storm here another night, but wanting to be as close to the base of Sundance Pass (tomorrow’s objective) so we can get back on schedule, we had a discussion: should we stay or should we go?
So we packed up hastily, wanting to take full advantage of this possibly brief weather window to at least move up the valley a few miles.
By late afternoon, we reached a campsite and dropped our packs to scout up the valley a little further. After exploring the very breezy area above Sundance Lake, we retreated to our packs and settled in at a wildflower-blanketed meadow, with a fire and cooking area tucked back among large spruces flanking the meadow.
After pitching my shelter, I snuck back into a tree grove to get out of the wind and fetch an appetizer from my snack bag. Except there was nothing left. The cold has amped up my metabolism and I’ve already stolen food from snack bags allocated to future days.
Even after dinner I remained hungry, and I really hope we can fish soon…I made a few freezing casts this morning on the creek to no avail.
Evening brought declining temperatures, more wind, and intermittent views of the 12,000 foot peaks rimming the head of this valley. The most dramatic of all is Whitetail Peak and its iconic north face, triangular summit, and NE Couloir, a 2,500 foot stripe of steep snow rising from the valley floor nearly to its summit. I climbed this couloir with my friend Alan many years ago (2002?) and it remains one of the highlights of my experiences in this range.
By 9 pm, the temperature has dropped too much for me to stay warm, so I went to the tent, zipped up, tightened up my down parka hood, put on my down booties, snuggled deep into my down quilt, and settled in for another cold night.
Godspeed,
RJ
Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.
Live dispatches via satellite from an expedition in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness: Day 2 – Traversing a Pass in the Storm
Day 2: July 10
Booming thunderstorms and torrents of rain came shortly after I crawled into my tent last night.
I wasn’t able to get a good satellite signal with the iSavi, since Sylvan’s north face was blocking the space view, so I lied in bed thinking about potential exit routes if one of the lightning bolts ignited a tree near our camp. It wasn’t lost on me that we were camped in a tinderbox filled with piles of dead fuel accumulated during decades of forest ecology at work.
Unable to craft an acceptable outcome for such an emergency, I put in earplugs and went to sleep.
I woke up in a pool of water.
I think the wind blew the lip of my ground cloth out under the edge of my shelter, creating a convenient irrigation system that delivered quite a lot of water into my wilderness bedroom.
Thankfully I was sleeping atop a two and a half inch thick mattress and stayed mostly dry. I wrung out what I could from the edges of my 19 oz down quilt, and started packing up. We’ll see if this “water resistant down” is worth anything…
The “storm” hadn’t arrived yet but the temperature was dropping.
By the time we left camp this morning, we were dressed in rain gear and took our first steps in thunder, lightning, and hail larger than any peas I’ve ever eaten.
The route to our target pass was off-trail through forest brush. Eventually we emerged to subalpine fir, tundra, talus, and even some wobbly tussocks with ice water channels flowing between them.
By the time we reached the pass, the rain had turned a bit white and the high wind was causing it to sting our faces.
At this moment I recall thinking that this was one of the most hostile trekking days I’ve had in a few years. To keep morale up, we practiced foreign accents and non-indigenous expletives (“Bloody stinging hail! ‘Tis a bugger!”)
We dropped down to the Mary Lake basin and huddled in the scrub trees to eat and drink. A break in the storm gave us a reprieve and boosted morale with a few rays of sun.
After a jarring descent (back on trail now) to the valley, we rested once again and chatted with Ranger Jenny for a bit. She grilled the younger ones with LNT questions and they all passed. She was shocked, and maybe impressed, that we were heading into the Big Storm as part of a 12 day trek. She and her partner were heading home.
More cold and wet trekking took us a little ways farther up the valley of the West Fork of Rock Creek. Tired, cold, and hungry, we decided to camp around 4 pm. We are again in the trees, with the river nearby and gigantic cliffs flanking our camp. They rise more than 2,500 feet from their base to their top.
After setting up shelters we all changed into dry clothes and napped while the rain pounded down outside. I was wearing all of my clothing to stay warm.
Then, silence: a break in the storm.
We managed to build a fire and cook a quick meal before the storm returned. With temperatures dropping constantly, and the wind picking up, we were now being basted by sideways blowing snow.
Clean dinner, tie up the Ursacks, retreat to the shelters, get warm.
Time to settle in for what promises to be a cold night.
Godspeed,
RJ
Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.
Dispatches from the Beartooth Plateau: Up, Up, and Over – Our First Plateau Traverse
Day 1: July 9
The beginning of any expedition is almost always accompanied by chaos.
There are loose end tasks that must be wrapped up, and it seems like the number of those tasks grows exponentially as the expedition departure time gets closer.
Inevitably, I get little sleep the night before I leave. I’m usually packing and repacking my pack, checking and rechecking my gear, and working late to try to tie up all those loose ends. Plus, there’s always a mix of nervous excitement and trepidation about a big trip, which contribute to poor sleep quality. This may be why I’m always so tired on the first day. It doesn’t take long for the adrenaline to wear off and you realize that you have a steep mountain to climb, and your pack is heavy, and you’re going to suffer a bit.
This was my hardest Day 1 in awhile. A 51-pound pack combined with a few thousand feet of elevation gain in warm temperatures has a way of sapping the enthusiasm right out of you.
Nevertheless, we plodded along for eight or so miles up and over the Red Lodge Creek Plateau and are now camped on a forested bench above beautiful Crow Lake.
The mosquitoes here are moderate, and it’s a headnet night.
We are currently traveling along one of the routes for this years’ Wilderness Adventures treks (our Silver Run trek). It’s a pretty spectacular first day that includes travel on one of the iconic, barren, tundra plateaus capped with a dramatic descent while staring at the imposing 3,000 foot tall northwest face of Sylvan Peak. What an incredible sight!
I brewed a coffee and roasted sausages over a fire for dinner, then wrapped them in a tortilla slathered with ketchup and mustard from the little packets – these things boost my spirits.
Thunder is booming in the distance, but I can still see stars for now. I wonder if, and when, the forecasted cold front will hit.
Tomorrow we go off trail, up and over a remote high pass…
Godspeed,
RJ
Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.
How to plan food for a 12-day backpacking trip: Live dispatches from an expedition in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.
Day 1: July 9
Late last night, upon realizing that my starting pack weight for this trip would exceed 50 pounds, I decided to keep my ultra comfy camp chair and jettison some food instead.
The great thing about trekking in an area known for its legendary alpine trout fishing, and carrying a very light tenkara rod, is that you have confidence (which is sometimes confused with reliability) of gourmet fish dinners every night.
Confidence is a great way to reduce pack weight.
I dropped my breakfast rations to 5 oz/day (oats/granola with freeze dried berries, nuts, seeds, and Nido), dinner rations (various homemade and packaged meals) to 6 oz/day, and snacks (nut butters, cured bison meat, waffle cookies, cheese, chips, and energy gel) to 11.5 oz/day. This gives me 22.5 oz of food at a caloric density of about 118 Cal/oz, for a total daily ration of about 2,700 Calories.
That’s pretty thin for a 12 day trip at high altitudes with cold weather expected.
So I hope to catch, and eat, many pounds of fish en route.
Stay tuned, we’ll see how it works out.
We hit the trail in about an hour.
Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.
The purpose of this article is simple: I want to teach you how to choose backpacking equipment for inclement weather by documenting my thought processes as I select clothing, sleep, and shelter systems for a summer trek. The process will be illustrated as a case study: my equipment selection for a 12-day summer trek in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in Southwest Montana.
Introduction
The purpose of this article is simple: I want to teach you how to choose backpacking equipment for inclement weather by documenting my thought processes as I select clothing, sleep, and shelter systems for a summer trek. The process will be illustrated as a case study: my equipment selection for a 12-day summer trek in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in Southwest Montana.
I will be placing significant emphasis on going as light as possible for several reasons:
I’ll be carrying 12 days of food and supplies, without resupply;
I’m rehabilitating a nagging back injury so won’t be able to carry as much as I normally can (I’m usually OK with 50-55 lb starting pack weight on longer trips);
Most of our planned route is off-trail;
I’ll be carrying some “extra non-backpacking gear” (more on that below), so I want to save weight in my base kit as much as possible.
Although the equipment I selected is based on my planning process for a Beartooth Plateau (Montana) backpacking trip, the information herein would be applicable to most western U.S. mountain ranges during the summer. These ranges might include the Northern Rockies of Montana and Idaho / Continental Divide Trail, the Colorado Rockies, the Uintas, Glacier/Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Parks, the High Sierra, and the Northern California / Oregon Cascades / Pacific Crest Trail.
Some changes, of course, might be necessary for other environments during the summer, such as the drier and warmer deserts of the southwest and inland northwest, and the wetter climates of the northern Pacific Crest / Washington Cascades / Olympics.
Note: I’m staying away from brands and models of gear in this mini-treatise, and focusing on form and function. In some cases, I have linked to reviews, manufacturer’s websites, or retailer’s websites of products that I’ve personally used and like (and is the gear I’ll be taking on this trek).
Environmental Considerations
Rugged terrain over glacial moraine at high altitudes, combined with a hazardous weather forecast, emphasizes the need to plan carefully.
The following represent the primary environmental considerations that guided my equipment selection:
High altitudes – most of our route, and almost all of our camps will be above the treeline (> 10,000 feet).
Wind – exposed terrain at our camps and the high altitude of our route results in generally windy conditions.
Storms – seasonal considerations and high altitudes mean that we’ll be trekking during the peak of the summer thunderstorm season.
Insects – because we are taking the trek in mid-July, we’ll be camping during the peak of mosquito season.
Bears – both grizzly and black bears are present.
Remoteness – we’ll be traveling through areas that are not-so-remote, as well as through areas that see very few visitors.
Terrain – most of the trip will be off-trail across a wide variety of terrain, including meadowy tundra, talus and scree, glacial moraine and high passes up to Class 2+, steep snow, and even some bushwhacking.
