keeping things cold

I believe that this cold pack may be what you are looking for (by the case) or 1 at a time.
Mike

Here is a link that might help and a great idea-
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2004/04/14/cool_fridge_without_using_electricity.htm
Good luck with it. It does work!

Tad, I used to keep milk cool in camp by putting the milk bottle into a pan of water and draping a muslin cloth over it. the evaporation kept the milk cold.

Unfortunately, no-one came along with 100,000 prizemoney for me.

hi,

I have medication that I have to take with me on any ovenight trip and it needs to be kept cool (< 3deg C). If I'm travelling overseas, I put it in a thermos with ice (where available) or with a cold cloth if there's no ice. I make the cloth cold by wetting it and swinging it around in the air until the evaporation has cooled it off, then I stuff the cloth in the thermos.

If I'm hiking, a thermos is a bit too heavy, so I do the same trick with the cloth but I store the meds in an insulated zip-lock bag and wrap thiat in my insulated cltohing. I re-cool the cloth 2 or three times a day and this keeps it all nice and cool.

Hope that helps.

G'Day
This might be what a previous poster was describing but the cold packs that come in 1st aid kits might be what you are after. From memory they have ammonium nitrate and a small satchel of water in them and when you pop them you have about 20 minutes of an ice cold flexible pad. I have never used them to cool things but have often thought it would be funny to crack an ice cold can in front of my mates at some remote location at the end of a big day
Darren

My local Safeway carries small, thin blocks of dry ice for quite cheap. Now, before you dismiss dry ice as being too cold, I read through their pamphlet and it described a VERY interesting way to keep things refrigerator or freezer cold:

If you place dry ice directly on food, it will damage the food. However, if you place dry ice in the bottom of the cooler, and THEN cover the dry ice in regular ice, this will put a barrier between the food and dry ice. This will keep the cooler refrigerator-cold for up to 5 days in a cooler. It also has the advantage of keeping the regular ice frozen, so you don't get a watery mess in the bottom of your cooler for the first few days.

For freezing, place the dry ice on top of the food with a regular-ice barrier below it. The dry ice vapor will sink, keeping everything frozen.

I've been considering experimenting with a lightweight backpacking version of this. If I took a small 1-2" cube of dry ice, and surrounded it it with small crushed ice in some kind of bag that would allow out-gassing, then placed this next to produce/cheese/yogurt, this might give me a mini-fridge in my backpack for a few days.

Of course one risks burning oneself with dry-ice, so you'd want to make sure the regular ice is completely surrounding the dry ice. And it might require insulating foam to keep the dry ice from evaporating too quickly. I wonder if a cloth would do the trick.

How long do you need it cold?

I carry items I want cold in my food cozy – on the first day I carry double bagged ice cubes in with it. Bury deep in my pack as well. It isn't easy after a day or two – cold streams can work at night though.