Climate – during July, we expect high temperatures at these altitudes to be in the range of 55 to 70 degrees, and low temperatures to be in the range of 30 to 45 degrees; cold fronts are common during the summer here, and can deliver freezing rain, hail, graupel, and snow.
Our route would keep us above the Beartooth treeline for most of its course, keeping us exposed to wind and storms during the expected cold front.
Other Considerations
Group travel – we are traveling as a group of seven. Some members are sharing food, cooking, and shelter; some are not.
Fishing – we expect fishing to be outstanding, and there’s no way we’re going to leave our fishing gear at home; this will be a consideration in meal planning for me.
Photo/videography – much of the route will be spent “location scouting” for our Wilderness Treks program, so we’ll be bringing along a camera kit (or two) to shoot photography and video that will be used to give participants and prospective participants a sense of magnificence of this incredible place!
Expedition publishing – we’ll be publishing journal and photo dispatches live from the trip, directly to this website, as well as to social media accounts.
Last Minute Considerations
The day before we left, a storm off the Pacific Coast gained some strength and began to move inland.
The National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather advisory, calling for high winds, severe thunderstorms, and … snow. With low temperatures for the first few days of our trip projected to be in the 20s (F) and high temperatures in the 30s (F), it threw a bit of a wrench into my planning for what I was hoping would be a mountain sunshine vacation!
The bottom line is that this was a very slow-moving cold front and would likely be impacting our weather for the first 4 or 5 days of the trek.
Snow and freezing conditions are never out of the question in the Beartooths. This photo was taken on during the final third of a two week trek during our exit off the Beartooth Plateau down a remote, trail-less lake chain system.
How to Choose Backpacking Gear for Inclement Weather: Clothing Layers
I like to (mentally, at least) compartmentalize my clothing into three distinct systems:
Trekking clothing;
Storm clothing;
Camp clothing.
In short, trekking clothing is what I wear next to my skin all day, storm clothing is what I put on while trekking in bad weather, and camp clothing is what I wear to stay warm in camp (or during other long periods of inactivity in cold conditions).
This system dictates where I stow my clothing in my backpack. I wear the trekking clothes, keep the storm clothes handy near the top of the pack (or in an outside pocket), and I stow the camp clothes deep down inside my pack (usually with my sleeping bag) since I’m not likely to have to access them on the trail.
Of course, there is crossover: on a particularly cold day, I may need access to an insulating jacket (camp clothing) at lunch, or have to wear a rain jacket (storm clothing) in camp.
Trekking Clothing (Base Layers Worn While Walking)
However, for this trip, I’m expecting plenty of foul weather and very little warm weather. I’m not expecting to encounter temperatures over 60 deg F until, perhaps, our last day or two of trekking once we finally drop below 8,500 feet.
For these temperatures, and considering that we’ll have breezy conditions on the plateau above 10,000 feet (where we’ll spend most of our time), making the case to wear a woven trekking shirt becomes less compelling. I’d rather have the comfort of a highly functional layering system for inclement weather trekking, so I’ll have to rely on something else for protection from biting insects (more on that later).
The various scenarios to consider when planning a layering system for inclement conditions include some combination of wind, precipitation, and cold temperatures:
Wind (none -> high)
Precipitation (none -> high)
Temperature (warm -> cold)
The probability that we would encounter “extreme” conditions while trekking on this trip, given the hazardous weather forecast, is quite high. Therefore, the primary question I want to ask at this point is
What will I add to my trekking clothing as wind and precipitation increase in intensity, and temperatures drop?
The Torso
I know that simply wearing a lightweight merino wool hoody under a rain jacket wouldn’t be enough by itself to stay warm in this type of weather, so I have a few options:
Add mid layer(s) to this system (more versatility);
Replace the lightweight merino wool shirt with a thicker/warmer base layer (simpler).
I like simpler, so option #2 is tempting. However, the need to have my trekking clothing be as comfortable as possible in as wide of a range of conditions as possible trumps everything else. I know from experience that my lightest weight merino wool hoody is comfortable while trekking even in very warm conditions (> 60 deg F). In addition, it dries faster than a thicker layer. Therefore, I’m going to opt for #1 and add mid layers to my system.
The mid layers I own and use include the following:
The wind shirt is almost a non-negotiable item for me. It is the single layer that I wear more than any other and find it to be the most versatile piece of clothing I’ve ever used. Being able to wear it as an outer shell in cool/cold and dry/light precipitation conditions makes it invaluable. I know there is a trend for some to ditch the wind shirt and move back to a traditional layering system using a fleece jacket/vest instead. Fleece is more breathable, and in some (colder) conditions, more comfortable than a wind shirt. However, this decision comes with a higher weight penalty and less versatility in high winds and warm/buggy conditions.
This three-layer system – the ultralight merino hoody, the wind shirt, and my rain jacket – are what I would need to stay warm in all but the most hostile conditions. However, we are expecting hostile conditions. What to do if the temperatures drop into the 30s, precipitation is heavy wet snow, and winds are breezy?
That’s easy. I’m going to camp! Those are terrible conditions for hiking, and I’d rather hang out in my shelter, drink coffee, and write in my journal.
The Insurance Layer
But I need a little bit of insurance to buy me some time between that moment on the trail where you realize how bad this sucks, to the bliss of finding a suitable campsite to hole up in. That time could be on the order of an hour or two or three, depending on terrain, so I at least want an “insurance” layer to help preserve my body heat.
That’s where my super light 3 oz down vest comes in. Throwing this on between my merino shirt and my wind shirt, and topping off with the rain jacket, means that it’s pretty close to my skin for good core warmth, and far enough away from the elements that it doesn’t suffer the demise of getting (too) wet from perspiration condensing in the clothing system.
My four-layer system for inclement weather trekking includes a 6 oz merino wool hoody base layer, a 3 oz down vest, a 4 oz wind shirt, and a 5 oz waterproof-breathable rain jacket.
The Legs
The legs are much simpler, because they generate more heat while hiking, and stay warmer.
If the weather changes during the day, I may add the long johns over my trekking pants (just to keep things simple and fast), and then top off with my rain pants.
Head, Hands, and Feet
Head. I already have a thin merino hood on my base layer shirt, a wind shirt hood, and a rain jacket hood. Also, I’m usually wearing my crushable nylon brim hat with all of this. Therefore, it seems odd that I would need any additional head covering for summer weather, even bad weather.
However, for the worst case scenario described above (cold, wet, and windy), I do find that a little bit of extra around my head and neck goes a long way. I keep a mini neck gaiter stuffed in my rain jacket pocket for just such a scenario, and if it really gets bad, I plan to add a very light fleece hat.
Hands. I rarely take gloves in the summer, but since we are expecting cold, wet, and windy conditions with temperatures in the 20s and 30s, I will bring a simple but foolproof system that includes a lightweight fleece mitten with a waterproof shell mitt.
Feet. What an incredibly challenging thing to deal with in conditions like these. We are trekking during the early season, so there will be stream crossings that require wading. Sub-freezing temperatures at night will freeze shoes and socks. Wet meadows, lots of precipitation. And then later in the trip, dry and warm.
A waterproof-breathable shoe combined with a high gaiter makes the most sense on a trip like this, but waterproof shoes are a terrible idea for stream crossings.
It’s reasonable to expect that feet will stay warm while trekking, and be very cold in camp. Dry socks for bedtime must be made a high priority. And squishing around in cold, wet shoes and socks while in camp is probably not a very good idea.
If the chance of inclement weather were slight, I’d suffer well with non-waterproof trail running shoes, three pairs of trekking socks (2 to hike in, 1 dry pair for sleeping), and no gaiters. I’ll keep the non-waterproof trail running shoes and two (not three) pair of trekking socks, but I’ll add:
Trekking: A light pair of calf-height gaiters (2 oz) for trekking in snow and wet tundra; I like that gaiters also preserve a little ankle heat which contributes to foot warmth;
I’m expecting my down gear to suffer the inevitable demise of accumulated condensation over the course of the first few (up to four or five?) days of the trek before I can count on drying it out in the sun. Therefore, I have three options to consider: take the chance and suffer as I watch my ultralight down gear wilt, take a higher fill down jacket and/or quilt as insurance, or go with a synthetic insulating layer and/or sleeping quilt? Or of course, some combination of these things.
My lightest down gear (jacket, 8 oz + quilt, 14 oz) weigh a combined 22 oz and are plenty warm when they’re dry! I would have no problem using these items down to freezing temperatures.
The heavier synthetic jacket and quilt weigh a combined 32 oz, are not as warm as the down gear, but would maintain body warmth at lower temperatures if they contained any accumulated moisture. Also, I could sleep in all my clothes, even if they are damp, and wake up in the morning with dry clothes! I wouldn’t be able to do this (as effectively) with down sleeping gear.
A hybrid system (synthetic quilt and down jacket) solves some of these problems, but if I’m going to pack some extra weight, my gut tells me to simply pay attention and be careful, and spend the extra weight on some more down fill! My final setup thus will weigh a combined 28 oz, keep my original 8 oz down parka, and replace my 14 oz down quilt with a much warmer 20 deg F / 20 oz down quilt.
My Backpacking Bed
Bed comfort is increasingly important to me as I get older and appreciate the ability to recover overnight after a hard day of trekking. To keep morning backaches away, I use an 8-oz short-length inflatable mattress combined with an inflatable pillow. The pillow is topped with the Waldorfian luxury of a goose down slipcase.
How to Choose Backpacking Gear for Inclement Weather: The Shelter System
My little Cuben Fiber CT3 pyramid shelter pitched in a golden amphitheater in the mountains near my home in Montana.
The advantages of this 13 oz shelter system include:
Full perimeter protection from wind, rain, and snow;
Plenty of headroom (more than four feet usable) near the peak for sitting up and moving around comfortably;
Side entry door opens wide for expansive views and ventilation on mild nights.
Conclusion: About the Trek
Starting on July 9, we’ll be traveling in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, including a traverse of the Beartooth Plateau, for 12 days. Our traverse will include about 60 miles of travel, most of it off-trail, and including two remote crossings of the Absaroka Backbone (divide).We’ll be scouting trekking routes and camps for this seasons’
Our goal is to explore some lesser-known lakes and find out where the biggest trout in the Beartooths are found!
Eric and I will also be scouting trekking routes and camps for this seasons’ Wilderness Treks program, so be sure to follow our live dispatches, which will be published daily on the home page via satellite, with images also posted over on our Instagram feed.
The Patagonia Sun Stretch Shirt is a lightweight nylon-polyester blend shirt. I use it as a trekking base layer or insect-protection layer in camp. This review reflects my long term experience with this shirt – more than two years and hundreds of miles of use.
Introduction
This Patagonia Sun Stretch Shirt review considers the use of this shirt primarily as a trekking base layer or insect-protection layer in camp.
I happened upon the Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt while shopping specifically for a trekking shirt that had the following features: reasonably trim fit with good articulation; soft next to skin; fast-drying; collar and cuffs; mosquito-resistant weave; side-entry zip pocket (at least one). After what seemed like an exhaustive search, the Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt ticked all of my key feature boxes and was the lightest of all of the shirts I was looking at.
This review reflects my long term experience with the Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt – more than two years and hundreds of miles of use. That it has remained in Patagonia’s product line for several years may be a testament to its versatility and strengths, and its appeal to a broad audience.
Author wearing the Patagonia Sun Stretch Shirt on a recent Sierra High Route trek.
My Long Term Experience with the Patagonia Sun Stretch Shirt
I’ve been wearing the Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt for the past two years on all of my summer treks during “hot sun” and “biting insect” seasons. It has seen hundreds of miles of use in the Sierras, Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Wind River Range. I’m still on my first shirt: it has worn exceptionally well and in spite of suffering lotions, balms, bug repellents, mud, sweat, and blood, it washes well and remains (mostly) stain-free. I’ve bushwhacked through the usual leafy/twiggy Northern Rockies and High Sierra fare with it, with no pilling or picking. Seams and fabric remain intact, in spite of wearing under pack straps with heavy (40+ lb) packs.
Features I Like
Low water absorption;
Fast dry time;
Soft next-to-skin feel;
Tight weave for biting insect and sun protection, but more breathable than other tightly woven plastic-fiber shirts I’ve worn;
Articulated sleeves;
Zippered chest pockets;
Light weight: 6.5 oz (184 g) – Men’s Size M (actual weight of my shirt).
Strengths
Use as a trekking shirt in warm, sunny, or buggy weather;
Use over a wicking base layer in camp for bug and breeze protection.
Limitations
Next to Skin Comfort in Cold/Wet Weather: This is a very comfortable shirt next to skin, even when damp. However, it can’t compete with merino wool for next-to-skin comfort when wet, so it suffers as a base layer in cold and wet conditions.
Limited Durability for Serious Bushwhacking: This is not the shirt I would use for serious bushwhacking through North Slope birch, New Mexico briars, or Pacific Northwest devil’s club/slide alder – these conditions are for 3-layer Supplex. It has held up fine, however, for the leaves and woody bush most of us encounter routinely.
Author’s son, Chase, wearing a Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt on a glacier traverse in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. We like that the shirts have some plaid patterning on them and aren’t just drab solid colors.
Conclusion
A two-layer system combining the Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt and a short-sleeve wicking t-shirt provides more versatility than a single long sleeved base layer. During the peak of summer, this system even allows me to leave a tightly woven nylon wind shirt at home. For trekking in cold and wet conditions, I’ve found that a merino wool base layer, the Patagonia Sun Stretch shirt, and a rain jacket to be just about perfect for any type of inclement weather trekking that I’ve experienced in the Lower 48 between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Patagonia Sun Stretch Shirt Review: Statement of Disclosure
The author purchased this shirt for personal use, and has no obligation to review it with the manufacturer.
Where to Buy the Patagonia Sun Stretch Shirt
Note: The product links above are automatically generated behind the scenes, to offer you some options for purchasing this product. These are affiliate links, which means if you do end up placing an order at one of the linked websites, Backpacking Light earns a small referral commission on the sale. This helps us maintain the website, create new content (by offering honoraria to authors), and develop new website features. Author honorarium amounts are not a function of sales commissions, and it is our official policy to encourage authors to be truthful about their reviews, regardless of how they impact our affiliate sales. So if you think this product might be a good fit for your needs, please visit one of the listed retailers. If not, then don’t sweat it – we certainly don’t want you to buy stuff you don’t need. Thanks for supporting BPL!
In part 2, Roger Caffin explains the research and development behind the vortex burner as a solution for an ultralight winter DIY backpacking stove system.
Hiking with your father – or if you’re a dad, hiking with your kids – is restorative, healing, and builds strength in your relationship.
Over the years, I have done some incredible hikes with my dad, but one trip stands out. For years, my dad has wanted to hike the Specimen Creek Trail in Yellowstone National Park and for whatever reason (life mainly) it has never happened.
The Specimen Creek Trail in Yellowstone National Park, Montana.
My dad is not a lightweight backpacker and probably isn’t an intentional lightweight hiker, but we do share the common bond of loving the outdoors and feeling peace when we are in nature.
The Specimen Creek Trail is a gradual hike along the creek that offers access to a remote area of the Park and leads to Sportsman’s Lake. Despite the fact that we were finally achieving one of my dad’s dreams, it wasn’t all a walk in the Park (excuse the weak attempt at humor). We were there in the early season, and several feet of snow covered the trail which not only slowed us down but made navigation a challenge.
My dad in the deep snow. Each step became more rewarding as we moved closer to our goal despite the challenge!
We lost the trail for a little while but eventually used landmarks to find our way forward. We reached Sportsman’s Lake and just enjoyed the experience. The Specimen Creek Trail to Sportsman’s Lake was a very simple hike in a beautiful part of the world but what made it so special was doing the hike with my dad. He had wanted to do the hike for so long!
One day, I said, “Let’s do it!” So we made a plan and made it happen. It wasn’t a big deal but for my dad, it made all the difference in the world because he had wanted to do it for so long.
Sportsman’s Lake! What a view!
Right now, I am not only BPL’s Associate Editor, but I’m working as the Trek Director and a Trek Leader for our Wilderness Adventure Treks.
More importantly, we just want to offer a venue that allows people the chance to visit a beautiful, and remote wilderness with people who share their values and care about these types of experiences as much as we do.
I know from witnessing my own life that backpacking has played an important role in who I’ve become: it has helped me become a more caring, intentional person. Caring because I have learned the value of teamwork and support that makes group trips possible. Intentional because extended backpacking requires careful planning and forethought in order to get the most out of the experience.
I also have witnessed the transformative power backpacking has in the lives of kids I have mentored through backpacking programs. In addition, I have seen how it has inspired my dad to reconnect with a passion that was seeded when he was a boy growing up in Finland.
I suppose that what I am really trying to say is that being in nature, in the outdoors is healing. It is something we all need. It helps put things in perspective and gives us a clearer head. Without a balance between man and nature – urban and wilderness – some of us cannot expect to thrive.
I don’t know you or your dad, but I do know the benefits that have impacted me when I’ve spent time with others in nature. Based on those experiences, I can promise you that you and your dad would benefit from taking a hike together.
My dad on the trail fulfilling one of his dreams!
As I write this, I am preparing to head out in the Bob Marshall Wilderness for a week. I am excited to be out boating the South Fork of the Flathead River for a few days, but as I sit here reflecting, I can’t help but think about the role that backpacking (and in general, just getting outside) has played in my life.
So here’s my Father’s Day charge to you all. Not matter how frayed or strong your relationship with your family members, please cherish it. I would like to encourage you all to get outside with your family – it is healing and in these trying times that is something we all need.
Do you have a story about hiking with your dad? Or if you’re a dad, hiking with your kid(s)? We’d love to hear about those stories, please share them in the comments below.
Dissatisfied with what was commercially available at the time, I have been working on the design of ultralight winter stove system since 2007, and have settled on a remote canister winter stove system. (OK, OK, a bit obsessive, but so what?) The design required several novel features including versatility, functionality, and safety. These features were explained in a whole series of articles, starting with Part 1 and going on to Part 5. I ended up with a limited commercial production and sold about 115 of them, mostly to BPL members, but over a surprisingly global range.
But the result of all that work on so many variations was just one design. There were so much unused data and so many incomplete designs that the variations were just begging to be followed through. Having sold so many of the first design, and now having some spare time, I started looking at some of my unused designs. But I did not want just to make another very similar stove as the last one; where’s the fun in that?
So I deliberately started down a different track for a very different stove: a Vortex Burner stove. Part 1 of this series will cover the background theory (it does matter) and highlight some successes and some unsolved problems. Subsequent parts will work though some practical realities, with the goal of a UL MYOG remote-canister Vortex Burner winter stove. There may be blind alleys along the way, but we will get there.
Successes
My Winter Stove V1 design met most of my essential goals (and met them very well I think):
Liquid Feed for winter use: remote inverted canister
Gas Valving (rather than liquid valving) for decent and fast control
Safety: a (separate) fast shut-off valve at the canister
Lightweight: the final weight for that stove was 3 oz. (86 g)
Canister Flexibility: take screw-thread, Campingaz and Coleman Powermax canisters
Manufacturable (by me)
The stove works well in the snow
I had better explain the Flexibility requirement. Screw thread canisters may be the norm in the USA, and they are very common in Australia, but sometimes when walking in Europe, I could only get French Campingaz canisters. They have a different connection. And for historical stove-testing reasons I have a lot of Coleman Powermax canisters in the cupboard, and they are very nice winter canisters too. I wanted to be able to use any of them, freely, without special adapters.
The resulting Winter Stove V1 is fully functional and eminently usable, as evidenced by the number of repeat orders some customers have lodged. Yes, indeed: some have come back for a second unit. However, that stove missed out on some other broad and less essential goals. Not goals of functionality, but rather goals of aesthetics. Let me explain.
Commercial Burner Head in V1
I must have spent at least a year playing around with the design of burner heads. The photos here are only part of the range of discards I have stored away in shoe boxes. Some of them worked well, but I did not have the equipment needed to actually “manufacture” these in anything more than single units. That spelt trouble if I just wanted a spare for myself, let alone if I wanted to make a stove for someone else.
A vast array of experimental burner designs developed over the years.
In the end, in the interests of “getting it finished” and manufacturability and cost, I went with a commercial burner head for the flame source on V1. Since this is a remote canister winter stove, the burner head is only a small part of the complete stove. There were several other major goals to be met. I will add here that my greater knowledge of how burner heads work can improve some of these designs, and also by using my CNC machine, but none of them were really “good enough” at that stage.
Since I was using the burner head off of a commercial stove, I also used the needle valve and the jet out of the same stove. Why waste them? Yeah – I now have a huge box of bright orange left-over stove bodies sitting there. That saved me time, and produced a very functional winter stove, but it diluted the MYOG aspect. Aesthetics you see …
Burner Principles: Upright vs. Vortex
A second and the more subtle thing was that all of the above burners shown above bar one were “upright burners.” To be sure, the upright burner works very well, as everyone who has ever used one on top of a canister in fine weather can attest. They are relatively simple and can be very powerful (above 3 kW if you want). But there is another design possible for backpacking: the Vortex Burner. The classic example of this is the MSR XG-K white gas and kero stove. The physics of this design is different and interesting. In fact, I had built a couple of these, and I show one in the above picture in the bottom right-hand corner. Below another version is shown. (There is a third design, as epitomised in the MSR Reactor, but that design turns out to be a significant carbon monoxide hazard when used for backpacking. The burner is not good in a storm-bound tent, and not very reliable when the temperature crashes.)
An early MYOG Vortex Burner stove. It worked quite well.
Pot Supports
Even so, using a commercial burner head was not perfect. A complaint which did surface with the burner head I used was that the pot supports were a bit small and not suitable for big pots – unless you exercised a lot of care. That was true, although many of us manage just fine even with melting snow in a 1.6 quart (1.5 L) pot. Experience has shown that there are hazards with big pots: they tip over and produce excess downwards reflected radiation. But still, it was a small niggling hassle.
Leftover Stock
Somewhere along the line I had at some expense bought several meters of thin-wall titanium tubing, 1.5″ (38 mm) in diameter, for stove experiments and it was just sitting there on the shelf. It wouldn’t cost anything to experiment a bit more, would it? Especially as I had run completely out of burner heads for the V1 model and orders had also run out. And my CNC machine was sitting there looking hopeful. (Er – not true. I had to rebuild all the electronics when the gear put in by a third party started to fail).
Vortex Burners: The Whats and the Whys
What is a Vortex Burner, and how does it work? Why is it different? And why does it make such a loud noise? It turns out the noise is almost an intrinsic part of the fundamentals.
Comparing the insides of Upright and Vortex burners – (I am not an artist).
On the left, we have an upright burner. Gas (red) comes out the jet under pressure and whistles up the burner tube. The high speed of the gas going up the tube drags air (blue) in through the air holes. The fuel/air mix blends in the burner tube and the burner head and comes out the small holes in the burner head. (It’s a shade more complex than that, but no matter). The flame cannot get back inside the upright burner head because the holes are small – the same principle as used in the original Davy Safety Lantern (1815) for coal mines. In some designs, the face of the burner head reaches red heat, but very often it does not. I suggest, in fact, that it is better if the head does not glow; there is less risk of the flame getting inside. In one never-to-be-repeated Chinese copy of the MSR Whisperlite, the flames did get inside the burner head – via the air inlet. The burner head went bright red, and my hand went for the control valve. This was a very repeatable disaster due to a small Chinese change in the design for ease of assembly. They truly did not know what they were doing, which is scary stuff.
The Vortex Burner on the right starts with a jet at the bottom with the gas coming out of it, but then things change. Air is sucked in from the sides, or the base of the chamber and the flame starts to burn inside the burner chamber. Needless to say, the chamber gets extremely hot!
A glowing Vortex Burner.
Glowing bright red is normal. The explosion of volume due to the burning process pushes the flames and the burnt gases out of the burner chamber, to heat whatever is above. But in the process, the gases swirl around inside the chamber a bit, forming a sort of chaotic donut-shaped vortex. The very high speed of the swirling or random oscillation is what causes the “white noise” you hear from such a burner. Hence the name and the noise. Yeah, this is very different.
A quiet almost “Vortex” Burner with a cap on it (one of mine).
Can you quieten a Vortex Burner down? The answer is yes, in fact, you can, but it ceases to be a “Vortex” Burner when you do. You make up a burner head to fit over the top of the vortex chamber, with lots of holes, which converts it to a quiet upright burner. There are several ways to do it, and I have made and used such conversions. The first one I saw was created by a friend of mine long ago (30+ years ago?), but I don’t know from where he got the idea. The one here uses SS wire mesh instead of little holes in a plate, but that is just a small detail. You can buy such converters today from quietstove.com as well. Some of the burner heads in the second photo above would also come close to qualifying for this description.
A caution is in order if you wish to experiment. If you restrict the flow of fuel/air mix out the top too much, you may get some fuel/air mix coming out the air inlet holes lower down. This would, of course, instantly catch alight. That could be unfortunate, to say the least. Careful balancing is needed. Eh – what’s the matter with a little roar? It says dinner is on the way. My wife Sue listens for such things from where she snoozes at the back of the tent in the evening while I get dinner. It also provides extremely useful feedback to the cook while he is doing something else, like getting the food ready to go in the pot. If the roar changes, you check the stove immediately.
Early Vortex Burner Stove Designs
Early experimental Vortex Burner chamber designs.
It is tempting to jump straight to the finished article, but doing so would mean missing out on all the interesting deviations, fun, and failures I met along the way. It would also mean missing out on all the theory and practical results covering how and why a Vortex Burner works, and we wouldn’t want to leave you ignorant, would we? So here we have, in the roughly clockwise direction from the top left-hand corner and going into the middle, some of my early experiments. They all did work, at least “sort of,” although not well enough.
Two conical burners, the left one being spot welded titanium and the right one brazed gal steel. The steel is easy to form, but the zinc coating is a health hazard. The Ti was an utter pain to form.
Three Coke can windshields: two around titanium chambers with flared and flanged tops carrying holes used for holding pot support wires
A brazed brass attempt – very early and rather crude (bottom center)
Flared Ti tube with an external bottom rim, on a spun gal steel base (missing the splash plate)
Another flared Ti tube with lugs at the top for pot support wires, missing a splash plate.
A flared Ti tube with a splash plate done with Ti wire spot welded to the plate, on a Ti sheet base (middle)
Some of the splash plates are dish-shaped and are made from Titanium. Those took a lot of heat/thump cycles to get there. That little bit of metal cooled off so fast while I was getting it into the vice to squeeze or thump it. The flanged top rims on the chamber did take a fair bit of heat/thump too. Most of these chambers have the air inlet in the Ti tube, the same as on some commercial models. You can see from these how the idea of using Ti tube for the burner chamber developed.
Another early Vortex Stove design, also quite functional, with wide pots supports.
This is a somewhat more developed Vortex Burner stove, complete. The canister connector was a primitive version of my eventual solution for the Winter Stoves I sold, but the idea of mating with different canister designs was there already, as well as the safety shut-off valve at the canister. The idea of valving the gas flow very close to the jet rather than trying to micro-valve the liquid flow way back at the canister was also there. See the lumpy white control knob on the stove. The actual needle valve was inside the tubular body with the point of the needle and the valve seat near the jet, where the fuel was a gas. This “control valve on the gas flow” idea is one of the core features of my first winter stove design. This model even included wide pot supports and an integral windshield (not shown). The stove worked fine in the lab under gentle handling (OK, on the kitchen sink). I was not game to try it in the field on anything more than a day walk, for reasons which will quickly become clear.
I could see that this model had many defects in the design of the stove part, and it is instructive to go through them. Well, I think it is anyhow because they teach such a lot.
Weight: a bit too high, at 3.7 oz. (110 g)
Some of this was due to the use of 1/4″ (6.4 mm) ERW stainless steel (SS) tubing for the main inlet tube. I started with this because I had a lot of it. (I forget why).
Needle valve jamming
The needle valve was an inspired bit of .1 in. (2.4 mm) titanium wire with a machined tapered tip at the far end and a brass screw thread fitted onto it near the control knob at the near end. However, titanium and stainless steel have different coefficients of thermal expansion, and the difference goes in the wrong way. If I shut the needle valve off while the stove is hot and let it all cooldown, I can have immense trouble getting the valve open again. Due to the difference in the coefficients of thermal expansion, the stainless steel tube shrinks more than the Ti wire as it cools, so that the Ti needle always ended up jamming at the valve seat at the far end, under the jet. I could see damage and destruction coming.
Yes, I could replace the SS tube with titanium tube of the same size (I have some). Braze the SS tube to the brass jet fitting block, or there will be leaks, and you can’t (I can’t) readily braze titanium.
Mating the brass screw thread with the Ti wire
With some materials you would braze them together, but not with titanium. We have seen what happened when Jetboil tried to weld aluminum fins to titanium in some of their pots: there were too many weld failures. You can electron-beam weld Ti to Ti very nicely, but I didn’t have one of those toys lying around. A press-fit would only last so long, especially with the jamming. Glue was not an option at the potential temperatures; I was always allowing for >392 ºF (>200 ºC).
Making the heat exchanger work
The long SS tube forms a heat exchanger to vaporize the liquid fuel. The inside diameter (ID) of the SS tube was a bit over 13/64″ (5 mm) while the Ti wire was .1 in. (2.4 mm) outside diameter (OD). That left a huge gap, 3/64+ in. (1.3+ mm), between the two, and I found that the liquid fuel did not always fully vaporize as it traveled down the length. It often stayed in blobs, insulated from the hot tube by a thin layer of gas around it, and it sputtered out the jet still in liquid blobs. The solution (as used in my other Winter Stove), was to fill the bore up, so the fuel travels down it in a thin film. The Coleman Xtreme does this with that long thin brass rod which people puzzle over. I did this with a solid Teflon sleeve, but making those to a close tolerance was extremely difficult. Teflon is very soft and wobbles all over the place in the lathe. It is just as likely to spin around the Ti wire rather than being turned down. I didn’t want to use anything else because other materials were either too heavy (e.g., brass) or could melt when the stove got going for awhile.
Titanium wire legs welding
I did manage to do a bit of spot-welding of .1 in. (2.4) mm titanium wire to 2.4 mm titanium wire, as seen on the legs. However, I was not confident that the welds would last for years in the field. It’s tricky stuff to weld, and my welds can fail almost randomly. (I explain more about this below). A TIG or MIG welder with an Argon shield might have solved this (or that electron beam welder I wanted for Xmas), but I did not have either; the spot welder I used was another MYOG effort of mine.
Burner chamber top flare
In some early commercial Vortex Burner stoves (e.g., Optimus 8R), the burner chamber looked a bit like a parabolic cone. Made out of a bit of brass (or maybe stamped), it was heavy. After several attempts, I despaired of making that shape out of titanium and went instead for a parallel side (i.e., tubing) with a flared top. Making the flare was hard – the details will come later, but buying Ti tubing was easy from the right places on the web.
Burner chamber bottom rim
There has to be some way of rigidly connecting the burner chamber walls to the base. In the photo above there is an outwards turning rim, held down with some screws. Making this rim also presented real problems, as I will explain later. Curiously, it turned out that sealing this connection was not required. That was convenient.
Splash plate
The splash plate is the plate on top of the burner chamber. It consists of a disk with three support arms. (You could have more arms, but why?) It keeps the vortex of burning gas circulating briefly inside the burner chamber instead of shooting up into the sky, and is utterly and obviously essential. It is normally stamped out of sheet brass on commercial stoves, but it has been known for brass splash plates to erode (burn) away and fall off. This happened on one early Antarctic expedition, leaving the guys with no stove and no cooking (at sub-zero temperatures) until in desperation someone made a replacement out of a scrap of galvanised steel using little more than a rock. Desperate times, there! I wanted a titanium splash plate. I spent a lot of time trying to get good spot welds between the .06 in. (1.6 mm) wire and the .02 in. (0.55 mm) sheet titanium but they were just not reliable enough and not manufacturable. I also tried thin strips of Ti sheet instead of wire, but the welds were still unreliable. More details (much more) on splash plates later.
Splash plate contour
Most brass splash plates are dished in the middle, although manufacturers don’t tell us why. I guessed it was to aid in shaping the vortex flow. The dished shape is easy to get with brass (kerthump), but it seemed almost impossible with Ti 6Al-4V alloy sheet in the early days. That alloy does not bend cold, and the tiny thermal mass meant it cooled faster than I could process it, and I did not want to make a hot press for this! So it seemed I would have to use a flat splash plate, and make it work.
Plastic hose/stove connection
You can see the white connector with the blue marker pen on it, connecting the hose to the stove. That style of connection had several problems. O-ring sealing inside between the plastic connector body and the SS tubing was finicky. Tolerances had to be tight, and I had to prevent the O-rings from flying out under pressure. Anchoring the hose into the connector was also tricky, with more O-ring problems due to the wire catch. The wire catch was not super-reliable either, and could damage the O-ring. Surprisingly, the use of plastic here was not a problem; I was using PEEK for this, and that plastic is usable to 482 °F (250 °C) long-term and 590 °F (310 °C) short-term. It’s not cheap, though.
Non-optimised design
Need I add here that none of the features in any of the above models was anything like “optimised?” That stage always comes a lot later.
So in the short term, I focused on the upright burner model instead and got that Winter Stove V1 to market. But this Vortex Burner Stove did work moderately well, all the same, so once I had sold all the upright burner stoves I had made, my thoughts turned back to that expensive Ti tubing I had sitting on the shelf.
Technical Note on Welding Titanium
I am throwing this in here just in case someone asks why is it so hard to weld titanium. You can easily solder metals like copper and silver together, and it is not hard to solder or braze brass, and with a little bit more heat you can readily braze or weld steel. All you need for those metals is a flux which can displace any surface oxide layer so the molten filler metal can merge with the clean base metal.
The problem with titanium is that it is very reactive, and an oxide layer covers any new surface. Ordinary fluxes cannot displace the titanium oxide layer; it is too “stable” and tenacious. So when you try to join two bits of titanium together, you very often end up with a very weak oxide layer between the different bits of metal. Sometimes my spot welds displaced the oxide layer to give a strong metal joint, and sometimes they didn’t. Quite often what I got was more of a Lego-style joint, tiny bits interlocking through an oxide layer.
Critical Preliminary Experiments
It seemed to me that I had enough from the early experiments to say that a Vortex Burner Stove should be possible. The Canister Connector and Hose were known territory from the V1 stove. There needs to be a “stove body,” but again the work on making the V1 stove suggested that this could be done without too many problems. I assumed that the needle valve would be equally simple, which was not quite true. However, lots of people make needle valves, so I figured it should be possible. The big unknown at this stage was the Burner Chamber and the bit on top called the Splash Plate. I wanted to use the Ti tubing for the Chamber and Ti sheet for the Splash Plate. Could I make these in a realistic (repeatable, manufacturable) manner? At the start, that seemed to be the crucial question.
Bending Titanium, hot and cold.
Making a viable titanium burner chamber was for a long while a major stumbling block. The Titanium sheet I have is the very popular and very strong 6Al-4V alloy, which is impossible to bend cold. When you finally get it to bend (it takes a lot of force), it usually cracks unless the radius of the bend is large. But this 6Al-4V alloy is what they call “super-plastic.” It can bend very well once it is up to red heat. In the photo here, the sample on the left was bent at red heat, and is fine; the sample at the right was bent cold, and it cracked. You can see the crack. I will add that bending “pure” titanium, often called CP (for Commercially Pure), is much easier, but CP is nowhere near as strong as 6Al-4V.
Fortunately, the Titanium tubing I have is not the 6Al-4V alloy. Instead, it is the 3Al-2V alloy, and this sort of tubing often uses that alloy. Since the tubing I have is rolled up and welded (ERW) it can obviously bend a bit. Some “distortion” of this alloy or tubing was, therefore, hopefully, possible. I had several ways to do this.
Spinning lathe: hydraulic force replaces screw threads (old dealer “For Sale” photo from the web).
The most obvious way was to spin the tube on a mandrel in the lathe and to shape it using “spinning technology.” After all, they make all sorts of spun aluminum shapes this way. But I found that Ti 3Al-2V alloy was a lot harder than any 5000-series aluminum. I could shape it in the lathe using a roller bearing as the “pusher,” but after one or two unsuccessful attempts it was obvious that the forces involved would soon destroy the cross-slide on my little lathe. The lengthwise feed along the lathe bed was also going to suffer. It turns out spinning lathes are built “slightly” differently, at least ten times heavier and stronger! Some of them are massive: a lot bigger than my lathe! They don’t use screw threads for movement; they use hydraulic rams, and that is still just for aluminum.
Manual flaring – inelegant (posed photo, no flame).
The next way was to make up a female mold – essentially a tapered external clamp. Put this around the tube and hammer the tubing out against this mold. I made one up out of steel, and it worked, but the result was a bit erratic and a lot of work. Heat from a propane torch helped (a lot), but holding a propane torch in one hand and doing controlled pounding with a hammer in the other hand, while holding the clamp in the vice was “a bit tricky.” Samples are shown here and in previous photos. The results were rough and inelegant, and also not manufacturable in volume.
Commercial copper flaring tool (one of many product photos on the web).
My next idea was to make a matching male mold to go inside the tubing while the female mold was on the outside, and to squeeze the two together, very much like the flaring tool used on copper tubing by plumbers. This was a great idea, but way beyond what force my drill press could do. You might note that typical plumbers’ flaring tools are for soft copper and for up to about 5/8″ (15 mm) diameter while the tubing I am using is titanium and 1.5″ (38 mm). Not to mention the huge mechanical advantage you get with the fine screw thread on the tool shown here. I tried putting the lot in my cast iron 4″ (100 mm) vice and cranking the handle. That worked, and it produced a satisfactory flare, but it was leaning a bit hard on the poor old vice. Life prediction for the vice if used for that was not encouraging (and good cast iron vices are expensive).
Then there was the problem of the other end of the burner chamber. I had managed to flare the bottom edge out with a hammer and heat. I used an internal mold to hold the inside shape and an external ring clamp to lock the tube on the internal mold. The result was a bit lumpy, and I had to completely disassemble the clamp to get the burner chamber out. Fortunately, that ring clamp had been made to come apart like that.
Burner chamber, diagrammatic.
So when I restarted, I tried making the bottom rim go inwards, and this was an improvement. I could now just slide both parts of the mold off the tube. The external part of the mold slid down past the inwards-turning rim at the bottom, while the internal part of the mold came out upwards past the outwards flare at the top. A little care was needed when hammering the bottom rim inwards to avoid having the outside of the rim bulge slightly outwards. This happens as hammering the rim inwards compresses the titanium there, and that pushes outwards on the tube just at the bend. Any bulge would prevent me from sliding the external mold off the first time. (And yes, it does bulge outwards given half a chance). I could do all that, but I had to flatten the rim against the inside part of the mold with a bit of hard steel and a hammer, and that made dents on the surface of the softer steel mold. (Did I just say mild steel was soft? Yep).
However, despite all the problems, making a titanium burner chamber was possible. And so, the project started.
Summary so far
The early photos show some of the bigger problems I met along the way. I didn’t have simple solutions for them at the time, so I let the ideas sit for a while and got on with developing, making and selling the upright burner V1 stove for a couple of years. That was very successful, and I have sold over 110 of them. (I don’t have any left for sale, but I could make more if needed). A recent revival of my experiments suggested that the idea of an MYOG Vortex Burner Stove was not impossible.
Finding that I could (probably) make a satisfactory vortex burner chamber shape out of my Ti tubing (somehow) was the necessary boost to my enthusiasm. All I had to do was to solve a few more minor problems (he says). So in the next few parts of this series, I will look at these “minor problems.”
The Snuffle Flask is a lightweight fuel dispenser that works with any alcohol stove. Learn how to make one from items in your home.
A Very Lightweight, Fuel-efficient, No Fuss, No Fumbling Alcohol Stove System
Introduction: Filling a Lambda Stove Using the Snuffle Flask
The Lambda stove is my personal MYOG Alcohol Stove that I plan on writing a future article about. This article will cover the Snuffle Flask an alcohol fuel dispenser than can be used with any alcohol stove. A fuel efficient cooking system consists of a stove, the environment, one’s fuel supply, the ability to measure, a lighter/starter, a pot, a pot stand, and a windshield. Each item has to work together properly to create an efficient system.
The Snuffle Flask is a fuel bottle with an integrated fuel measuring and dispensing system. It is a simple and reliable way to fill the exact amount of alcohol needed for any alcohol stove without utilizing multiple devices.
Disclaimer
This project is not a beginner’s project. You will be working with very sharp tools. Be sure you have the necessary experience to work safely with the tools you will be using. And: alcohol fuel burns. Use common sense and don’t burn yourself or anything else.
Measuring fuel without the Snuffle Flask
Everyone who has operated alcohol stoves knows that accurately measuring the amount of alcohol going in the stove is challenging. You are supposed to use a small measuring cup, but if you are tired and hungry, filling the necessary amount of alcohol into the cup is difficult. Trying to get a decent read on the amount of alcohol poured when it’s dark is difficult also. It is difficult to fill the stove without spilling, to keep track of the fuel bottle cap, and to keep the fuel bottle from tipping over. After all, you are in the backcountry, far from any picnic table. Also, dexterity and intellectual abilities tend to deteriorate rapidly once a person gets tired and hungry.
The video clips on youtube make operating an alcohol stove look easy. Alcohol stoves can be quite sensitive to their environment. The usual “penny stove” will die in anything but warm and sunny conditions. I have once used nearly 10.1 oz. (300ml) of alcohol to cook 33.8 oz. (1 liter) of soup. I missed a warm meal once because of this. Here is my solution to provide a no fuss, no fumble, no spilling, and easy to operate system that works under most conditions encountered on backpacking trips. The system described can even be operated wearing gloves.
The core element of the system is the fuel bottle. For one to two person use, a fuel bottle of 8.5 oz. (250ml) to 11.8 oz. (350ml) is fine (for me) and will work for a couple of meals. Actually, one single 11.8 oz. (350ml) bottle of fuel (yellow “Heet”) was more than plenty for a 5-day/4-night summer trip my wife and I took in the Sierra Nevada. We were at 10’000 ft+ (3048 m+) elevation and had dried meals to rehydrate and no restrictions on the amount of tea, coffee, soup, etc. For 2 to 3 people or for longer trips, I may take a 16.9 oz. (500ml) bottle, or I may prefer to refill my smaller bottle every once in a while. Larger groups will carry more than one system, especially when will have to melt snow to get their water.
The diameter of the bottle cap matters when wearing gloves. There are mainly three sizes of bottle cap diameters on the most popular PET bottles. Water or pop/soda bottles usually come with cap diameters of 1.1 in. (29mm) or 1.3 in. (32mm). You will also find the lightest bottles in this group. You might feel they are a bit on the flimsy side for a fuel bottle. I believe, however, that they are okay as I integrate them into my system and carry them in my backpack, protected by the windshield and another (flimsy) PET-container. Lightweight gear is designed for use, not for abuse. If you want to abuse your gear, go to the army surplus store. The bottles containing fruit juices and smoothies come with 1.6 in. (40mm) caps and tend to be a bit sturdier. The 1.6 in. (40mm) caps are nice to operate with your gloves on, too.
Developing the Fueling System: The Stages of Error
The stages of error.
The usual measuring cup. There is no easy read of the amount measured.
This was my system during the 2015 season. It consisted of a 10ml syringe fitted with a short length of flexible fuel tubing from the RC model hobby shop. It is easy to read, but the fuel cap has to be taken off and left unattended during operation. The flexible tubing can direct the alcohol into the wrong compartment of the stove if you are using a Trail Designs 10-12 stove, for example. A piece of stiff tubing is a wiser choice.
This model is an air freshener pump with a drilled out nozzle fitted to your fuel bottle. Needs two hundred (sic!) pump strokes to get out .7 oz. (20ml) of alcohol. Not trail worthy!
This was my first attempt with a built-in .2 oz. (5ml) syringe and also with two valves from a foot freshener spray. A real pump puts out .2 oz. (5ml) of alcohol on each stroke. Aptly called the “Snuffle Flask” by my elder son, the flask needs an air bleed device to let in some air, so there are three holes in your bottle cap. The holes pose sealing issues. The two caps used as an air bleeding device and fuel spout are prone to leakage, too.
The photo shows the enhanced Snuffle Flask with an air bleed screw and larger diameter bottle cap to accept a 10ml syringe. Handling all three devices on the cap at the same time is still a bit fiddly (open air bleed screw, uncap fuel outlet, pump the necessary amount, close all openings again). At least, there are no items of which to keep track. Everything is attached to the fuel bottle. There are still three holes in the bottle cap that are prone to leakage. The air bleed is a screw that is a bit tricky to manufacture. During a family discussion, I proposed to skip the air bleed screw and replace its function by merely untightening the bottle cap. Whereupon, my elder son proposed to leave out everything except the syringe mounted to the cap – bingo!
This photo depicts the first versions of the final design of Snuffle Flask. Leakage remained a problem, as gluing a syringe to a bottle cap is problematic, i.e. the soapy type of plastic used for bottle caps tends to split from any type glue.
This is the first coupling-nut system. This system presses everything down on a sealing ring. It is fuel tight and trail-worthy.
Same as #6.
Fuel Bottle Design and Construction of the Snuffle Flask
I will show you three fuel bottles:
The “Simple-simple Flask” may leak unless you are proficient with hot glue or find a lucky combination of a syringe and bottle cap (see pics 02, 45 and 46);
The “Screw-on cap Flask” is the “normal” choice for anyone. It uses a wide cap (see pic 51, the right flask); and
The “Coupling-nut Flask,” is probably the safest example, but a bit tricky to make (see pics 51, left flask, and pic 65). Choose a bottle with a large cap if you intend to operate it wearing gloves.
Materials Required for All Three Bottles
The materials you will need.
This construction requires a wide-mouthed, clear PET bottle, preferably with 1.6 in. (40mm) or 1.3 in. (32mm) outer cap diameter, 8.5 oz. (250ml) to 11.8 oz. (350ml). I do not like colored bottles; I want to see what’s happening inside. Get a couple of different drinks, smoothies and the like; drink them, clean the bottles, and have a close look at their cap. The caps have an inner rim to fit the inside of the bottleneck. Keep off bottles without this, like the ones with an additional sealing foil on the mouth when you take off the cap. These caps will not make a reliably tight seal. Have several caps on hand because you may not succeed with your first cuts into the cap.
You’ll need 20ml or 10ml disposable syringes without needles. Get half a dozen; both sizes are very reasonably priced at your drugstore. Don’t expect your first try to be entirely successful. The 10ml requires more pumping on the trail while the 20ml is a harder fit but more convenient to use.
You’ll also want silicone rubber cement. I use a heat resistant glue which I can also use on my stoves. The shelf life of this sealant is limited.
Hot glue sticks.
Two little self-tapping screws about 13/64 in. (5mm) long, about 5/64 in. (2mm) outer diameter, 5/34 in. (4mm) head width, or, two equally small metal screws with nuts. If you can fit a 10ml syringe, you may get away with slightly larger screws.
A short end of plastic tubing measuring about 5/64 in. (2mm) to 1/8 in. (3mm) in diameter (derived from an old air freshener bottle, for example, any other pump-spray, or clear pushrod housing from the RC-model hobby shop).
Tools Needed
Some of the tools you will need.
X-Acto type knife with a few pointed blades (#1 on pic)
Hot glue pistol (glue gun) with glue sticks
Razor saw, small hacksaw or Dremel type table saw
Circular cutter. In order to make a cutter (#2 on pic) yourself you will need:
A small hardwood block 1 1/32 in. x 19/32 in. x 25/64 in. (50mm x 15mm x 10mm, roughly)
An X-Acto type blade
Three small self-tapping screws
One sturdy pin of .1 in. (1.5mm) diameter (the circular cutters available in the handicraft section of your department store or hardware store tend to be too flimsy to do our job)
Hand drill or drill press with .1 in. (1.5mm) and .1 in. (2mm) bits (#3 on pic.)
Small metal ruler 7.9 in. (200mm) long. The one shown is flexible and has a thickness of exactly .02 in. (0.4mm); #4 on pic
A sliding caliper is an asset, but this is a pricey precision tool (keep your hands off cheapos, they are not accurate enough – buying cheap means buying twice!)
220 grit sandpaper
Sharpie type pen
Hairdryer
Round awl or prick
Candle or lighter
Medium sized half round file
Small half round file (“needle-file” type)
Standard pliers
Small wire cutter
Construction Steps
Measure the diameter of your syringe (a caliper comes in handy). Wrap a strip of paper around your syringe and mark where the rest of the strip reaches its beginning. Make sure the strip is wound tightly. Using a pen to mark makes a more precise line than a pencil.
Measure the diameter of your syringe if you do not own a sliding caliper.
Unwrap, measure the length of the strip up to the mark, divide by 3.141 (π). This is the diameter of your syringe. The 20ml Once brand measures .9 in. (23.0mm), the 10ml is .7 in. (17.4mm).
Measuring the length of the circumference. Starting in on the ruler gives you a better reading than beginning at the zero end.
The Simple-simple Flask
If you are not comfortable with the knife, this one is for you. Take a “sports-style” bottle cap. As these bottle caps are somewhat conical, you will find the proper diameter for your syringe somewhere down from the tip (have a few caps ready).
Fitting a syringe to a sports style cap – I don’t like this individual make of caps, as a tight fit is missing and the cap covers part of the scale.
Now saw slices off the tip carefully with your razor saw until the opening is just big enough to accept your syringe.
The process of slicing and fitting with a sports style cap.
You will probably have to carefully and slowly take a burr off the outer side of the cap.
How to remove a burr.
Now you should have a perfect, somewhat tight fit. If the fit is perfectly tight, don’t test over and over. You will scrape the scale off your syringe, so confine your testing to the lowest end of your syringe.
Sand the cap inside and outside with the 220 grit sandpaper. Also, sand the handles and upper cylinder of your syringe. Then clean with alcohol. Put the syringe into the cap. Heat up your glue gun. Let it run really hot. You want the glue to flow. Heat the bottle cap and syringe with your hairdryer thoroughly and as hot as you can stand with your fingers. Any more might start melting the cap or the syringe. You do want to avoid this, but you want a warm cap to keep the hot glue flowing and bonding as well as possible.
This is really important. I had a few caps split from the hot glue at first. I noticed the hot glue partly rolled off the caps. This is when I started heating caps and syringe cylinder prior to gluing. I still would not entirely trust the bond. To find out, I made a new cap for testing. I sanded the cap and syringe as described, cleaned them with alcohol, and then heated everything thoroughly with the hairdryer. Then I quickly glued everything with hot glue. Some parts of the cap which didn’t bond well received an after-treatment with the lighter (careful!) Then I threw the cap into the deep freezer (0°F, or -18°C) overnight. The next morning, I took it out and quickly tried to get the glue to split from the cap, yanking the syringe back and forth. Nothing happened, no splitting. After all the abuse, the system was as airtight as before. So proper heating is paramount for a good bond and seal.
Caveat: Unless you land a “lucky punch,” the setup relies completely on the hot glue. If you apply moderate force or continued operation, the device may start to leak, as there is no mechanical tie between the bottle cap and the syringe. If you want to rely on the hot glue alone, refine your gluing techniques and test the arrangement thoroughly before hitting the trail.
You may, however, land a lucky punch by combining a 20ml syringe with a 1.3 in. (32mm) sports-style cap. Cut the conical tip off a Vittel sports cap leaving a screw-on ring that can just be forced over the cylinder of the syringe to make an almost alcohol-proof seal. A portion of the inner rim of the Vittel cap was just the diameter of my syringe.
A perfect, very tight fit. (The photo shows the syringe placed incorrectly).The “lucky punch” seen from inside the bottle.
This made a far better seal than any (tight) hole cut into a larger cap. Without any sealing, there was just a little dripping.
Almost fuel-proof without any sealant.
After applying some hot glue, the system was airtight. Because there is a pretty good connection between the cap and the syringe, this system will stay sufficiently tight. It can easily be resealed with a lighter should it leak. Rinse thoroughly with water before attempting to heat the hot glue seal with a lighter or you will end up hospitalized with severe burns. Any residue of alcohol left in the system will light up and burn. Also, take out the plunger first; it does not stand any heat.
It may pay off to go through a couple of differently capped bottles available in your supermarket.
Amazingly “lucky punch” with the Evian 11.2 oz. (330ml) sports bottle. This one, needs solid gluing, however.
You can also make this version with regular caps, but you will have to cut a circular hole into the bottle cap with the cutter you make for the other versions. The small pop bottle caps of 1 9/64 in. (29mm) diameter will only accept a 10ml syringe, however, as the bottleneck is too narrow to accept the 20ml one.
Other Simple-simple examples.
The Screw-on “Normal” version
This version should be as bomb-proof as ultralight gear. The syringe screws to the cap, is sealed with a silicone sealant, and is doubly sealed with hot glue.
First make your circular cutter. Cut about 1 1/32 in. (50mm) off a hardwood strip cross section of about 25/32 in. (20mm) x 19/32 in. (15mm). Use hardwood like beech or oak. Any softwood like spruce or fir will fail. Screw an X-Acto type blade to one end by placing two screws at the back, one over the sharp side of the blade. Measure exactly half the diameter minus half a millimeter of the diameter of the cylinder of the syringe you are using to the X-Acto type blade towards the center of the hardwood block. Drill a 1/16 in. (1.5mm) hole here to house your sturdy 1/16 in. (1.5mm) pin. Just make it tight and snug. You can drill other holes to fit other size syringes, or use this for other circular cutting needs and the stove.
Your sturdy self-made circular cutter.
Test your cutter on a piece of drawing paper and check whether the syringe fits. If it fits, the diameter of your cutter is probably too wide. Make another cutter.
Testing your cutter for proper diameter.
If the hole (hopefully) is a tad too small, insert shims between the hardwood block and the blade. I added three layers of masking tape and one layer of heavy (200g/m2) drawing paper.
How to shim your blade to enlarge slightly the diameter of a cut.
Now the syringe just fits through the hole.
Testing the cutter to fit the syringe.
With the 20ml syringe, it gets tight between the inner rim of your bottle cap and the syringe. I gain space by filing some material off the cylinder of the syringe, right below the handles.
Gaining some space for the screw heads.
The syringes used have a wall thickness of exactly 3/64 in. (1.0mm). Filing away half a millimeter on both sides poses no stability or leakage issues. If using a 10ml syringe, you can omit this step.
Look at your bottle cap. The inner rim makes a seal like a plug and has to be left intact by all means. Make a paper disc fitting exactly inside the inner rim of your bottle cap. Draw a line across the center of the disc, and mark the diameter of your syringe on the line. You see the diameter of my 20ml syringe marked here.
Making a pattern for the holes to drill.
The self-tapping screws barely fit between the cylinder of the syringe and the inner rim of the bottle cap. I measured exactly 5/64 in. (2mm) from the edge towards the center (half the diameter of the head of my self-tapping screws) and marked with my sturdy pin on the bottle cap.
Marking the position of the screws.
If you go with the 10ml syringe, just divide the distance between inner rim and cylinder of your syringe into two equal parts. That will help you decide what size screws and washers to select.
To cut the hole in the bottle cap for the syringe, remove the drawing paper shim from your circular cutter. I found the cutter to make too large a hole. Due to the flexibility of the plastic, the hole must be cut a tad smaller than on (stiff) paper. Put the cap back on the bottle to get a good grip on it and to prevent the cap from distorting. The caps usually have their center marked. Prick the pin of your circular cutter precisely in this mark and draw the circle. It is important not to apply force. Just a slight but precise scar on the cap is intended. Then go on, deepen the scar gradually.
How to properly cut a cap: deepen the scar gradually.Cap cut to accept your syringe.
When you are through, insert your syringe to check the fit. It should be a snug fit, no “air” between the syringe and the cap, but no forceful cap distortion either. If the cap slides down the syringe by itself, the hole is too wide. Just one shim of 200g/m2 drawing paper made the difference between the loose fit and the snug fit in the picture.
#1 slides down because it’s too wide; #2 stays put perfectly.
If the hole is too large, you may not get a tight seal. If the hole is too tight, you may open it up with sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. Go easy, a little at a time, and check with the syringe often.
Once you have your cap ready, drill two 5/64 in. (2 mm) holes at the marks near the rim.
Drilling the screw holes.
Take the burrs off with your knife.
Cutting away the burrs.
Your self-tapping screws should just fit through the holes. They touch. Do not distort the inner rim of the cap. Put the syringe in all the way. Center the handles of the syringe over the small holes in the cap and mark with Sharpie type of pen.
Mark the position of the screws on the handles of your syringe.
Turn the cap around and give the handles of the syringe a center punch with your awl exactly on top of the screw holes marking where to center your drill bit.
Ready for center punching.
Also, mark the side of one handle on the cap and the corresponding handle of the syringe. Even if you work very precisely, it will matter which way you insert the syringe.
Red dots mark which way the syringe is supposed to be mounted.
Take the syringe out and drill holes into the handles at the markings. The holes should be about the diameter of the core (not the threads) of your self-tapping screws: The screw threads in the picture have a 5/64 in. (2mm) diameter and the screw core has about a 19/32 in. (15mm) diameter. I drilled 1/16 in. (1.5mm) holes in the handles. Drilling your holes too small will split the handles of the syringe. If drilled too large, the screws will not fasten the handles.
Drilling the screw holes.
Assemble the flask. If needed, the screws can be forced a little to find the holes, but be sure not to distort or damage the inner rim of your bottle cap.
Helping the screws to find the holes in the handles.
Check for fit.
Testing the assembly.
Take it apart again.
If you own a drill press and a conical cutter head, you can cut the hole for the syringe the way shown in the picture.
An alternate method for cutting the hole into a bottle cap.
The drilling is easy when you are near the intended diameter. The photo shows the 10ml syringe at 11/16 in. (17.4m) diameter and my conical cutter only goes up to 25/32 in. (20mm).
Now you have both examples assembled and ready for sealing. Mounting the 10ml syringe is clearly is easier than the 20ml.
View of the caps from the underside as they are ready for sealing.
If you care and have the equipment, shorten your screws now. Once the screws have tapped their threads into the handles, they can be screwed into those threads without a pointed end. If you omit this step, you will have to cover the protruding screws well with hot glue. Do not attempt to grind the screws down after they are mounted to the cap. The screws will get hot, melt the plastic and tear out. The system will be damaged beyond repair.
Shortening the hard screws to length.
Roughen the inside and outside of the cap, the underside of the handles of the syringe, and the top of the syringe cylinder near the handles with 220 grit sandpaper. Clean the areas thoroughly with alcohol. Apply silicone sealant sparingly to the underside of the syringe handle and the underside of the upper rim of the syringe. Apply additional sealant to the inner side of the bottle cap around the two small holes for the self-tapping screws.
Applying some silicone sealant.
Insert the syringe and screw it to the bottle cap. Don’t over-tighten the screws; just snug is enough. You are working with flimsy plastics. Scrape away any excess silicone. You only want a seal between the bottle cap and the syringe, not anything else. The silicone also does not stick to the plastic. It only forms a custom-fitted sealing ring, which has to held in place by other means. Put the project aside and let the silicone cure thoroughly, at least two days because silicone usually hardens slowly with moisture removed from the ambient air. It is not a good idea to remove any silicone smears and surplus later; you run the risk of pulling the silicone out of the fit between cap and syringe.
Systems mounted with silicone sealer.
Clean the inside and outside of the cap with alcohol again. Heat the assembly with your hairdryer (see the Simple-simple version for the why) and seal thoroughly with hot glue. Apply hot glue to the top and inside of the warm bottle cap. Don’t overdo it; you will only add weight. Sealing around both the inside and the outside will do. Cover the screws well to avoid getting hurt during operation of the flask. Let the hot glue set well, leave it alone for about a quarter hour.
The hot glue seals: If you prefer, replace the self-tapping screws with small brass metal screws (M2) and cut them to length. You can even cut threads into the handles of the syringe to forgo the nuts if you have the equipment. The 10ml syringe will also accept larger screws (M3). This size is even available in nylon (RC model hobby shop).
Systems: If you want, carefully cut away any excess hot glue, just chip off small flakes of glue if necessary. If applying force has the glue split from the cap, your gluing needs refinement. You need to work fast as long as the cap and the syringe are hot. You can try to reseal by heating the cap and syringe with a lighter, but take out the plunger of the syringe first, it does not stand any heat. Do not do that once you have used the flask with alcohol. Also, keep the flame well clear of the rim of the bottle cap, as the rim will melt away if overheated.
The Coupling-nut Flask:
Coupling-nut Flask ready to be screwed down to the flask.
If you are adroit with the circular cutter and X-Acto type knife, there is a quick and elegant alternative. Instead of screwing the handles of your syringe to the bottle cap, just stack a seal, a plug, and the syringe and screw the layers to your flask with a coupling-nut. A Coupling-nut system can be made from another bottle cap and is shown here with a water bottle and its 1 17/64 in. (32mm) diameter cap. One of the bottle caps is cut down to a ring (#2 in the pic), the other one to a coupling-nut (#3 in the pic.).
Bottle caps #1, cut into a ring,#2, and a coupling-nut, #3.
This flask is one for those who take a 10ml syringe. The flask with the greenish cap is such a system too (see #7 in the very first picture).
First, drill another pin hole into your circular cutter. You can use it to cut away everything off one bottle cap just outside the outer diameter of the bottle mouth. Go easy, you will need to do a second cut and do not want a loose center hole in the cap on which you are working. Then cut the hole for the syringe. The resulting ring, together with your syringe will form a plug to fit the mouth of your bottle (see #2 in the picture).
Slide the ring over your syringe and, with a small wire cutter, clip away the part of the handles which protrude over the ring. Clip several small flakes to prevent the syringe from splitting. File and sand without damaging the ring. Take the ring off. Sand the upper part of the syringe with 220 grit sandpaper. Clean the ring and syringe with alcohol. Heat with a hair dryer and glue the ring to the top of the syringe with hot glue.
Hot gluing the sealing ring to your syringe.
Work quickly on a well-heated syringe to push the ring all the way up into the still hot and running glue. Do not touch the (hot!) glue; just push the ring.
Pushing the ring up into the hot glue.
Put some hot glue on top of the ring between the handles of the syringe. You want to have an even top rim of your plug consisting of a ring and syringe. The coupling-nut will press down around the rim, not just on the handles of the syringe. Even out the top rim of your system plug.
When the glue has cooled and hardened completely (wait), put the plug on your flask and chip off any excess glue, making an even outer and top rim of the plug.
Make sure the rim is evened out with hot glue.
Then you make the coupling-nut. Create a second circular cutter to cut a hole exactly the diameter of the plunger of the syringe.
Cutting a coupling-nut.
Keep the required hole small; the smaller the better. (You may use a suitable conical cutter as in the example shown above). The coupling-nut will be forced over the head of the plunger, which is a bit wider than the shaft. This configuration prevents the coupling-nut from getting lost on the trail. After cutting the hole, you have to remove the inner rim of the cap.
Removing the inner rim of the cap to be transformed into a coupling-nut.
Now you can assemble your system and check for fit.
Assembling the Coupling-nut Flask.
Finishing all versions:
Measure the length of the tubing, bottle, plug/syringe system, and your awl.
Materials and tools needed for finishing.
Heat the awl with a candle or lighter and push the tubing over the hot awl to widen one end.
Widening the tube to fit over the nozzle.
Repeat until the tubing fits snugly over the nozzle of the syringe.
Fitting the tube.
Do not apply too much force in order not to avoid tearing the tube. Torn tubing will leak when you try to fill your stove. If it does not work, your awl is not hot enough.
Carefully heat the tubing a little below the syringe to give it a gentle permanent curve that will direct the tube to the point where the wall and bottom of your flask meet. Hold the system alongside your flask to estimate and cut the excess tube at a 45° angle.
How to cut your tubing to length.
Careful; leave it a bit too long. You can always cut again. Screw the syringe/cap system on tight and check for length. Repeat the cutting process until snug.
The Proper length of fuel tubing.
Give the lower end of the tubing a 45° cut on the opposite side to prevent the tube from sucking to the wall or the bottom of the flask during operation.
End of the tube cut for reliable operation.
I had several tubes split after a few days. I suspect I forced those tubes a little bit too much when mounting them to the syringe. After some use, you should see to keep the tubing well above any of the ribs often found as reinforcements on the bottom of the flasks. Forcing the tube over these bumps everytime you close the flask stresses the joint at the syringe and may split your tube.
Tube fails if overly forced.
To avoid this problem, you can couple the stiff tubing with a short length of a (flexible) silicone tube running to the syringe. A 19/32 in. (15mm) length and 1/8 in. (3mm) inner / 13/64 in. (5mm) outer diameter piece of silicone tubing does the job nicely. Use fuel tubing from RC-model hobby shop. Make sure you push the nozzle of the syringe and the stiff tubing deeply into the silicone tubing so that they meet. You do not want the tube to flex. It is supposed to rest securely in the bend between the bottom and the wall of your flask, so that you can “snuffle” up the last drop of your fuel.
Alternate fitting of the fuel tube.
Congratulations, you are done! Four different snuffle flasks with their respective weights are shown in the picture. I think around 30g (1.1 oz.) for such a system is appropriate. The Swiss precision spring scale shown in the picture measured all the weights for the project. It’s not just a “guesstimator,” it’s a pretty pricey tool of precision. For gram weenies, you could save another .2 oz. (7g) on the 1 oz. (29g) flask if you use a 10ml syringe instead of a 20ml.
Detail: the Coupling-nut Flask on the left, the “normal” system on the right.
Now fill your Snuffle Flask with alcohol, taking the volume of the syringe into account. Close your flask. Turn it upsidedown, shake it, and apply some gentle pressure to check for leaks. You can see the level of alcohol just in the yoke of my hand between my thumb and my index finger. If the bottle leaks, try to reseal it as explained, or restart the process and try to do a more precise job. If there are no leaks, you are ready to go.
Check the seal before you hit the trails!
Operation
Unscrew the cap a quarter turn, so air can go into the flask when you operate the syringe. This process is not necessary on the flimsy and flexible water bottles, but well worth the trouble on the sturdier juice bottles.
Hold two fingers of your “bottle hand” over the bottle cap and the handles of the syringe to avoid placing any stress on the bond/seal between syringe and bottle cap when pulling the plunger. You will also avoid pressing on the bottle using this method. a tight grip on the bottle is likely to make you spill fuel, as compressing the flimsy bottle forces the fuel out of the bottle neck.
How to grip your Snuffle Flask for safe operation.
Now pull the plunger and fill your syringe. Then press the plunger back as required until the amount of alcohol you want to burn is left in the syringe.
Filling the syringe.
Now unscrew the cap fully. Remove the system from the flask and empty the syringe into your stove. You can use the bottle cap as syringe handles. The force applied will only compress the seal and not tear it apart. With the coupling-nut system on a 1 17/64 in. (32mm) cap, you will have to clench the syringe between your index and middle fingers because the handles of the syringe are very small. There is no issue with a 1 37/64 in. (40mm) coupling-nut system, of course.
The long stiff tubing will come in handy to direct the fuel into any stove.
Take the system back to the Snuffle Flask. The flask is closed and ready to store. Light your stove and have a good meal!
Conclusion
If you are ready to refine your hot glue technique, the Simple-simple is a good choice. If you do not trust anything unless it is made solidly and is still ultralight, choose the “normal” system. If you are concerned about leakage, the Coupling-nut Flask is probably the best choice, even if it does not handle as smoothly as the other systems.
I found the coupling system to work pretty nicely for myself. Mounting the valve of a remote canister stove to a Lindal valve in cold weather, with your gloves on and without damaging the threads of the valve is a greater challenge than filling an alcohol stove using the Snuffle Flask. Plus, you have all the advantages of an ultra lightweight, low-carbon-footprint system, fueled by a replenishable, virtually non-polluting fuel.
The Kokopelli Nirvana packraft performs well in whitewater, it is durable, well made, and competitively priced.
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